And he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by
the prophets, “He shall be called a Nazarene.”
Matthew 2:23
Believing that the Bible is the inspired Word of God means to acknowledge that it doesn’t contain errors or contradictions. It also means that there are no irrelevant details or useless information. Everything in scripture is there for a reason.
Christ was called Jesus of Nazareth, even though He wasn’t born there and Matthew makes the point that He was called a Nazarene. It wasn’t coincidence that both Joseph and Mary hailed from Nazareth, Jesus was born in Bethlehem and the family relocated in Nazareth a few years later.
The Messiah had to be born in Bethlehem according to Micah 5:2, but according to Isaiah 9:1-2, He would come from “Galilee of the Gentiles.” The city of Nazareth didn’t even exist in Old Testament times, but in the first century it was a northern Roman garrison.
Herein probably lies the reason Jesus needed to be from Nazareth. Everybody disdained the place. It was the kind of town that someone who was despised and rejected by men would come from.
When I was growing up, people would tell “Polack jokes,” saying ridiculous things about folks lightly esteemed. Today, the popular put-down is about “Rednecks.” In Jesus’ day, the Jewish people probably told “Nazarene jokes.” When Nathaniel asked “Can anything good come out of Nazareth? (John 1:45), he might have been voicing a popular cliché rather than expressing personal prejudice.
In any case, Christ did what He always has done. He took that which the world puts down and then lifted it up to glory. Today, it is quite an honor to identify with the Nazarene.
March 3
