Jesus’ Early Manhood

128:2.1This was one of sev­eral years dur­ing which Je­sus’ broth­ers and sis­ters were fac­ing the tri­als and tribu­la­tions pe­cu­liar to the prob­lems and read­just­ments of ado­les­cence. Je­sus now had broth­ers and sis­ters rang­ing in ages from seven to eigh­teen, and he was kept busy help­ing them to ad­just them­selves to the new awak­en­ings of their in­tel­lec­tual and emo­tional lives. He had thus to grap­ple with the prob­lems of ado­les­cence as they be­came man­i­fest in the lives of his younger broth­ers and sis­ters.

128:2.2This year Si­mon grad­u­ated from school and be­gan work with Je­sus’ old boy­hood play­mate and ever-ready de­fender, Ja­cob the stone ma­son. As a re­sult of sev­eral fam­ily con­fer­ences it was de­cided that it was un­wise for all the boys to take up car­pen­try. It was thought that by di­ver­si­fy­ing their trades they would be pre­pared to take con­tracts for putting up en­tire build­ings. Again, they had not all kept busy since three of them had been work­ing as full-time car­pen­ters.

128:2.3Je­sus con­tin­ued this year at house fin­ish­ing and cab­i­net­work but spent most of his time at the car­a­van re­pair shop. James was be­gin­ning to al­ter­nate with him in at­ten­dance at the shop. The lat­ter part of this year, when car­pen­ter work was slack about Naz­a­reth, Je­sus left James in charge of the re­pair shop and Joseph at the home bench while he went over to Sep­pho­ris to work with a smith. He worked six months with met­als and ac­quired con­sid­er­able skill at the anvil.

128:2.4Be­fore tak­ing up his new em­ploy­ment at Sep­pho­ris, Je­sus held one of his pe­ri­odic fam­ily con­fer­ences and solemnly in­stalled James, then just past eigh­teen years old, as act­ing head of the fam­ily. He prom­ised his brother hearty sup­port and full co-op­er­a­tion and ex­acted for­mal promises of obe­di­ence to James from each mem­ber of the fam­ily. From this day James as­sumed full fi­nan­cial re­spon­si­bil­ity for the fam­ily, Je­sus mak­ing his weekly pay­ments to his brother. Never again did Je­sus take the reins out of James’s hands. While work­ing at Sep­pho­ris he could have walked home ev­ery night if nec­es­sary, but he pur­posely re­mained away, as­sign­ing weather and other rea­sons, but his true mo­tive was to train James and Joseph in the bear­ing of the fam­ily re­spon­si­bil­ity. He had be­gun the slow pro­cess of wean­ing his fam­ily. Each Sab­bath Je­sus re­turned to Naz­a­reth, and some­times dur­ing the week when oc­ca­sion re­quired, to ob­serve the work­ing of the new plan, to give ad­vice and of­fer help­ful sug­ges­tions.

128:2.5Liv­ing much of the time in Sep­pho­ris for six months af­forded Je­sus a new op­por­tu­nity to be­come bet­ter ac­quainted with the gen­tile view­point of life. He worked with gen­tiles, lived with gen­tiles, and in ev­ery pos­si­ble man­ner did he make a close and painstak­ing study of their habits of liv­ing and of the gen­tile mind.

128:2.6The moral stan­dards of this home city of Herod An­tipas were so far be­low those of even the car­a­van city of Naz­a­reth that af­ter six months’ so­journ at Sep­pho­ris Je­sus was not averse to find­ing an ex­cuse for re­turn­ing to Naz­a­reth. The group he worked for were to be­come en­gaged on pub­lic work in both Sep­pho­ris and the new city of Tiberias, and Je­sus was dis­in­clined to have any­thing to do with any sort of em­ploy­ment un­der the super­vi­sion of Herod An­tipas. And there were still other rea­sons which made it wise, in the opin­ion of Je­sus, for him to go back to Naz­a­reth. When he re­turned to the re­pair shop, he did not again as­sume the per­sonal di­rec­tion of fam­ily af­fairs. He worked in as­so­ci­a­tion with James at the shop and as far as pos­si­ble per­mit­ted him to con­tinue over­sight of the home. James’s man­age­ment of fam­ily ex­pen­di­tures and his ad­min­is­tra­tion of the home bud­get were undis­turbed.

128:2.7It was by just such wise and thought­ful plan­ning that Je­sus pre­pared the way for his even­tual with­drawal from ac­tive par­tic­i­pa­tion in the af­fairs of his fam­ily. When James had had two years’ ex­pe­ri­ence as act­ing head of the fam­ily—and two full years be­fore he (James) was to be mar­ried—Joseph was placed in charge of the house­hold funds and in­trusted with the gen­eral man­age­ment of the home.