Jesus the Builder
John Buchanan, at Fourth Presbyterian Church:
Reynolds Price ... points out that “Jesus seems to have spent his youth working with his brothers in Joseph’s construction business. The Greek word so famously translated “carpenter” can mean, more broadly, a builder” (A Serious Way of Wandering, p. 13).
What a nice new thought. Maybe what Jesus actually did for thirty years was not only make tables and stools and bowls and spoons in a tidy carpentry shop, as I was taught in Sunday school. Maybe he and Joseph built houses, dug the forms for the footing, and built the frame for the walls and the supporting beams for the ceiling. Maybe Jesus built homes in which people lived. Maybe he and Joseph traveled to Sepphoris each day and worked on the Roman amphitheater. Maybe he built synagogues.
I believe he meant to build a church. ...
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