Day 9 – At the Temple: About His Father’s Business

“After three days they found Him in the temple courts, sitting, among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions”
(Luke 2:46)

Question, what was this boy Jesus like as child.

The Bible only gives the small look at His childhood – from the cradle to the beginning of His public ministry when He was 30 years of age. Luke speaks of this one incident in childhood of the Christ. There are many things we would like to know about Jesus as a young boy, and as teenager, but this text is all that is given.

It would be fairly easy to imagine a young boy might get out of place for a little while on this long trip from Jerusalem to Nazareth, however, dinner time comes and surely, He would have shown up. He could have gotten mixed in with other family members.

But that is not what Jesus did. He stayed behind in Jerusalem to discuss weighty matters with the “doctors of the law.” They were the scribes and priests who had spent a lifetime studying the written law and the oral commentary.

Jesus’s reply to His worried mother reminds us about the higher priorities of life: “Didn’t you know I had to be about My Father’s business?” (Luke 2:49). We aren’t surprised when the next verse tells us they didn’t understand what He was saying.

Even as a young lad Jesus was conscious of God’s divine call on His life. What at this point does Jesus really understand about His destiny? On the divine side, He certainly He knew all things. On the human side, He grew in knowledge as He grew up. Even at the age of twelve, He knew He was not like other boys. He was called to His “Father’s business,” and that must be attended to, even if His parents did not understand.

We also must be about our Father’s business. Here is a good question we should ask ourselves: “Am I busy doing my Father’s business? Am I walking in the steps of Jesus? “As J. C. Ryle says, “Never is a church in so healthy a condition as when its believing members aim high, and strive in all things to be like Christ.”

A. W. Tozer puts the matter this way: “To the question ‘What must I do to be saved?’ – We must learn the correct answer. To fail here is not to gamble with souls; it is to guarantee eternal banishment from the face of God. Here we must be right or be finally lost.”