Today, I am reading and commenting on  Luke 2-3.

A few days ago in this blog I asked about how Jesus had the credentials to be allowed, and perhaps even invited, to teach in synagogues, which the Gospels report that He did at the very beginning of His ministry.  In today’s passage we get the only direct insight into that.  Luke writes that when Jesus was twelve He spent three to six days in the temple courts  learning from some of the leading religious scholars of the day.  At the age of twelve, those who taught there were amazed by the questions He asked and the answers He gave.  I want to go over the number of days Jesus spent in the temple courts.  So, Luke writes that His parents did not realize He was not with them until they were a day out from Jerusalem, then Luke writes that they found Jesus after three days.  So, the question becomes, did Mary and Joseph find Jesus three days after they left Jerusalem, three days after they realized He was missing, or three days after they got back to Jerusalem?  If the latter, Jesus was in the temple courts for five or six days, because perhaps the reason Mary and Joseph left Jerusalem without Him was because He spent the day before they left at the temple as well.  Not that the exact number of days has any significance.  More importantly, this story indicates that Jesus spent every opportunity He had learning from teachers of the Law, and He was such a student that the teachers of the Law welcomed Him studying with them.  I think that Luke intends for us to understand that Jesus continued in His studies of Jewish Law, thus explaining why He was welcome to teach in the synagogue when He began His ministry.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.