Jesus was from a Disrespected Community

At the beginning of his ministry, when Jesus is still calling his first disciples, Philip told Nathanael about Jesus of Nazareth, whom he had begun to follow. Nathanael’s response is telling: “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” (John 1:46). Nazareth is not a particularly respected city, and few expected a Messiah to come forward from Nazareth, where Jesus and his family had apparently lived since after the return from Egypt, and even before this time. Before they traveled to Bethlehem for a census, Luke tells us that Mary lived in Nazareth of Galilee (Luke 1:26). The location of Nazareth is equally important. Galilee is the northern most part of the land traditionally belonging to Israel. As a result of the division of kingdoms (where the Northern Kingdom of Israel tended toward idolatry and sin), and of the conquest of the north by Assyria, there was a longstanding prejudice against Galileans as religiously inferior, ethnically impure, and culturally backward. A Galilean would have spoken a dialect that would have quickly singled him out and made him easily recognizable as an outsider, and we see from the very beginning of his ministry, when Jesus first called his disciples, that he experiences some prejudice because he is from a disrespected community.

Jesus was from a disrespected community. He was also God in the flesh, Lord, and Savior.