This passage offers a fascinating little insight into what happen in Jesus� home town when He returned there following the commencement of His ministry years. Jesus started in the usual way when He went to a new place; He went to the synagogue on the Sabbath and began to teach.

Not taking that from the local boy

The locals were astonished by Jesus� teaching. Not only, as usually was the case, because of the insight and authority which He carried, but mainly because of who He was. They knew Him; Jesus was the local boy that they had watch grow up. The eldest son of the local carpenter, you know Mary�s boy.

They watched him grow, they had seen his parents, rightly or wrongly, discipline Him (I don�t want to get into the debate of was Jesus a perfect child here). They had seen Him burst into tears when He fell and grazed His knee, they had seen Him brake the hearts of their daughters, it had been their window He had put a football through (well, you get the idea.) Jesus was not some amazing new phenomena to them; He was the lad they all knew and had already made judgements about.

So, instead of responding to Him as so many others had they were offended by Him. They simply were not interested. Jesus was even enable to do ââ?¬Ë?mighty workââ?¬â?¢ (v5) in their midst; except for the odd healing. (That always makes me smile, what constitutes a mighty work if it doesnââ?¬â?¢t include healing? *smile*)

Not easy to go home

I think that this gives us great insight into why we often find it so hard to effectively spread the gospel amongst the people who knew us best before we joined this great adventure we call Christianity. The friends we had before we were Christians and our family are often the most resistant to our new found faith. Why? Because they know exactly what we are ââ?¬Å?reallyââ?¬Â like.

Also, we can often find it hard to move into leadership positions in Churches where the foundations of our faith were laid. Again, they saw our mistakes (of course we still make those), our misunderstandings, our immature demands and delusions of grandeur and it very hard for many people to see past that.

Don’t be discouraged

This can be so discouraging. Often the people we want to introduce to Jesus the most, and the places we want to see most radically impacted by the Gospel, are the very ones that take us the least seriously. Or they simply carry on as if nothing had changed and find offence when we try to point out that life is somewhat different for us now. It seems that even Jesus had this problem. To the folk that knew Him in His formative years He was always going to be that ââ?¬Ë?snotty little adolescentââ?¬â?¢ and they certainly were not going to take any life changing teaching and ministry from Him.

While I�m saying that we shouldn�t be discourage by this I�m also not saying that we shouldn�t try. Something I have always found helping in introducing such people to Jesus is to introduce them to some of my Christian friends who I think they will get on with. Mix up your friendship groups and people get the opportunity to get to know other Christians that don�t meet their stereotypical views and the penny might start to drop that you are for real.

If this has been a problem for you then don�t be discouraged, if Jesus struggled with it, then I�m sure He understands that we do too *smile*. Does anybody have any good advice for this particular situation or any stories of how they have overcame it? Let us know what you think.