Welcome to Timeless Truth with Pastor Jim Thomas. In season 2, Pastor Jim is leading us in a study of Mark. Today’s passage is Mark 6:1-6.
What can we learn from the homecoming of Jesus and the unbelief He found in Nazareth
1. Sometimes familiarity can breed indifference.
“The critical issue today is dullness… The Good News is no longer good news, it is okay news. Christianity is no longer life changing, it is life enhancing… Jesus Christ came to rescue us from listlessness as well as lostness; He came to save us from flat souls as well as corrupted souls.”
– Mike Yaconelli, Dangerous Wonder
“How many common things are trodden under foot which, if examined carefully, awaken our astonishment.”
– Augustine
2. Sometimes familiarity can stir annoyance.
“The unbeliever has preferred to be by himself, without God, defying God, having God against him, and he shall have his preference. Nobody stands under the wrath of God except those who have chosen to do so. The essence of God’s action in wrath is to give men what they choose, in all its implications: nothing more, nothing less.”
– J. I. Packer, Knowing God
3. Sometimes familiarity degenerates into unbelief.
“Unbelief is the great stone lying at the door of your heart and preventing that door from being opened!”
– C. H. Spurgeon
“It is time, I believe, to recognize not only who Jesus was in his own day, despite his contemporaries’ failure to recognize him, but also who he is, and will be, for our own.”
– N. T. Wright, Simply Jesus
