Article December 3, 2012 Issue

Hometown healing

George Zucker

In business, it’s sometimes said with humor that an expert is someone from out of town. The point is that a local person, however well qualified, doesn’t get the same respect as an out-of-towner.

Jesus faced this local bias when he returned to his hometown of Nazareth to teach in the synagogue (see Luke 4:16–30). His former neighbors shook their heads and asked, “Is not this Joseph’s son?” Perhaps they thought: “He’s just a local kid, the son of a carpenter. What does he know?” 

Nazareth was then seen as a kind of small, backwater place from which nothing good had ever come, let alone a prophet. Yet those listening to Jesus were impressed and “wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth.” 

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