And He was amazed at their unbelief.
—Mark 6:6
Many of us have had the experience of moving away from where we grew up only to come back for a visit and be stunned by all the changes that have taken place. Maybe a new gas station has been erected, the makeshift baseball diamond you played on is now a parking lot, and trees you climbed as a kid have been cut down. Furthermore, everything seems smaller than it did when you were young.
Yet in the midst of all the aesthetic changes, some things never change. The apple orchard still has the best cider for sale. The people you’ve always known still seem the same to you—just a little older. Their smiles, their laughs, and their jokes are no different from what you remember. It feels like home.
I wonder what it was like for Jesus when he finally went back home to Nazareth, where he had been raised.
Joseph and Mary’s oldest is back—the carpenter’s son who was such a good boy all the time, never getting into trouble. And a lot has happened since he left; not so much with Nazareth, but with him. Rumor has it he’s been doing extraordinary miracles. He teaches with amazing authority. Crowds are following him. His popularity is unprecedented.
What kind of reception would Jesus receive?
We find out in the gospel accounts, and for our purposes we will look at Mark’s brief account of Jesus’ time in Nazareth, including a section of Scripture that some twist regarding physical healing and its relationship to one’s measure of faith.
Mark 6 begins with Jesus continuing his teaching ministry, this time in his hometown synagogue. It was the Sabbath, and his teaching was full of the Holy Spirit’s power and carried a measure of outright authority to it. The people were amazed. Surprised, actually. Their questions were understandable: “‘Where did this man get these things?’ they said. ‘What is this wisdom given to Him, and how are these miracles performed by His hands?’” (Mark 6:2).
He was not the same man they knew when he left. Something had happened. One thing was for sure, they recognized him in one sense. They knew his family: “Isn’t this the carpenter, the son of Mary, and the brother of James, Joses, Judas, and Simon? And aren’t His sisters here with us?” (6:3).
Despite what some teach, Jesus was not an only child. He was the first child Mary had, but after his miraculous birth, Mary and Joseph had other children, some of them even listed in the text. They were technically his half brothers and sisters. And apparently Joseph had already passed away at this point, since he is not listed along with the family. The people now knew Jesus as the “son of Mary,” the only place in Scripture where he is called this.
In their minds, they could not conceive of where he had received such authority and giftedness. After all, he had a commoner’s trade. They only knew him as a carpenter, someone who carved wood and stone. Who does he think he is? they may have thought. The text says they “took offense” (ESV) or “were offended” by him (v. 3).
There seem to be two kinds of local reactions that surface when someone from a small town becomes famous or makes a name for himself: Either they celebrate and take pride in the fact that one of their own has received the blessing of God (little did they know, in Jesus’ case), or they tend to be jealous, skeptical, and bent on keeping that person humble by making it their personal mission to keep him or her down to earth so they don’t get a big head.
With Jesus, it seems the latter was the people’s response. In fact, it may have been even worse than that. To be offended by his teaching on faith and the kingdom represents an even deeper resentment and faithlessness, not only toward him but toward the things of God. Unfortunately, this was not something new. This kind of reaction had historical precedent.
For years the prophets of old in Israel’s history suffered persecution and even death because God’s people did not take an interest in what they had to say. They didn’t take kindly to the fact that they were being called out on their sin. The prophet Jeremiah was beaten, put in stocks, and even thrown into a cistern at one point. Tradition holds that Isaiah was actually sawn in two. So the job description of a prophet was not one that endeared the man to the people, and Jesus clearly pointed this out next when he said, “A prophet is not without honor except in his hometown, among his relatives, and in his household” (Mark 6:4).
Truly Jesus was a prophet, receiving a prophet’s reception. But even so, he was much more than a prophet. He was the Messiah. But the people familiar with him in his hometown had little tolerance for such a thought and absolutely no faith to believe it. To them he was scandalous, and in the gospel of Luke it says they ended up nearly running him off of a cliff. But not today.
However, Mark tells us something very peculiar that many have misunderstood and misused when it comes to healing and faith: “[Jesus] was not able to do any miracles there, except that He laid His hands on a few sick people and healed them. And He was amazed at their unbelief” (Mark 6:5–6).
“Was not able” (or “he could not do”) is an interesting phrase, to say the least. The text says Jesus could not do any miracles there except for a few healings. This gives the impression that Jesus was unable to use his supernatural power because there was such widespread unbelief. But I assert that it wasn’t as though the unbelief of the people had more power over the situation than he did. Jesus had complete authority over nature and could do miracles of all kinds by the word of his mouth.
In other words, their unbelief was not some kind of cosmic kryptonite that weakened Jesus’ abilities to perform miracles as the Messiah. Rather, it seems that Jesus limited his expression of divine authority as a form of judgment on their rejection of him. Sometimes the withholding of certain blessings is a form of God’s discipline or judgment.
It was not that he could not heal; he merely chose not to. Further, it is not likely that many of them were coming to be healed in the first place, since they merely called him the carpenter. Either way, the healings were few because of their unbelief.
But the question is, is this always the case when it comes to God’s decision to heal or not to heal? Is it always dependent on whether or not we have enough faith? I would say no. Some teach that healing is always contingent on the measure of our faith, and if healing doesn’t come, the only conclusion is that the petitioner may not have enough faith; and they appeal to this passage in Mark as their proof text.
This line of thinking is a half-truth, and it has caused an immeasurable amount of grief for some true believers who have been sold this lie as an answer for why their loved one did not survive a debilitating illness or a terminal disease. Once believed, this half-truth can bring on crippling guilt and a belief that God is punishing the one without “enough faith.” It can result in resentment and bitterness toward God, the church, or even toward the one who has prayed.
Many a suffering soul has left the church and walked away from God because they were somehow convinced that the death of their loved one was their own fault—as if God could not do a miracle because it was contingent on an unknown measure of faith.
But there is something dead wrong about that line of teaching and thinking, and we need only to look at the full counsel of the Word of God—all of what the Bible teaches—to put things in their proper order.
First, within a half-truth there is always a hint of truth. And that truth is this: Jesus does respond to faith. In fact, so many miracles that he did choose to perform are seen in connection with Jesus’ asking for and commending the people for their faith. We can’t avoid the fact that his power to heal is certainly connected to the faith of the individual. In Matthew 9, for example, Jesus healed two blind men and said, “According to your faith it will be done to you” (v. 29, author’s paraphrase). In another example, when the apostle Paul entered Lystra, he came upon a crippled man who was lame from birth and who took an interest in what Paul was preaching. The Bible says, “Paul, looking intently at him and seeing that he had faith to be made well, said in a loud voice, ‘Stand upright on your feet.’ And he sprang up and began walking” (Acts 14:9–10 ESV).
So it is an obvious conclusion that a biblical view of healing includes the importance and, at times, the necessity of faith in order to bring about the desired results. And it would seem that in the case of Jesus’ performing miracles in his hometown, it was truly their lack of faith that caused Jesus to restrain his miracle-working power.
But having said all that, it is quite another thing to teach that in all cases where healing does not take place it is due to the fact that there was no faith, little faith, or not enough faith to manipulate God’s hand of favor. That conclusion is not warranted when we look at the entire teaching of the Bible.
In fact, one of the best examples of this comes from the apostle Paul, who, as many might argue, was perhaps the most dynamic Christian to ever live. He was certainly a great leader and shepherd of God’s people, an outstanding evangelist, and a first-rate mentor who knew how to disciple people. But he wasn’t perfect. He had weaknesses that he would readily admit to (Romans 7), and in humility he once called himself the worst of sinners (1 Timothy 1:15). But few would argue that Paul didn’t have adequate faith. In fact, he set the standard for faith. Yet even in the midst of this apostle’s walk with God, there was an area that caused him great grief and pain.
Many have speculated about what it might have been. Was it pride, an outside opponent, or some kind of physical issue (or maybe all of the above)? Either way, Paul talks about it in 2 Corinthians. In the context of the passage, Paul discusses the revelations from God that he has received in the past as an apostle. These visions and revelations from the Lord brought him to the point where he was even able to get a glimpse of heaven itself (something very few in Scripture were able to see).
Paul then says that in order to keep him from becoming conceited to the point of exalting himself, there was given to him a “thorn in his flesh,” something to keep him humble. The key to interpretation may be in the text itself: “Therefore, so that I would not exalt myself, a thorn in the flesh was given to me, a messenger of Satan to torment me so I would not exalt myself” (2 Corinthians 12:7).
Note a couple of things: First, Paul said this thorn was given to him, which means it came from God purposefully to keep him humble and dependent upon God. Whereas oftentimes we plead with God, just like Paul did, to take things away (more on that in a minute), our suffering may have been given or allowed for God’s purposes that reach far beyond the scope of our imagination. Such was the case with Job’s difficulties in life.
Second, the nature of the thorn may not have been physical but spiritual in nature. For Paul calls it a “messenger [or angel] of Satan,” sent to torment him. This suggests it may have something to do with the demonic, perhaps even the deceptive teachings of false teachers whom he constantly battled and who were seeking to lead the church astray by the “teachings of demons” (1 Timothy 4:1). They could be considered a thorn in his flesh, requiring him to defend the gospel or his own reputation as an apostle, or perhaps to spend hours in desperate prayer for the church to be protected.
No matter what the reason, even though it was uncomfortable and agonizing for Paul, this thorn caused him to be even more dependent upon the Lord.
Concerning this, I pleaded with the Lord three times to take it away from me. But He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.”
2 Corinthians 12:8–9
Few would argue that Paul was deficient in faith and because of his lack of faith he was unable to be rid of this problem. Here we have a man who, next to Abraham, may have been the greatest example of faith we have ever seen. For Paul, relief did not come because of the amount of faith he did or didn’t have. Rather, it was because healing was not a part of God’s ultimate purpose for him.
So healing isn’t always contingent on the amount of our faith. It is true that faith is the means by which God often heals, but there are times when healing will not come because God has other plans. This is where we must pray in faith, believe that God can do it, and leave the results to him, trusting in his sovereign plan.
Paul received the blessing of “sufficient grace,” something that is often not as appreciated as it should be. Grace is God’s gift, and sufficient grace is a gift that enables us to carry on for as long as God needs us to. It further requires us to wean ourselves from our tendency to be self-sufficient, and to trust in the strength that only God provides. This is why Paul said,
Therefore, I will most gladly boast all the more about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may reside in me. So I take pleasure in weaknesses, insults, catastrophes, persecutions, and in pressures, because of Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
vv. 9–10
Paul knew that his weakness gave God’s strength a platform to be put on display, so that in the end God’s power and might would receive the ultimate praise and glory.
So when it comes to the story of Jesus’ hometown or the story of Paul’s thorn, there are some conclusions that we must come to by looking at both stories in harmony with each other.
First, it is true that sometimes God will withhold healing because of a lack of faith as a form of judgment on unbelief. This was true for the time Jesus entered his hometown, where faith was obviously missing. But this does not mean that every time healing does not come it is always due to a lack of faith, which is what we learn from Paul’s experience, because Paul certainly was a man of faith.
Second, Paul’s experience also teaches us that though it is true that God does look for faith and will heal in response to faith, sometimes his decision to heal or not to heal may not be related to our faith at all, but may be in accordance with his sovereign purposes for us. He may be looking for a platform to display his sufficient grace.
I am a firm believer in this latter idea, especially when it comes to Christians who are in the process of dying. Though it is perfectly right and God-glorifying to pray for healing for a brother or sister in Christ, sometimes it is God’s will to call that person home to glory, and he will give them sufficient grace to endure all the way to the end. In fact, the journey may be one of the greatest opportunities to witness and display faith to those who are seeing it happen.
You might not realize it, but your pathway home (the process of a Christian’s death) may be one of the most remarkable times in your life to glorify God by putting your faith in his gospel on display—trusting in his saving hand to bring you to glory.
It is here that our witness may have the greatest impact on others—and in this sense we can be happy that God is not healing us for further life on earth but rather preparing us for ultimate healing in the life to come, giving us an opportunity to impact others and share our faith on our journey there.
Either way, for the Christian, God will heal—in this life or in the life to come. We must live by faith and not by sight. If he heals us here, then great! That may mean more fruitful labor for Christ while in the body. But if he doesn’t heal us, then let us rejoice in the grace he gives that is being put on display, and let us rejoice in the plan he has to call us home to be healed once and for all. And let us not assume that someone’s healing or lack of it is always contingent upon faith, because we don’t always see things from God’s perspective. And we can’t speak for God in those situations.