The Everlasting Covenant - 14.5 Joseph

Home > Messiah: The Covenant Confirmed >
Email | Print | 
.

14.5 Joseph: Carpenter of Nazareth
by Girard Miller, www.everlastingcovenant.com, July 2009

Today we are to talk about a person in the Bible, who gets little or no credit for what he does: a man without whom nothing would have happened the way it did.  His name is Joseph, not the Joseph of Egypt, but an underappreciated carpenter from a small, hilly section of Israel.

He first comes to notice in Matthew 1:19, where for obvious reasons he is a troubled man.  He has been told by the woman he loves that she is with child, and it is God’s doing.  Try that one on for size men!  He still has her family to worry about.  In those days, getting a woman in a family way could get you killed.  Their families were very serious about those things.

Here is a worried man. If he doesn’t marry her, some of the nice people of the church are going to stone her.  So he comes up with an idea.  He’ll send her away; when it is all over, bring her back and marry her.  Please remember that this guy is in love with her.

But let’s put this, if possible, in the right order.  This is a young man, probably about 25 or so.  He has been married and has children.  He was married in his teens, as was the custom of those days.  The life span of people at that time was about 35 years.  He is well-respected and a good church goer.  He has his own trade, which is carpentry.

By the way, if he were just a carpenter, there would not have been a lot of work, because where he lived, most homes were made of stone or mud brick.  He was a cabinet maker.  He made doors, gates, beds, bookcases, chairs, and other household goods.  He made a living at it, so he was a good carpenter.

He then meets Mary and falls in love again.  They become engaged.  Quite different than today.  You did not break off with a young woman after you were engaged.  Because if you did, the family name would be dishonored, and you could end up dead.

I don’t know how to say this, but one night when they were alone, Mary tells him about what is happening in her life: about the angel and about being with child.  Joseph feels like he just got run over, but to his credit, he seems to take it very well, in spite of all the problems.  He makes a plan for himself and for Mary.

This is where God steps in.  He sends an angel to Joseph.  After getting over being afraid, he listens to what the angel tells him.  He then does as he is told.  This man follows the Lord!

He married the young lady and the child was born.  Strange things happen.  Shepherds come and worship the child.  Men from far away places come and bring gifts for the child.  One night, an angel comes and tells him to get up and leave the town and his country.  It will be many years before he comes back.  They then settle in a small village in the hills.

By now, Christ had already started his training for his father’s trade.  He was cleaning out his father’s shop at perhaps five or six years old.  It took many years to learn his trade.

Joseph, as stated in Matthew 1:19 was a just men.  He worked with this child and taught him all he needed to know.  All the time knowing that he really did not understand what this was all about.  This child later, as a young man, did not follow the usual customs and was hard to raise.

The laws of the church seemed not to agree with him.  For one thing, he refused to attend the church school. The pastor would come and ask them to see if they could not change his mind.  Yet, at the same time, he was always respectful, kind, and honest.  Joseph was proud of this boy, yet it was not easy to raise him.

This man was chosen to be the father just as much as Mary was the mother.  He had in himself the things God wanted in a father: Things like kindness, love, honesty, discipline, a church goer and believer.  When God chose Mary, one of the reasons she was chosen was Joseph.

We don’t know much about Joseph’s life after Christ turned twelve, but we do know he lived long enough to teach Christ how to be a carpenter.  This, in those days, did not happen overnight.  Joseph also was a private man.  Look at the kind of life Christ led.  But for you people who don’t seem to see them, I would like to suggest you read the Book of James and Jude.  Oh, by the way, both of these gentlemen were sons of Joseph.  Not bad for a poor carpenter from the hills of Galilee!  He raised the Son of God and did a great job of it.  And two other sons wrote books of the Bible.  Not bad. Not bad at all!
^ Return to Top