Why did the man call Jesus "Good Teacher"?

[GDL]

(1) What's "astounding" is that you don't think it's inconsiderate for a boy (age 12) to desert His family entourage on their walk back to Nazareth
without His parents' permission and, worse, without telling them where He was going, making them worry that He might have come in harm's way and forcing them to embark on an anguished 3-day search for Him in the big city Jerusalem! As Mary rightly scolds Jesus:

"Why have you treated us like this? Look, your father and I have been searching for you with great anxiety (Luke 2:48)!"
So Luke recognizes from this incident that Jesus needs to "grow in favor with God (2:52)."

I've already explained my thinking about this, and you haven't answered many of my questions. Do we see in the Text anywhere where Jesus apologized or repented for the necessity of His involvement in the things of His Father? From what I see, His parents would have to deal with and learn many things about the Son of God and know that He was not their own.

(2) What's also "astounding" is that you can't recognize His family's motive for interrupting Jesus and trying to restrain Him for being inconsiderate to His audience for not allowing them a meal break during His long teaching session (Mark 3:20-21):

"...they could not even eat. When His family hear it, THEY went out to restrain Him; for THEY [His family!] were sayng He has gone out of His mind!"

Jesus was being inconsiderate for not allowing them a meal break during His long teaching session?

1. Who ("they") went into a house?
2. Another large crowd gathered again -
   1. Like the crowds that had been gathering - great multitudes that might crush Him and He was healing them and He was dealing with unclean spirts.
   2. And He appointed the 12 to be with Him and to send out to deal with the masses.
3. Who couldn't eat with the crowds around?
   1. Again, who had gone into the house?
4. Reading from the Text, letting it explain the chaos, imagining the great multitudes that could crush Him, the emotions and excitement of people being healed, the unclean spirits crying out and Him dealing with them, where is your inconsiderate Jesus and His long teaching session?
5. Just because the Text tells us some thought He was out of His mind - which can also speak of those saying this that they could not process all the confusion and chaos - does not mean Jesus was either inconsiderate or out of His mind. Actually, He seems quite lucid foreseeing the need for a boat to keep from being crushed, and in appointing 12 to help Him, going into a house, looking to eat a meal, and in all this maintaining the teaching to say who His true spiritual family is.

Note that the family expresses no concern for the trivial detail that Jesus gave up lunch for a noble cause.
His family's overreaction illustrates their opposition to His ministry. Thus, Jesus laments that He "is not without honor except in His hometown AND AMONG HIS OWN KIN AND IN HIS OWN HOUSE (Mark 6:4)." And John laments: "His own brothers didn't believe in Him (John 7:5)."

I never began to see this giving up lunch matter, so I don't have to note it.

First His family thought He was being inconsiderate. Now His family is overreacting. Is their criticism warranted or unwarranted? You're clearly predisposed to being critical of Him.

Despite His essential human learning curve, He was never separated from God and was therefore sinless.

Is His dishonor of parents you've criticized Him for not sin according to Torah? And is sin not separation from God per your statement? Which is it; did He dishonor His parents or did He not?

I love Jesus precisely because He not only died for my sins, but because He was fully human and learned by trial and error just like me: "Son though He was, He learned obedience through the things He suffered (Hebrews 5:7). So He can fully identify with my struggles by direct experience.

You mean fully human and fully divine, don't you? Learned obedience from the things He suffered and was without sin, correct? Trial and error - meaning learning > testing > passing the tests or trying > failing > learning from experience as we do? Trial and error? Trial, but error?

 

[Berserk]

I've already explained my thinking about this, and you haven't answered many of my questions. Do we see in the Text anywhere where Jesus apologized or repented for the necessity of His involvement in the things of His Father? From what I see, His parents would have to deal with and learn many things about the Son of God and know that He was not their own.


GDK: First His family thought He was being inconsiderate. Now His family is overreacting. Is their criticism warranted or unwarranted? You're clearly predisposed to being critical of Him.

In this particular case, their criticism was unwarranted. but their angry reaction is just one of the incidents illustrating their belief at that His messianic claims were a fraud.

Is His dishonor of parents you've criticized Him for not sin according to Torah? And is sin not separation from God per your statement? Which is it; did He dishonor His parents or did He not?

Well. when I recently discussed this text with my Fundamentalist friend Mike (an engineer), he concluded that Jesus must have sinned after all.
Regardless of Jesus' lofty self-image, it was highly inconsiderate for Him to desert the family entourage without parental permission and with no regard the 3-days of anguished searching that His inconsiderateness inflicted on them! Luke rightly recognizes this mistake and concludes that Jesus needed to "grow in favor with God (2:52)." His mistake here illustrates 2 key points:
(1) why He feels the need for a baptism of repentance;
(2) why His family who knew what an ordinary carpenter He was prior to His reception of the Spirit didn't buy His later messianic claims (see John John 7:5; Mark 6:4)--at least, not until the private resurrection appearance to His brother James.

So our wish to preserve the doctrine of Christ's sinlessness leave us with 2 choices:
(1) a distinction between sin and the natural mistakes of Jesus' maturation process;
(2) a recognition that after He finally learned obedience through His prior sufferings (Hebrews 5:7), He was at least sinless at the time of His atoning sacrifice.

You mean fully human and fully divine, don't you? Learned obedience from the things He suffered and was without sin, correct? Trial and error - meaning learning > testing > passing the tests or trying > failing > learning from experience as we do? Trial and error? Trial, but error?

 

[GDL]

In this particular case, their criticism was unwarranted. but their angry reaction is just one of the incidents illustrating their belief at that His messianic claims were a fraud.

Their beliefs are immaterial to the facts.

Well. when I recently discussed this text with my Fundamentalist friend Mike (an engineer), he concluded that Jesus must have sinned after all.

With due respect to Mike, who cares?

Regardless of Jesus' lofty self-image, it was highly inconsiderate for Him to desert the family entourage without parental permission and with no regard the 3-days of anguished searching that His inconsiderateness inflicted on them! Luke rightly recognizes this mistake and concludes that Jesus needed to "grow in favor with God (2:52)." His mistake here illustrates 2 key points:

This is more of your eisegetical error and predisposition to criticism of Jesus Christ. As I said earlier, astounding! Repeating error doesn't make error correct.

Now you're softening sin to mistakes. You're figuring this out as you go and as you meet opposition.

(1) why He feels the need for a baptism of repentance;

You've nowhere even dealt with what this phrase can mean when the sinless Son of God requires He be baptized and who it was that was baptizing Him. Earlier it meant Jesus sinned. Now it means He made a mistake. If you had an accurate Christology, you might be able to consider that Jesus may have been speaking of something else here. Again, your fluidity is observed.

(2) why His family who knew what an ordinary carpenter He was prior to His reception of the Spirit didn't buy His later messianic claims (see John John 7:5; Mark 6:4)--at least, not until the private resurrection appearance to His brother James.

You seem to continually leave off what Jesus' mother and father knew of His conception. Also, what is the difference between John being filled with the Spirit from birth and Jesus being conceived of the Spirit? What are the implications of this in Jesus' youth prior to His baptism?

Did you mean to say "what an ordinary carpenter He was" or is this just more of your presupposition that Jesus was some ordinary child? How do you know He wasn't an outstanding carpenter and the best worker anyone had seen?

Again, what members of His family thought is immaterial to who He is. Same goes for His disciples and Apostles when He was crucified and they had not understood all He'd told them.

So our wish to preserve the doctrine of Christ's sinlessness leave us with 2 choices:
(1) a distinction between sin and the natural mistakes of Jesus' maturation process;
(2) a recognition that after He finally learned obedience through His prior sufferings (Hebrews 5:7), He was at least sinless at the time of His atoning sacrifice.

Garbage in garbage out. You're not going to get to a proper conclusion from your erroneous premise. Start with a proper Christology if you can find it now.

 

[John Helpher]

Edit: Got topics mixed up. Fixing.

 

[John Helpher]

(1) What's "astounding" is that you don't think it's inconsiderate for a boy (age 12) to desert His family entourage on their walk back to Nazareth
without His parents' permission and, worse, without telling them where He was going, making them worry that He might have come in harm's way and forcing them to embark on an anguished 3-day search for Him in the big city Jerusalem! As Mary rightly scolds Jesus:

"Why have you treated us like this? Look, your father and I have been searching for you with great anxiety (Luke 2:48)!"
So Luke recognizes from this incident that Jesus needs to "grow in favor with God (2:52)."

I think it ends in a tie. Jesus really was serving God. But also, he was still a child at that time, and at least for appearances, he needed to be obedient to them. As for their feelings, I understand your point, but honestly, compare that to the situation in the boat on the stormy sea when the apostles called out in fear for their lives. These were experienced sailors, several of them, all agreeing that the boat was about to sink. When they asked Jesus for help, he gave it to them, but he also rebukes them for being fearful. It hardly seems fair.

Buuut, it also seems unlikely that Jesus could be sleeping in a boat that is rocking in a storm so fierce that it's about to sink. Like, I know people can be tired, but you're not talking about just some lumpy sleeping. By the time the boat is ready to sink, you're flying across the room from all the pitching and shifting on the waves. So, there's something strange with that story.

Note that the family expresses no concern for the trivial detail that Jesus gave up lunch for a noble cause.
His family's overreaction illustrates their opposition to His ministry. Thus, Jesus laments that He "is not without honor except in His hometown AND AMONG HIS OWN KIN AND IN HIS OWN HOUSE (Mark 6:4)." And John laments: "His own brothers didn't believe in Him (John 7:5)."

He also does this when speaking to the woman at the well in John 4 and his disciples also don't quite get it (though their reaction wasn't as stong as the family's reaction).

Regarding the family, yeah, they didn't get it so they thought he was crazy. There's so much stuff he said that didn't get written down. I wonder, in particular, what he was saying in that moment to make them think he was going mad. Remember when he talked about how there are many mansions in his father's house? What does that even mean?

There's another time when a woman calls out, "Blessed are the paps which gave thee suck" and Jesus responds, "Rather, blessed are those who hear my words and do them." That seems to me a pretty clear indicator of what Jesus thought of all the hassle over his family relationships.

 

[Berserk]

Imagine what it was like for Jesus' brothers to grow up with Him. They experience an ordinary carpenter with no special healing power. Then their father Joseph dies and neither Jesus' prayers nor their own can do anything to prevent or remedy this. Now Jesus wanders off, gets baptized, and wanders into the wilderness for what must have seemed to them like a kooky 40 fast. Then suddenly, when he returns from His fast, you hear about your carpenter brother raising the dead, curing the blind, and claiming that God acclaimed Him as His beloved Son when He was baptized.
It should come as no surprise that "His own brothers did not believe in Him (John 7:5)."