Jesus at the Temple - Luke 2:41-52

The Story in a Nutshell

The story continues…

Jesus has now grown to the age of twelve.  We haven’t heard much from him since birth, so perhaps he lived a normal childhood.  But now something happens.

Every year Jesus’ parents traveled to Jerusalem for the Passover festival.  This year was no exception.  After celebrating the Passover Mary and Joseph headed for home.  They thought Jesus was with them, perhaps with friends among the other travelers, but he wasn’t.  Where was he?

When they realized Jesus was missing they searched among the travelers to find him.  I’m sure they were quite worried.  When they couldn’t find him they traveled back to Jerusalem to continue the search.  Three days later they finally found him; he was in the Temple discussing deep religious matters with the religious teachers.  Everyone in the Temple was amazed at his understanding of Scripture and his answers to questions that arose. 

But his parents were perplexed.  What’s going on?  So they asked him, “Son, why have you done this to us? We’ve been worried sick searching for you.”

Jesus replied, “You should have known that I would be in my Father’s house.”  But his parents didn’t understand.  Would you have understood what he meant?

After that, Jesus was obedient to his parents and he returned to Nazareth with them; his mother storing everything that went on in her heart. 

And Jesus continued to grow physically and in wisdom.  He was loved by God and he was loved by everyone that knew and met him.

To be continued…

What did you learn from the story?

If you want to gain a full understanding of the complete story, and for help in answering some of the questions below, you may want to have the following items as additional resources:  a Bible, a dictionary, and a Bible commentary on the Book of Luke (optional).

1. How old was Jesus when his parents went to the Passover festival?
2. What happened after the festival?
3. How many days did it take to find Jesus?
4. Where was Jesus found?
5. What was Jesus doing in the Temple?
6. Why were the people in the Temple amazed at Jesus?
7. What were Jesus’ parents thinking when they found Jesus?
8. What did Jesus tell his parents?
9. After responding to his parent’s question, what did Jesus do?
10.  What did you learn about God, Jesus, and people from the story?

Have questions about God, Jesus, and the Bible? An excellent source for answers to your questions is gotquestions.org. Check it out. gotquestions.org.

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