Rather than just copying what He says, I want to set the stage when He does speak.

The Young Yeshua at the Temple

⁴¹ Every year Yeshua’s parents went to Yerushalayim for the festival of Pesach (Passover). ⁴² When He was twelve years old, they went up for the festival, as custom required. ⁴³ But after the festival was over when His parents returned, Yeshua remained in Yerushalayim. [Think back when you were twelve. Would you have been that brave?] They didn’t realize this; ⁴⁴ supposing that He was somewhere in the caravan, they spent a whole day on the road before they began searching for Him among their relatives and friends. ⁴⁵ Failing to find Him, they returned to Yerushalayim to look for Him. ⁴⁶ On the third day they found Him – He was sitting in the Temple court among the rabbis, not only listening to them but questioning what they said; ⁴⁷ and everyone who heard Him was astonished at His insight and His responses. ⁴⁸ When his parents saw Him, they were shocked; and His mother said to him, “Son! Why have you done this to us? Your father and I have been terribly worried looking for you!” ⁴⁹ He said to them, “Why did you have to look for me? Didn’t you know that I had to be concerning myself with my Father’s affairs?”⁵⁰ But they didn’t understand what He meant. ⁵¹ So He went with them to Natzeret and was obedient to them. But his mother stored up all these things in her heart. ⁵² And Yeshua grew both in wisdom and in stature, gaining favor both with other people and with God. ~ Luke 2:41-52

This single incident from Yeshua’s“silent years” (see Matt. 2:16 & Luke 3:23) took place near the age at which a Jewish boy today undergoes his bar-mitzvah ceremony and becomes a “son of the commandment,” personally responsible for keeping the Torah given by God to Moshe on Mount Sinai. At this time, he dons t’fillin [1] for the first time officially, and for the first time, he is given an aliyah (call-up) to come to the bimah (lectern) and read from the Sefer-Torah (Torah scroll) in a synagogue service. Verses 46–47 suggest a comparable “coming out” for Yeshua, but there the parallel ends. Bar-mitzvah did not start to become a major ceremonial event in the Jewish life-cycle until the Middle Ages, and only in modern times has it become the focus of grandiose celebrations. Moreover, the age for bar-mitzvah is not twelve but thirteen. ^[2]

According to John MacArthur: Yeshua’s reply was in no sense insolent but reveals a genuine amazement that they did not know where to look for Him. This also reveals that even at so young an age, He had a clear consciousness of His identity and mission.^[3]

In our next post, we will examine Yeshua’s Baptism and The Temptation of Yeshua.

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^[1] T’fillin are small leather boxes containing parchment scrolls on which are written excerpts from the Tanakh (specifically, Deuteronomy 6:4–9, 11:13–20, Exodus 13:1–16).

^[2] Stern, D. H. (1996). Jewish New Testament Commentary.

^[3] MacArthur, J. F., Jr. (2006). The MacArthur Study Bible: NASB.