Jesus was from a Poor Family

Jesus was born to a poor family. The typical custom of Jewish families was to offer a sacrifice after the birth of the firstborn male. Jesus’ family offers two birds for a sacrifice (Luke 2:24), a provision from Leviticus 12:8 made for those who could not afford more expensive animals. This suggests that Jesus’ family was poor and unable to fulfill the higher requirements of the law. Jesus and his father Joseph are described as carpenters. The specific Greek word used here is tekton, and there has been some debate as to precisely what it means. A few scholars suggest that the phrase means that Jesus’ family was from the landless class of workers, the poorest of the workers. Some others suggest that this title more fittingly places Jesus and Joseph among the lower middle class – blue collar workers making a bit more than needed to survive. Perhaps the family’s status was somewhat bolstered by the gifts offered by the magi who visited when Jesus was a young child (Matthew 2:11), though how long this lasted as Jesus’ family fled to Egypt as refugees is unclear. At any rate, there is no indication that Jesus grew up in a wealthy or powerful family. The dispute is simply over the degree of poverty Jesus faced as a child.

Jesus was from a poor family. He was also God in the flesh, Lord, and Savior.