WHY A CARPENTER?

     Why the Son of God came to earth a carpenter's son; thereby ensuring he too would be a carpenter?  Of one thing we can be certain: It was not coincidence.  Nothing regarding the coming and life of our Savior was coincidence . . . it was all planned before time even began!  Consider the following taken from "Lessons from the Carpenter" written by H. Michael Brewer:

     "Somewhere between his thirteenth and fifteenth birthdays, Jesus began formal training in his father's trade. . .

     By the time Jesus began his training, he had absorbed many of his father's values:

• Discover the potential within the wood.
• Transform the rough into the useful.
• Meet needs.
• Build to last.
• Never settle for shoddiness.
• Restore whatever can be saved.
• Waste nothing.

     The lessons Jesus learned at the carpenter's workbench served him well in later years.  His practiced eye recognized the overlooked potential in the human outcasts of society.  His skilled touch restored broken spirits and sin-shattered lives.  His carpenter's heart decried the squandering of a single heart - the loss of even the very least - so he hewed unschooled fishermen into disciples, shaped fallen sinners into witnesses of glory, and hammered embittered persecutors into apostles.  And on a dark spring day when he discerned that piecemeal repairs were inadequate to the job, he laid the foundation for a new creation.  Like his father, Joseph, Jesus wasted nothing, salvaged whatever could be saved, and built for the future.

     God intended Jesus to grow up in a carpentry shop, learning the lessons of a woodworker.  This was part of God's plan to mold the heart and mind of the Messiah.  Jesus's earthly occupation perfectly mirrored his purpose for coming into the world.  Who better to repair a broken creation than a carpenter?”

Add this search to your web page