Hometown Identity Crisis

What is in a name?  How about your hometown?  The place you grew up.  The area all your family and friends still live.  What is the level of pride there?  How do others view it?

Jesus came from the small town of Nazareth in the region of Galilee near the lake of the same name.  Capernaum in Galilee held a large rabbinical school.  Jesus began His ministry in this area.  Yet, in derision, the chief priests and Pharisees of Jerusalem asked Nicodemus, “Are you from Galilee, too?  Look into it, and you will find that a prophet does not come out of Galilee.”  (John 7:52 NIV).

Nicodemus belonged to their council, however he was no longer one of them.  They judged against a “so called” prophet, from which they had not yet heard testimony.  He asked if Law condemned a man of heresy on hearsay, knowing the answer should convict them.  Mosaic Law required them to listen to someone considered a prophet before they rejected the concept.  In Deuteronomy 13:1-5, the proof that God sent a prophet was not about the miracles or proclamations that came true.  It required the prophet’s words to focus the people’s thoughts on God’s ways, not lead them away from Him.

Instead of repentance, the chief priests and Pharisees used ridicule and a veiled threat to move blame onto Nicodemus.  They refused to see their own faults.  However, they were the ones who needed remedial scripture lessons.  In 2 Kings 14:25, the prophet Jonah came from a town called Gath-hepher in Galilee.  Isaiah 9:1-7 proclaimed Galilee would be honored when David’s successor was born.  Strange they forgot these important details.  About five miles away from Gath-hepher sat Nazareth, the place Jesus grew up.

The people of Israel knew and respected Jonah.  They believed the ancient Ninevites accepted his words as truth.  Nevertheless, not even those who grew up with Jesus believed He might be a prophet, let alone the Messiah, because nothing good came out of Galilee.

[Lesson from a new unpublished book by Jo Helen Cox that connects Jesus to Jonah, (no title yet).]