Scandalized by Familiarity
We know him. We know his family. We watched him grow up. He’s just a carpenter from a poor family. He’s nothing special. We even know his shady background. Who does he think he is coming here as if he could teach us? If we didn’t know him, maybe we’d be impressed – but we know better. We’ve heard about his alleged miracles but we’re not seeing anything like the hype we’ve heard. If he is who they say he is then let him prove us wrong. We’ll believe it when we see it.
This is how the people of Nazareth responded to Jesus in Mark 6:1-4. As it turns out, Mark 6:5 shows that this approach is exactly backward. The nature of Jesus’ kingdom is that you won’t see it unless you believe it. The parallel passage in Matthew makes it more explicit: “he did not do many mighty works there, because of their unbelief.” (Matthew 13:58)
To the woman healed in the previous passage, Jesus said, “Your faith has made you well.” (Mark 5:34) Here, a lack of faith is the reason Jesus did no mighty works. Believing leads to seeing the truth of Jesus and the power of his kingdom. Not believing leads to the continued inability to see.
Our modern mindset vehemently dismisses this idea as dangerous and foolish. To our enlightened generation, “seeing” that comes from “faith” is fully explainable as a simple psychological phenomenon known as motivated perception where what we want to see influences what we think we see. Like the people of Jesus’ hometown, they think they know better.
Mark 6:3 says that the people “took offense” at Jesus. This is a translation of a word from which the English word “scandal” is derived. The people were scandalized by their familiarity; by what they thought they knew about Jesus. In the same way, those who are near to us but far from God are scandalized by what they think they know about this world and even what they think they know about Jesus. We should expect this as a response. Offense is taken at someone who presents a truth that confronts what they think they know.
To this offense, we must learn to respond as Jesus did: “he marveled at their unbelief. And he went about among the villages teaching.” (Mark 6:6) To our world, the claims of Jesus are unbelievable. To Jesus, unbelief is what is unbelievable. This is what Jesus marveled at. And he continued teaching.
Paul addressed exactly this – in the same terms – in describing his own ministry in 1 Corinthians 1:23–24. “We preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.”
The word for “stumbling block” is the same as the word for “took offense” in Mark 6. Paul knew his listeners would “take offense” and call him a fool but, like Jesus, he continually “went about…teaching.” He knew that the message of Christ crucified is the God-appointed means through which the power of God works to awaken faith.
Likewise, we must continue teaching, resisting the urge to alter the message to accommodate those who scandalize themselves with their unbelief. As well-intentioned as it may be, we must avoid the temptation to think that we can improve the response of others by making our message more palatable. We should not expect that which motivates unbelief to produce faith. Only the gospel can do that.
Romans 1:16: “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.”
~ Andy Barker grew up in Boston, Ma. and relocated to Charlotte in 2008. He currently serves as an elder at LIFE Fellowship. He and his wife Melanie have five children and have attended LIFE Fellowship for ten years.