Luke 2:49

Luk_2:49

Wist ye not that I must be about My Fathers business

The Epiphany of work

1.

The Epiphany before us is, in the first place, that of the two lives, the seen and the unseen, the relative and the personal, the human relationship to the Divine. Let us try to place ourselves in imagination in those Temple precincts, and picture the entrance of the distressed and bewildered mother after two days and nights of weary and watchful searching. Regardless of His mothers anxiety, He has been sitting in the Temple courts. Son, why hast Thou thus dealt with us? was a natural question; and it fell not on a deaf ear, but on an unupbraiding conscience. How is it that ye sought Me? The rebuke is turned back upon herself. Wist ye not that I must be about My Fathers business? (Original: In the things of My Father. I prefer here the Authorized Version to the Revised.) It was a hard stern lesson for the heart of the mother. She lives only in Him; but He has now another life, and another being. Such is her first lesson in the mystery of the two lives, the twofold relationship. This lesson we have all to learn for ourselves, and to learn also for one another. What a unity does this give to the human being, to have a life above this life, a business, a home, a Father, away from the desultoriness, the dissipation, which are so wearying and deteriorating to all that is the man in us. My Father,--a word of concentration, a word significant of the gathering into one of all the interests and affections which before were scattered abroad. This the one purpose of all education with the name, to make real to the young life this spiritual sonship; and this the one principle of all true human dealing, so to recognize in one another the secret of the Divine relationship, that we neither seek to engross for ourselves hearts which belong to another, nor run any risk of seducing from their rightful allegiance those whom God has appropriated to His own possession. Yet, secondly, of Him who has just spoken of this as a matter of course, that He shall be absorbed in His Fathers business, it is written in the other half of the text that, He went down with them, and came to Nazareth, and was subject unto them. We are brought here into the very heart of the great mystery--God manifest in the flesh. And this is all that is told us of the boyhood of the Saviour--this and one brief hint besides, as to the occupation of His time in manual labour. This, then, as to its outward shape and form, was His Fathers business; the inner life went on unknown and unnoticed. He was growing all this time in wisdom; but the one feature of the thirty years is the SUBJECTION. All else is taken for granted--the industry and the piety and the beautiful example--and this only is dwelt upon. He was subject unto them. He humbled Himself, St. Paul writes, as the characteristic of the whole of His earthly life--He humbled Himself, and became obedient. From this beginning it was but a natural process to the long self-repression of the village-home and the drudging workshop; thence to the baptism in Jordan, and the temptation in the desert; thence into the homeless unrests of the ministry, the scorn and rejection of men, the dulness and coldness even of His own, and at last the agony of Calvary, and the shameful death of the cross. Though He was a Son, yet He learned obedience by the things which He suffered. After Him let us struggle, living the life of faith which realizes the Father in heaven, feeling it His business as our business which makes the knowledge of Him our one submission, and suffers no other allegiance to interfere or compete with this; yet, on the other hand, counts no human subordination, and no personal sacrifice misplaced or undignified, may it but reproduce in faintest reflection the great Epiphany when He went down with them, &c. Let your light so shine before men, &c. (Dean Vanghan.)

A grand purpose

A measureless weight of conviction is in that Boys word, I must. A Divine necessity, recognized with blended awe and joy, has Him in its grip. I must do My Fathers work. A grand purpose fills His being, and His whole nature is bent on its accomplishment, a purpose exalting duty above all human ties and all human pleasures, and embracing within itself the highest ideal of being and doing. Difference of purpose marks man from man. Men take rank in the scale of manhood according to the elevation and purity of their aims. It is a sign of unique capability that the Boy Jesus should soar to the Divine, and embrace it with His whole soul. I must be about My Fathers house and work. (J. Clifford, D. D.)

A plea for a rejected translation

The necessity of our Lords being in His Fathers house could hardly have been intended by Him as absolutely regulating all His movements, and determining where He should be found, seeing that He had scarcely uttered the words in question before tie withdrew Himself with His parents from that house, and spent the next eighteen years substantially away from it. On the other hand, the claim to be engaged in His Fathers concerns had doubtless frequently been alleged both explicitly and implicitly in respect of the occupations of His previous home life, and continued to be so during the subsequent periods of His eighteen years subjection to the parental rule; His acknowledgment of that claim being in no wise intermitted by His withdrawal with His parents from His Fathers house. Intimations of a more general kind seem to the writer easily capable of being read between the lines of the inspired narrative, which increase the probability that the Authorized translation, rather than the rendering of the Revisers, expresses the meaning of the evangelist. (R. E. Wallis, Ph. D.)

The spiritual development of Christ

I. THE FIRST DAWNING CONSCIOUSNESS OF HIS MESSIAHSHIP.

II. THE FIRST DAWNING CONSCIOUSNESS OF HIS PECULIAR RELATION TO HIS FATHER.

III. THE RESULTS OF THESE THOUGHTS UPON HIS LIFE. Eighteen years of silence, and then--the regeneration of the world accomplished, His Fathers business done. (Stopford A. Brooke, M. A.)

The first recorded words of Jesus

We are grateful that the Spirit of God has given us this first word of our Lord Jesus, and we love it none the less because it is a deep word. We are not surprised that even as a child the Son of God should give forth mysterious sayings. Stier, to whom I am much indebted for thoughts upon this subject, calls this text the solitary floweret out of the enclosed garden of thirty years. What fragrance it exhales I It is a bud, but how lovely! It is not the utterance of His ripe manhood, but the question of His youth; yet this half-opened bud discovers delicious sweets and delightful colours worthy of our admiring meditation. We might call these questions of Jesus the prophecy of His character, and the programme of His life. In this our text He set before His mother all that He came into the world to do; revealing His high and lofty nature, and disclosing His glorious errand. This verse is one of those which Luther would call his little Bibles, with the whole gospel compressed into it.

I. Here we see THE HOLY CHILDS PERCEPTION.

1. He evidently perceived most clearly His high relationship.

2. He perceived the constraints of this relationship. Here we have the first appearing of an imperious must which swayed the Saviour all along. We find it written of Him that He must need go through Samaria, and He Himself said, I must preach the kingdom of God; and again to Zaccheus, I must abide in thy house; and again, I must work the works of Him that sent his. The Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected of the elders. The Son of Man must be lifted up. It behoved Christ to suffer. As a Son He must learn obedience by the things which He suffered. This Firstborn among many brethren must feel all the drawings of His sonship--the sacred instincts of the holy nature, therefore He must be about HisFathers business. Now I put this to you again, for I want to be practical all along: Do you and I feel this Divine must as we ought? Is necessity laid upon us, yea, woe laid upon us unless we serve our Divine Father? Do we ever feel a hungering and a thirsting after Him, so that we must draw nigh to Him, and must come to His house, and approach His feet, and must speak with Him, and must hear His voice, and must behold Him face to face? We are not truly subdued to the son-spirit unless it be so; but when our sonship shall have become our master idea, then shall this Divine necessity be felt by us also, impelling us to seek our Fathers face. As the sparks fly upward to the central fire, so must we draw nigh unto God, our Father and our all.

3. He perceived the forgetfulness of Mary and Joseph, and He wondered.

4. He perceived that He Himself personally had a work to do.

II. THE HOLY CHILDS HOME. Where should Jesus be but in His Fathers dwelling-place?

1. His Father was worshipped there.

2. There His Fathers work went on.

3. There His Fathers name was taught.

III. THE HOLY CHILDS OCCUPATION.

He spent His time in learning and inquiring. How I pant to be doing good, says some young man. You are right, but you must not be impatient. Go you among the teachers, and learn a bit. You cannot teach yet, for you do not know: go and learn before you think of teaching. Hot spirits think that they are not serving God when they are learning; but in this they err. Beloved, Mary at Jesus feet was commended rather than Martha, cumbered with much service. But, says one, we ought not to be always hearing sermons. No, I do not know that any of you are. We ought to get to work at once, cries another. Certainly you ought, after you have first learned what the work is: but if everybody that is converted begins to teach we shall soon have a mass of heresies, and many raw and undigested dogmas taught which will rather do damage than good. Run, messenger, run! The Kings business requireth haste. Nay, rather stop a little. Have you any tidings to tell?

1. Learn your message, and then run as fast as you please.

2. This Holy Child is about His Fathers business, for He is engrossed in it lids whole heart is in the hearing and asking questions. There is a force, to my mind, in the Greek, which is lost in the translation, which drags in the word about. There is nothing parallel to that word in the Greek, which is, Wist ye not that I must be in My Fathers? The way to worship God is to get heartily into it.

3. The Holy Child declares that He was under a necessity to be in it. I must be. He could not help Himself. Other things did not interest the Holy Child, but this thing absorbed Him. You know the story of Alexander, that when the Persian ambassadors came to his fathers court, little Alexander asked them many questions, but they were not at all such as boys generally think of. He did not ask them to describe to him the throne of ivory, nor the hanging gardens of Babylon, nor anything as to the gorgeous apparel of the king; but he asked what weapons the Persians used in battle, in what form they marched, and how far it was to their country; for the boy Alexander felt the man Alexander within him, and he had presentiments that he was the man who would conquer Persia, and show them another way of fighting that would make them turn their backs before him. It is a singular parallel to the case of the Child Jesus, who is taken up with nothing but what is His Fathers; because it was for Him to do His Fathers work, and to live for His Fathers glory, and to execute His Fathers purpose even to the last.

IV. Let us, lastly, learn This HOLY CHILDS SPECIAL LESSON TO THOSE. OF US WHO ARE SEEKERS.

1. DO I address any children of God who have test sight of Christ? Mark, dearly beloved ones, if you and I want to find our Lord we know where He is. Do we not? He is at His Fathers. Let us go unto His Fathers: let us go to our Father and His Father, and let us speak with God, and ask Him where Jesus is if we have lost His company.

2. One more word, and that is to sinners who are seeking Christ. It will all come right if you will just think of this--

(1) that Jesus Christ is not far away; He is in His Fathers house, and that is everywhere;

(2) that He is always about His Fathers business, and that is, saving sinners. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

The motto of Christs life

We have heard of a custom, kept up by some good men, of choosing, each New Years morning, a word or a sentence which should be their motto for the twelvemonth they had commenced. But Jesus of Nazareth seems to have made this choice once for all early in His career. He has recorded it; and we now ought to give it a full recognition as the prevailing and controlling principle of His wonderful life; Wist ye not … ?

I. THIS CONCERNS OURSELVES ONLY SO FAR AS WE ADMIT HIM TO RE THE MASTER AND MODEL OF OUR EXISTENCE. If it be true, as we so often assert, that the Christian life is merely Christs life imitated and reproduced, then His motto is ours also. We write it up over our doorway; we make it the seal of our correspondence; we emblazon it upon our carriage panels; we engrave in on our plate; we stamp it upon our coin; even the ring on our finger, and the buckle on our shoes latchet, bears the same inscription and device. Each devout and true Christian, that is, gives himself and signs himself over unto God.

II. Hence, here is a TEST OF THE GENUINENESS OF OUR RELIGION.

III. There is an EMPLOYMENT FOR SUCH A MOTTO in the interpreting of ones occupation in life. Many a man works in his vocation, without looking on it as a calling at all. Remember, your business is not yours only, but your Fathers too.

IV. This motto likewise will serve admirably to exhibit what is THE EARLIEST NEED OF A SOUL disturbed with the discovery of its sins and exposure. Write across any merely moral and correct life this saying of Jesus. It will make you think of the line in red ink merchants sometimes print on their cards when they have changed their address; it is on the card, not in it. A worldly life requires not regulation only, but regeneration. The change must be radical. It is not the twist of the threads, but the threads which make the fabric of the character wrong.

V. This motto will settle what are ones SAFE RELATIONS TO THE WORLD AROUND. The line must be drawn at the point where the world yields wholly to the Fathers business.

VI. Right here comes the decision, also, concerning the PROPRIETY OF QUOTING CHURCH MEMBERS FOR PATTERNS. The imperfections of others are no excuse for oneself. Being a Christian does not consist in proving other people to be hypocrites. The motto of Jesus says nothing about church members business, but the Fathers.

VII. This motto will show, in like manner, THE REASON FOR SUCH SORE DISAPPOINTMENTS AS WE SOMETIMES EXPERIENCE, when those who promise well for a while fall away suddenly into sin. They have only been living a surface life of dependence on self. Their purpose has gone no higher than mere conduct. Whereas the end of Christian life in all its outgoings is Jesus Christ Himself. Wealth is gained that the owner may use it for Christ. Learning is acquired in order to teach our fellow-men about Christ. Out from the plane of human history springs one mysterious life, the model of all worthy existence. There it stands in the Scriptures out against the clear sky, visible to a hundred generations. The pattern of our life is found in the characteristics of that: the motive of our life is to be found in the love we bear for that: the corrective of our life is to be found in laying it alongside of that: and the stability of our Christian life is to be found in the unfailing help it receives from that. We are held up from falling, not by our hold upon Jesus hand, but by His hold upon ours; we love Him because He first loved us; united to Him we can be sure He will sustain us in temptation.

VIII. This saying will AID US IN ESTABLISHING OPEN ISSUES wherever we are. Compromises are an invention of the devil. Keep up the boundaries between good and evil. On the one side is right, on the other is wrong; on the one peril, on the other safety; on the one truth, on the other falsehood; on the one those who are of the world, worldly, on the other those who are about the Fathers business. (G. S. Robinson, D. D.)

Christ about His Fathers business

I. NOTE THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST, It was a spirit of undivided consecration to the will of God His Father. It was a spirit urged onward by an absolute necessity to serve God. Wist yet not that I must? There is a something in Me which prevents Me from doing other work. I feel an all-controlling, overwhelming influence which constrains Me at all times and in every place to be about My Fathers business; the spirit of high, holy, entire, sincere, determined consecration in heart to God.

1. What was the impelling power which made Christ say this?

(1) The spirit of obedience which thoroughly possessed itself of His bosom.

(2) A sacred will to the work which He had undertaken.

(3) He had a vow upon Him--the vow to do the work from all eternity.

2. What was His Fathers business?

(1) To send into the world a perfect example for our imitation.

(2) The establishment of a new dispensation.

(3) The great work of expiation.

II. IMITATE THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST. Be about your Fathers business with all earnestness, because that is the way of usefulness. You cannot do your own business and Gods too. You cannot serve God and self any more than you can serve God and mammon. If you make your own business Gods business, you will do your business well, and you will be useful in your day and generation. Again, would you be happy? Be about your Fathers business. Oh, it is a sweet employment to serve your Father. (C. H.Spurgeon.)

The Epiphany of Christs Childhood

Christ is thoroughly a child, thoroughly a youth, thoroughly a man. In every stage of His life He is a representative of human life at that stage. He is not an unnatural child or boy; but He shows His Divine nature in the natural ways and forms of childhood. His humanity is perfect; not marvellously or strangely precocious. We may draw all the usual features of human child-life out of this story.

I. Take first the ACTIVE DELIGHT IN A NEW EXPERIENCE, which so belongs to all children. Manhood loses it. Disappointment takes off the edge. It is Christs first visit to Jerusalem, and He is sensitively and zestfully full of it. He is alive to all the surroundings of His countrys capital and centre. Thus He is the champion of childhood, insisting that its natural features (such as inquisitiveness), must be met and gratified; showing that through them God was manifested in His life, that they are not wrong in themselves, that they may be channels of the Holy Spirits action. Delight and liberty are the simple creed of childhood. It would save many a young life from future excess; it would keep in the family many a prodigal and wanderer, and early emigrant, if this feature of a true, full child were at once recognized; if parents would not only look for a childs trust and obedience, but also for his activity.

II. IMPULSIVE TRUTHFULNESS TO SELF. Childhood never argues sophistically, contrary to the impulses of its nature, as a man delights to do often. How is it … ? How could I help going into My Fathers temple and talking of Him and speaking for Him? It is the great impulse, and duty, and mission of My life. And I but obeyed it. Did you not know I would be here? How could you expect anything else? Here was a perfect, holy nature, saying in its childhood I must, and there was nothing more to be said in answer.

III. FILIALNESS: sense of Fatherhood, and of a family. Remember every child has a heavenly as well as an earthly father and home. Besides the second commandment in our Lords code there is the first. Religion is but a higher application of the principles of morality, the doing for God what you do for man; being filled with the sense of Gods Fatherhood as with that of earthly parentage; carrying dutifulness from the home of one to the higher home of the other. I remember going through a cave of stalactite, hung with glistening pendants, and capable of wonderful reflections, but shut away from all sunlight and gleam of heavens power. A simple torch won marvellous effects from those waiting walls. But it was a great longing all the while in ones mind. Oh for one stream of daylight through all this sleeping glory?! If earth, made light, will so lighten it, what would the light of heaven do? So one looks with regret on much of the sweetness of life: upon a filial son; upon a life whose earthly affection lights it up with gleams of bright beauty, but with none of heavens light streaming through its filial devotion, to give it the supreme glory of a life of a son of God, delighting in being about the Fathers business; flinging over it the life which you see in Christ, in this Epiphany of His childhood. (Frederick Brooks.)

Childhood to be dedicated to God

Life must be wholly a manifestation of God. Every age is of value. Each section of life brings its own contribution to the perfected Christian character. Childhood has its own forces, its own kinds of strength and power, which other parts of life do not furnish; and they must be used in developing the man of God. You lose something if you put off religion to your later years. Your religious character never feels the benefit and power of these child forces, which do not belong to later life. You know the value of an overture in music; how its simplicity helps all the remainder of the more elaborate variations and movements. You could not start at once into the midst of the symphony or oratorio, and intelligently enjoy and use it. So youth brings its own peculiar contribution to the harmony of godly, Christly living. That is the teaching of the Boyhood of Christ. As the day without its dewy morning and all its influences; as the day beginning with hot noon; so is a life which begins for God at late years. We disjoint our religious lives, not seeing that the child is the father of the man, and that all our days must be bound each to each by natural piety. Christ puts them altogether again, shows God in and through all of them, even in and through boyhood, and says, It is not merely that you may be Gods at the end; it is that all from the beginning may be His; and that at the end you may have a product towards which every stage of living has assisted. Oh, may Christ, the truest human child that has ever lived, win all the freshness and young strength there is yet in us for His Father. (Frederick Brooks.)

The constraining motive

What could compel the God who was equal to the Father? Was it not the constraint of His own loving and obedient heart? He must be about His Fathers business, because He could not help it. To obey the Father was to obey the impulse of His own heart. He had undertaken to do His Fathers will, and in doing it He did what was emphatically His own will. They were so completely one, theft Christ was compelled to be about His Fathers business. This word must is no strange word to us women. We know well enough what it means. We, too, have rendered the obedience of love, which is the only kind of obedience worth the name. Is there any sweetness in all the world that can equal that which comes from obedience to our souls beloved? The must is not a yoke which other hands have laid upon us; it is the outcome of our own hearts. It never thinks of possible reward or possible punishment, There is no need of a set of rules, or of verbal commands, much less of urging words. We obey because we must; because otherwise the hunger of our love could never be satisfied; because if there were a must not instead of a must, all the joy and gladness would go out of our life. We should not know what to do with our lips, and hands, and hearts, if we might not employ them for our dearest. But think what this must means in the text. I must be about My Fathers business. Is the Divine love within us less strong than the human? Are we Christ-like in this respect? Can we say, I delight to do Thy will, O God? Would it not change our lives a little if we felt this must as Jesus felt it? Would it not make of us better women, because better Christians? We feel that we must be about the business of our husbands, our children, or our friends; bat we too often regard our Fathers business as something for our leisure moments only, to be taken up or left according to convenience.

There is too often no must in this case. And this is the reason of much of the sorrow which is in our lives. We know so little of Christian joy, because we know so little of perfect obedience. We are Marthas, who are cumbered about much serving, rather than Marys, whose whole souls go out in love to the Master. Let us start afresh, and begin at the beginning.

Let us abide with our Father, until, knowing Him better, we love Him more; and then say to all the hindering influences that are round about us,

Wist ye not that I must be about my Fathers business?

(Marianne Farningham.)

The earthly and the heavenly parentage

It was a hard, stern lesson for the heart of the mother; she lives only in Him, but He has now another life and another being. Such is her first lessons in the mystery of the two lives, the twofold relationship. For a considerable portion of the life of all men, the two relationships are at one. The parent represents God to the child, and the child sees God through the parent. It is a sweet and lovely time for the mother, which nature perhaps would bid her protract. She feels that only good can come of it, so pure and so heavenward are her own aspirations for her child. Cannot the son continue to seek heaven only through her? is there any moral blank, is there any spiritual necessity to forbid her saying as a thing for all time and for all life, So be it, it is good for us to be thus? Yes, she must learn the great lesson, All souls are

Mine; as the soul of the parent, so also the soul of the son is Mine; and

God is the speaker. She must bend her neck to this discipline, or it will be the worse for her and for her child. The child has a Father in heaven, and at the first dawn of reason he must be about his Fathers business. There are parents who have sought to perpetuate the spiritual infancy, to stand between God and the boy, to be still the conscience keeper and the mediator even when the open consciousness of the relationships direct and immediate should have warned them off as from holy ground. They have done so, and the Nemesis has been sharp and swift, the devotion diverted from God has found its object in Belial or Mammon. The mother may divert, but she cannot retain it. (Dean Vaughan.)

Gods business the only work for man

Here is the true thought for us, not only that all true work which we do is Gods work, but that work which is not of God is net work, does not properly exist in the universe at all. There is no work but Thine. When we first take up our place and labour, we mistake the meaning of our life. We think we are born to do our own will, and we act upon our thought. Straightway all our work becomes selfish: we toil and struggle for ourselves, we are an end unto ourselves; and the result is that we find our work becoming mean; our view of life contemptuous; ourselves ignoble. But when the root idea of life is changed, when we know that we are here to do Gods will, and that His will is love to us and all, the impulse and end of our work are altered. We accept the duties laid upon us, and are not anxious to make them into advantages to self. We think, God has placed me here and told me to do this. He is right, and knowledge and good must flow to all if I am faithful. I am His instrument; through me He is making a phase of Himself known to man; through me He is doing a portion of His mighty labour. The thought transfigures our view of the universe; immediately work becomes unselfish and sanctified, life is ennobled, the commonest drudgery is rendered beautiful, suffering is gladly borne. Men call us aside to the pursuit of pleasure, to the passion of excitement, to the fame and honour we may win, to seek our own will and gain it. Hush, we say, we live now in deeper joy than you can know, we have loftier excitements. Fame, honour, they are in His hand and not in ours. My own will! I have my will when I do His will. How magnificent a thing might life become could we but turn away from all temptations to do our own will, and say to the tempters, were they even father or mother--say in the strength of Christ--I cannot; wist ye not that I must be about my Fathers business? (Stopford A. Brooke, M. A.)

About His Fathers business

At His mothers tender reproach He turns, and lifts His dreamy eyes towards her--eyes that have been only intent on the sacred scroll before Him, and raised only to the grave faces of the official teachers around Him. For the first time He is aware of His own absorption. It seems incredible to Him that those nearest and dearest should be out of sympathy with Him at such a moment--unconscious of the spiritual influences which to Him were all in all--of the fascination of the law--of the solemnities of the Temple, from which He had not been able to tear Himself. He stands still, rooted to the spot; He has one more question to ask, not of the priest, but of His parents: Wist ye not that I must be about My Fathers business? It sounded like a simple home appeal--had He not always been zealous about the carpentering business in the workshop of His reputed father at Nazareth--should He be less zealous about the work the heavenly Father was carrying on in Him at Jerusalem? A call so distinct--an opportunity so unique--a combination so complete--in the Temple--sitting in the midst of doctors, both hearing them and asking them questions; there was indeed business--more profitable beyond compare than anything to be found at Nazareth; there was at last edification beyond all human handicraft. He could not choose but be there--until called back. I must, He said--such moments of spiritual constraint fashion our lives. I must speak out, I must give it up, I must strike the blow, make the sacrifice, sound the matter to its depths, be alone in prayer, search out one who can teach or guide me, if only for a single brief hour, or for one fugitive day at a certain crisis--under the constraint of guiding events, a spiritual voice, a Divine leading. I must sit in the Temple, hear, inquire. I feel this leap into the future, this sudden growth in wisdom. I can make no mistake--the revelation is too cogent, too inward, too harmonious. I am being dealt with. I cannot choose, but hear and be as I am. I must be about My Fathers business. (H. R.Haweis, M. A.)

Earnestness exemplified

The Rev. N. Haycroft, in urging earnestness as an essential qualification in a Sunday-school teacher, says:--The narrative of a colporteur in Spain, on one occasion, will best illustrate this point. He was travelling on foot through the provinces, selling Bibles. At the close of a long and weary days journey, he approached, hungry and footsore, the outskirts of a village, where he met a Roman Catholic priest, who asked him what he had in his pack. The colporteur replied, Bibles and Testaments; and I shall be happy to sell you one. Can you sell me a real Bible? Yes; a real Bible for real money. He unshouldered his pack, and the priest purchased a Testament. Just as he was about to depart he said to the colportuer, You seem to have travelled far to-day! Yes, I have, was the answer; but it is about my Masters business. You are footsore and wayworn. Yes; but it is all about my Masters business. Your Master must have a very faithful servant in you, said the priest. The colporteur, not liking to expatiate on his own merits, was inclined to cut the conversation short, anal prepared to pursue his journey. The priest interposed, and pressed him to remain and lodge with him all night. No, said the colporteur; I cannot accept your hospitality, for I must be about my Masters business. But you must lodge somewhere, so that you may as well come with me. After some persuasion he went. Having spent a useful hour or two together, they retired for the night. The priest was an early riser, and at six oclock in the morning he called to his housekeeper to know wether the stranger was up yet. Oh yes! said she, he has been gone from here this three hours; and the last words he said were, I must be about my Masters business. Here was earnestness;--and remember there is no qualification for a high pursuit like earnestness. Luther was in earnest; and he pressed on till he had secured the glorious Reformation.

Howard was in earnest; and he rested not till he had visited all the prisons of Europe, and made their sorrows patent to the world. Wilberforce, and Clarkson, and Buxton were in earnest; and they persevered till they had obtained the liberation of the slave. Napoleon was in earnest in his ambitious projects; and step by step he dashed on to victory, nor rested till he had trampled under foot the thrones of Europe, and made himself the arbiter of the destinies of the world. His one saving quality was earnestness.

Need of diligence in Gods service

What a lesson for all young people! You think you need not begin serving God just yet. You have plenty of years before you. How do you know that? Do people never die young--suddenly, without warning? Begin at once to redeem the time. Say to yourself each morning- My soul, thou hast to-day a God to glorify, a Christ to imitate, a soul to save, a body to keep under, time to redeem, temptation to overcome--verily, I must be about my Fathers business. (Dean Goulburn.)

Attending to Gods business

Dr. Parr, in his Life of Archbishop Ussher, relates that while that prelate was once preaching in the church at Covent Garden, a message arrived from the Court that the king wished immediately to see him. He descended from the pulpit, listened to the command, and told the messenger that he was then, as he saw, employed in Gods business, but as soon as he had done he would attend upon the king to understand his pleasure; and then continued his sermon. (Baxendales Anecdotes.)

Self-forgetfulness in the Lords work

There is in New York a Christian lady, who surely is one of the bravest of the brave. It was found necessary that the surgeons should perform upon her a severe and dangerous operation, and for that purpose she was taken from her home to a private room in the City Hospital. The probabilities were against her living through the operation, but it was the only hope of relief. She stood face to face with probable death under the surgeons knife, to say nothing of her great suffering from her disease. It might have been supposed that her anxiety for her children, her own suffering, and her great danger would have so filled her mind, that she would have done well had she fixed her thoughts on heaven, borne her sufferings meekly, and waited in unshaken faith for her summons home. But she was one of Gods heroines. She found that the skilled nurse who had charge of her was not a Christian, and she lost sight of herself, in the desire to bless the soul of this stranger. She requested the nurse to read the Bible aloud to her, and selected such passages as she believed most likely to rouse the nurse to repentance. She talked to her about religion, prayed with her and asked God to give her this soul before He called her home; and the prayer was answered. We are glad to be able to add that the lady recovered, and it is likely she owed her life, humanly speaking, to her zeal for her Lords work. For her thoughts were thus withdrawn from herself, so that sorrow for her loved ones and shrinking from suffering and dangers did not wear her nerves and exhaust her vitality.

The spirit of Christs life

Such a sentence at this time in His career is solitary in its grandeur, and rears its head like a sunlit peak, flashing its golden light backward along His infancy and boyhood, revealing its hidden progress and interpreting its experiences; reaching forward to the day of His baptism, and even to the hour in which He offers Himself a sacrifice for the sins of the world; and proving that the element present in this early utterance makes this but one of a series of luminous summits of the same mountain range. Look into the consciousness out of which that saying leaps. It bespeaks a soul that lies like an unruffled lake in the broad and beaming sunshine of the Fathers face. It is as surprising in its frankness as it is marvellous in its fulness. As if it were a flash of a divinely religious genius, we listen and ponder and admire; as when, for the first time, the spirit is spell-bound before Angelos Moses, or when Milan Cathedral, a splendid mass of perfected thought and finished loveliness, first stands out revealed to our gaze in theclear sunlight of heaven. (J. Clifford, D. D.)

Christ our example

Wist ye not that I must be about My Fathers business? Let us then--First, state the circumstances in which He now was. Secondly, concede what was peculiar in His case. And thirdly, explain what is common between Him and you on this subject.

I. And, first, WITH REGARD TO THE CIRCUMSTANCES IN WHICH HE NOW WAS. A remarkable veil is thrown over the Saviours infancy, His childhood, His youth, and His private life. But there is a difference between Him and us, and I therefore pass on--

II. Secondly, TO CONCEDE WHAT WAS PECULIAR IN HIS CASE. There was much that was peculiar.

1. His relation was peculiar. God was His Father in such a sense, as He is not ours.

2. The business He had to accomplish for His Father was peculiar. He said in His intercessory prayer, I have glorified Thee on earth, I have finished the work which Thou gavest Me to do. This was, to interpose as a Mediator between God and us; to lay His hands on us both; to finish transgression. No, He trod the wine-press alone, and of the people there was none to help Him.

3. His obligations were peculiar. I must be about My Fathers business. He was not originally under this obligation. He incurred it for our sakes. Lastly, His answer was peculiar. Never was there before, and never can there be again, a child to be addressed in a state like this. Though, therefore, His reply was exactly pertinent as regarded Himself, yet it is not proper in all respects for others. Yet where there is no equality, there may be a likeness. Though in all things He has the pre-eminence, He is the model of the new creation, and we are predestinated as Christians to be conformed to the image of Gods own Son. And now I come to the--

III. Third part of my subject, in which I purpose TO EXPLAIN WHAT IS COMMON BETWEEN HIM AND YOU ON THIS SUBJECT.

1. God is your Father.

2. That there is a business which your Father has assigned you. We call it your Fathers business, because He will punish all who neglect it, and graciously reward those who observe it. What is this business? You have the Scriptures; search the Scriptures. There you will find it described both negatively and positively. There you will learn that it is to avoid that which is evil and to cling to what is right.

3. Remember that this business you are under an obligation to regard and pursue. It is not to be observed as a thing of indifference; not as an optional thing; but you must be about your Fathers business. You are under the obligation of justice in this business. Whatever talents you possess, or blessings you enjoy, they come from Him, and He never relinquished His property in any one of them.

4. His answer is to be your answer, to all those who would interfere with your concern in this cause, you must say as He did, Wist ye not that I must be about my Fathers business? There are many who will in various ways do this; but for the present we may rank them under five classes. And in the first class we put those whom I shall call wonderers. The apostle says, The natural man knoweth not the things of God, because they are spiritually discerned. They wonder with regard to your conduct. Second class, we put reproachers. That which you do from the conviction of conscience many will ascribe to obstinacy or hypocrisy, or to a wish to excite notice and to distinguish yourself. Third class, I put the hinderers. There are some persons who have nothing in the world to do themselves, and very naturally judge of others by themselves. Fourth class, I put bigots. There are some persons who seem to possess nothing like judgment, and are never able to distinguish between things that differ. Fifth and last class are complainers. But to conclude. Here is a beautiful example to the young. The youthful Redeemer, my dear children, of twelve years old, is saying, I must be about My Fathers business. Oh! be influenced by this example; and remember what He says, They that seek Me early shall find Me. (W. Jay.)

How we must make religion our business

From this example of our blessed Saviour, in making His Fathers work His business, we learn this great truth:--That it is the duty of every Christian to make religion his business. For the illustrating and unfolding of this, there are three questions to be resolved:--

I. What is meant by religion?

II. Why we must make religion our business?

III. What it is to make religion our business?

QUESTION

I. WHAT IS MEANT BY RELIGION?

QUESTION

II. The second question is, why WE MUST MAKE RELIGION OUR BUSINESS? I answer, because religion is a matter of the highest nature; while we are serving God, we are doing angels work.

QUESTION

III. The third question is, WHAT IT IS TO MAKE RELIGION OUR BUSINESS? I answer: it consists principally in these seven things:--

1. We make religion our business, when we wholly devote ourselves to religion. Stablish thy word unto thy servant, who is devoted to thy fear Psa_119:38); as a scholar who devotes himself to his studies makes learning his business.

2. We make religion our business, when we intend the business of religion chiefly. It doth principatum obtinere [gain the pre-eminence] Seek ye first the kingdom of God (Mat_6:33); first in time, before all things, and first in affection, above all things.

3. We make religion our business, when our thoughts are most busied about religion.

4. We make religion our business when our main end and scope is to serve God.

5. We make religion our business, when we do trade with God every day. Our conversation is in heaven (Php_3:20).

6. We make religion our business, when we redeem time from secular things for the service of God. A good Christian is the greatest monopolizer: he doth hoard up all the time he can for religion: At midnight I will rise to give thanks unto Thee (Psa_119:62).

7. We make religion our business when we serve God with all our might.

USE.

I. INFORMATION.

BRANCH

I. Hence learn, that there are few good Christians. Oh, how few make religion their business t Is he an artificer that never wrought in the trade? Is he Christian that never wrought in the trade of godliness t How few make religion their business!

1. Some make religion a complement, but not their business.

2. Others make the world their business. Who mind earthly things Php_3:19).

BRANCH

II. Hence see how hard it is to be saved.

USE

II. TRIAL. Let us deal impartially with our own souls, and put ourselves upon a strict trial before the Lord, whether we make religion our business. And for our better progress herein, I shall lay down ten signs and characters of a man that makes religion his business, and by these as by a gospel-touchstone, we may try ourselves:--

CHARACTER

I. He who makes religion his business cloth not place his religion only in externals. He is not a Jew who is one outwardly Rom_2:28).

CHARACTER

II. He who makes religion his business avoids everything that may be a hindrance to him in his work.

CHARACTER

III. He who makes religion his business hath a care to preserve conscience inviolable, and had rather offend all the world than offend his conscience. I thank God, whom I serve from my forefathers with pure conscience (2Ti_1:3).

CHARACTER

IV. He who makes religion his business, religion hath an influence upon all his civil actions.

CHARACTER

V. He who makes religion his business, is good in his calling and relation. Relative grace cloth much grace religion.

CHARACTER

VI. He who makes religion his business hath a care of his company. He dares not twist into a cord of friendship with sinners: I have not sat with vain persons (Psa_26:4). Diamonds will not cement with rubbish.

CHARACTER

VII. He who makes religion his business keeps his spiritual watch always by him. The good Christian keeps his watch candle always burning.

CHARACTER

VIII. He who makes religion his business, every day casts up his accounts to see how things go in his soul.

CHARACTER

IX. He who makes religion his business will be religious, whatever it cost him.

CHARACTER

X. He that makes religion his business lives every day as his last day.

RULES FOR MAKING RELIGION OUR BUSINESS.

RULE

I. If you would make religion your business, possess yourselves with this maxim, that religion is the end of your creation.

RULE

II. If you would make religion your business, get a change of heart wrought.

RULE

III. If you would make religion your business, set yourselves always under the eye of God.

RULE

IV. If you would make religion your business, think often of the shortness of time.

RULE

V. If you would make religion your business, get an understanding heart.

RULE

VI. If you would make religion your business, implore the help of Gods Spirit.

MOTIVE

I. The sweetness that is in religion. All her paths are pleasantness Pro_3:17).

MOTIVE

II. The second and last consideration is, that millions of persons have miscarried to eternity, for want of making religion their business. They have done something in religion, but not to purpose: they have begun, but have made too many stops and pauses. ( T. Watson, M. A.)

The business of youth

1. To regain the knowledge of God.

2. To renew intercourse with God. The business of youth is--

3. To return to the service of God, All we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned every one to his own way. Ye were as sheep going astray, but are now returned unto the shepherd and to the bishop of souls. By the service of God, I intend, a life of filial obedience to Gods will. His service does not consist in mere prayers and praises, in reading Scripture, and in attending public worship; even activity in spreading religion, blended with devotional exercises, does not compass Gods service; that service consists in doing and in suffering all Gods will, and His will embraces every act, and claims every hour. The business and the service in which you are occupied, may be made a course of duty to God: perform what you have to do, as unto God; do it according to Gods will; do it in the spirit of obedience to God; and in your worldly calling you will glorify Him; your conduct will exhibit the holiness, the justice, and the goodness of His will; your spirit will manifest His nature; your circumstances will display His power and His love; the place of your daily labour will be as much the temple of your ministrations, as the place where the seraphs cry; and your avocations as truly worship, as is their song of Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord Almighty. This is the business of youth: through the provisions of the gospel, to regain the knowledge of God--to renew intercourse with God--to return to the service of God--in one word, to Remember the Creator. Youth are expected to be thus occupied, by the highest authority and by the holiest beings.

This expectation is reasonable:--Because,

1. The season of youth is the right time for the commencement of this business--it is the right time, because the youth is as much the creature of God as he ever can be--it is the right time, because the time in which God requires it to be begun. In the days of thy youth, remember thy Creator. I do not deny that religion is often entered upon during manhood, and sometimes in old age; but it is too late; not too late for salvation, but too late to be right. God has not given men a discharge from His service during youth delay is, therefore, sin. Are mid-day and evening only ruled by the sun? does the earth nourish only the full-grown tree, or the full-blown flower? then why should lifes morning be without God, and the plants of youth without a place in Gods vineyard? The expectation is reasonable:--

2. Because, in the youthful stage of life, there is no peculiar impediment to the pursuit of this business. There are impediments, and they are great, and they are many: a fallen nature, an adversary in Satan, and an evil world, involve them. But these sources of opposition exist in every stage of life; and, I ask, when are they most full and powerful? Youth has nothing in it, as youth, presenting impediments. The peculiar features of early life are these:--The character is unformed--habits are not fixed--the spirits are buoyant--cares are not heavy; but in these features of youth we find facilities, not obstacles. The Scriptures and the ordinances of religion are as adapted to youth as to old age; if they supply strong meat for men, they yield also milk for babes. God is not slow to be found of the young, to hold fellowship with them, and to introduce them to His service. I love, saith God, them that love Me, and them that seek Me early shall find Me. The expectation is reasonable:--

3. Because, nothing so promotes the happiness of life, as the early pursuit of this business. Distinguish happiness from mere pleasurable feeling: the latter is not always the state of a godly man. But if a quickened intellect, if shelter from many moral evils, if fellowship with that Being whose wisdom and knowledge and influence are infinite, if peace of mind, if securing the chief end of life, if the love and care of God, if the prospect of a glorious immortality can constitute happiness, then it is found in the knowledge, in the fellowship, and in the service of God. The season of youth is the time in which happiness is most ardently sought; and if the young but become occupied with that which we have called the business of life, they not only secure in youth the purest and most solid enjoyment which can be found on earth, but they treasure up happiness for manhood and old age, yea, even to eternity. Godliness will promote the welfare of the young in their business. The godly youth attends to business with diligence and fidelity, and (performing his duties in the spirit of prayer) with the prospect of success. He performs everything as unto God--he acts by Gods guidance, he inherits Gods blessing. Any wise master will value greatly a pious apprentice, a godly assistant, a religious servant. Sunday religion--mere Bible-reading religion--mere church- and chapel-going religion, all employers, pious and profane, agree to abhor, but the reality in a youth all must prefer. (S. Martin, D. D.)

My Fathers business

Once, a great Roman emperor had conquered a great country and he had come back to Rome, and he was having what is called a triumph. He was going up with great pomp, chariots, and soldiers, and great hosts of people! A very little boy ran out of the crowd that was looking at the emperor, and was running up to him, when the crowd put him back, and said, Dont you know it is the emperor? The boy replied, Yes, he is your emperor, but he is my father! My father! That great king is your emperor, but he is my father! A man once said, Life is a thread; but the thread is in my Fathers hand, so it is all rightQ Do you understand that? What a blessed thing it is to be able to say, My Father! Beautiful words, arent they? I dont know any words like them. My Father! It is no use unless you can say, My. My dear boys and girls, can you look up into that great Fathers face, and say, He is my Father? I must be about my Fathers business. (J. Vaughan, M. A.)

Busy

I have read a little fable about a hard frost. When everything was frozen there was one little stream running still. It was not frozen, and somebody said to the little stream, Little stream, why arent you frozen? The reply was, I am too busy to be frozen. I am going too fast, too quickly, to be frozen. The best way is to be very busy--have plenty to do. (J. Vaughan, M. A. )

Fathers business

I should like to say something about a man who wrote a very clever book. At one time he did not believe in God. One day he was wanting a little water, and he knocked at a cottage door and asked for some water. A little girl opened the door, and he said to her, Will your mother give me a little water to drink? She replied, Come in, sir; my mother will be happy to give you some water. He went in, and saw the little girl had been reading the Bible; and he said to her, What, getting your task done? She said, No, sir, no task. I am reading my Bible.

Yes, he said, you are getting your tank out of the Bible. No, sir, she repeated, I am reading the Bible. He said to her, Do you love the Bible? In a childish way she replied, I thought everybody loved the Bible. This struck him very much. This little girl loved her Bible; it was no task to her, but a pleasure. He went home and read the Bible for himself. That was the beginning of it. She was doing her Fathers business. How did it become Gods business? And it is the great business of our day, to be reading the Bible, praying, thinking; and in our private devotions. (J. Vaughan, M. A. )

The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Luke

THE BOY IN THE TEMPLE

Luk 2:49.

A number of spurious gospels have come down to us, which are full of stories, most of them absurd and some of them worse, about the infancy of Jesus Christ. Their puerilities bring out more distinctly the simplicity, the nobleness, the worthiness of this one solitary incident of His early days, which has been preserved for us. How has it been preserved? If you will look over the narratives there will be very little difficulty, I think, in answering that question. Observing the prominence that is given to the parents, and how the story enlarges upon what they thought and felt, we shall not have much doubt in accepting the hypothesis that it was none other than Mary from whom Luke received such intimate details. Notice, for instance, ‘Joseph and His mother knew not of it.’ ‘They supposed Him to have been in the company.’ ‘And when they,’ i.e. Joseph and Mary, ‘saw Him, they were astonished’; and then that final touch, ‘He was subject to them,’ as if His mother would not have Luke or us think that this one act of independence meant that He had shaken off parental authority. And is it not a mother’s voice that says, ‘His mother kept all these things in her heart,’ and pondered all the traits of boyhood? Now it seems to me that, in these words of the twelve-year-old boy, there are two or three points full of interest and of teaching for us. There is-

I. That consciousness of Sonship.

I am not going to plunge into a subject on which certainly a great deal has been very confidently affirmed, and about which the less is dogmatised by us, who must know next to nothing about it, the better; viz. the inter-connection of the human and the divine elements in the person of Jesus Christ. But the context leads us straight to this thought-that there was in Jesus distinct growth in wisdom as well as in stature, and in favour with God and man. And now, suppose the peasant boy brought up to Jerusalem, seeing it for the first time, and for the first time entering the sacred courts of the Temple. Remember, that to a Jewish boy, his reaching the age of twelve made an epoch, because he then became ‘a son of the Law,’ and took upon himself the religious responsibilities which had hitherto devolved upon his parents. If we will take that into account, and remember that it was a true manhood which was growing up in the boy Jesus, then we shall not feel it to be irreverent if we venture to say, not that here and then, there began His consciousness of His Divine Sonship, but that that visit made an epoch and a stage in the development of that consciousness, just because it furthered the growth of His manhood.

Further, our Lord in these words, in the gentlest possible way, and yet most decisively, does what He did in all His intercourse with Mary, so far as it is recorded for us in Scripture-relegated her back within limits beyond which she tended to advance. For she said, ‘Thy father and I have sought Thee sorrowing,’ no doubt thus preserving what had been the usual form of speech in the household for all the previous years; and there is an emphasis that would fall upon her heart, as it fell upon none other, when He answered: ‘Wist ye not that I must be about My Father’s business?’ We are not warranted in affirming that the Child meant all which the Man afterwards meant by the claim to be the Son of God; nor are we any more warranted in denying that He did. We know too little about the mysteries of His growth to venture on definite statements of either kind. Our sounding-lines are not long enough to touch bottom in this great word from the lips of a boy of twelve; but this is clear, that as He grew into self-consciousness, there came with it the growing consciousness of His Sonship to His Father in heaven.

Now, dear brethren, whilst all that is unique, and parts Him off from us, do not let us forget that that same sense of Sonship and Fatherhood must be the very deepest thing in us, if we are Christian people after Christ’s pattern. We, too, can be sons through Him, and only through Him. I believe with all my heart in what we hear so much about now-’the universal Fatherhood of God.’ But I believe that there is also a special relation of Fatherhood and Sonship, which is constituted only, according to Scripture teaching in my apprehension, through faith in Jesus Christ, and the reception of His life as a supernatural life into our souls. God is Father of all men-thank God for it! And that means, that He gives life to all men; that in a very deep and precious sense the life which He gives to every man is not only derived from, but is kindred with, His own; and it means that His love reaches to all men, and that His authority extends over them. But there is an inner sanctuary, there is a better life than the life of nature, and the Fatherhood into which Christ introduces us means, that through faith in Him, and the entrance into our spirits of the Spirit of adoption, we receive a life derived from, and kindred with, the life of the Giver, and that we are bound to Him not only by the cords of love, but to obey the parental authority. Sonship is the deepest thought about the Christian life.

It was an entirely new thought when Jesus spoke to His disciples of their Father in heaven. It was a thrilling novelty when Paul bade servile worshippers realise that they were no longer slaves, but sons, and as such, heirs of God. It was the rapture of pointing to a new star flaming out, as it were, that swelled in John’s exclamation: ‘Beloved, now are we the sons of God!’ For even though in the Old Testament there are a few occasional references to Israel’s King or to Israel itself as being ‘God’s son,’ as far as I remember, there is only one reference in all the Old Testament to parental love towards each of us on the part of God, and that is the great saying in the Psa 103:13: ‘Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him.’ For the most part the idea connected in the Old Testament with the Fatherhood of God is authority: ‘If I be a Father, where is Mine honour?’ says the last of the prophets. But when we pass into the New, on the very threshold, here we get the germ, in these words, of the blessed thought that, as His disciples, we, too, may claim sonship to God through Him, and penetrate beyond the awe of Divine Majesty into the love of our Father God. Brethren, notwithstanding all that was unique in the Sonship of Jesus Christ, He welcomes us to a place beside Himself, and if we are the children of God by faith in Him, then are we ‘heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ.’

Now the second thought that I would suggest from these words is-

II. The sweet ‘must’ of filial duty.

‘How is it that ye sought Me?’ That means: ‘Did you not know where I should be sure to be? What need was there to go up and down Jerusalem looking for Me? You might have known there was only one place where you would find Me. Wist ye not that I must be about My Father’s business?’ Now, the last words of this question are in the Greek literally, as the margin of the Revised Version tells us, ‘in the things of My Father’; and that idiomatic form of speech may either be taken to mean, as the Authorised Version does, ‘about My Father’s business,’ or, with the Revised Version, ‘in My Father’s house.’ The latter seems the rendering most relevant in this connection, where the folly of seeking is emphasised-the certainty of His place is more to the point than that of His occupation. But the locality carried the occupation with it, for why must He be in the Father’s house but to be about the Father’s business, ‘to behold the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in His Temple’?

Do people know where to find us? Is it unnecessary to go hunting for us? Is there a place where it is certain that we shall be? It was so with this child Jesus, and it should be so with all of us who profess to be His followers.

All through Christ’s life there runs, and occasionally there comes into utterance, that sense of a divine necessity laid upon Him; and here is its beginning, the very first time that the word occurs on His lips, ‘I must.’ There is as divine and as real a necessity shaping our lives because it lies upon and moulds our wills, if we have the child’s heart, and stand in the child’s position. In Jesus Christ the ‘must’ was not an external one, but He ‘must be about His Father’s business,’ because His whole inclination and will were submitted to the Father’s authority. And that is what will make any life sweet, calm, noble. ‘The love of Christ constraineth us.’ There is a necessity which presses upon men like iron fetters; there is a necessity which wells up within a man as a fountain of life, and does not so much drive as sweetly incline the will, so that it is impossible for him to be other than a loving, obedient child.

Dear friend, have we felt the joyful grip of that necessity? Is it impossible for me not to be doing God’s will? Do I feel myself laid hold of by a strong, loving hand that propels me, not unwillingly, along the path? Does inclination coincide with obligation? If it does, then no words can tell the freedom, the enlargement, the calmness, the deep blessedness of such a life. But when these pull in two different ways, as, alas! they often do, and I have to say, ‘I must be about my Father’s business, and I had rather be about my own if I durst,’ which is the condition of a great many so-called Christian people-then the necessity is miserable; and slavery, not freedom, is the characteristic of such Christianity. And there is a great deal of such to-day.

And now one last word. On this sweet ‘must,’ and blessed compulsion to be about the Father’s business, there follows:

III. The meek acceptance of the lowliest duties.

‘He went down to Nazareth, and was subject to them.’ That is all that is told us about eighteen years, by far the largest part of the earthly life of Christ. Legend comes in, and for once not inappropriately, and tells us, what is probably quite true, that during these years, Jesus worked in the carpenter’s shop, and as one story says, ‘made yokes,’ or as another tells, made light implements of husbandry for the peasants round Nazareth. Be that as it may, ‘He was subject unto them,’ and that was doing the Father’s will, and being ‘about the Father’s business,’ quite as much as when He was amongst the doctors, and learning by asking questions as well as by hearkening to their instructions. Everything depends on the motive. The commonest duty may be ‘the Father’s business,’ when we are doing manfully the work of daily life. Only we do not turn common duty into the Father’s business, unless we remember Him in the doing of it. But if we carry the hallowing and quickening influence of that great ‘must’ into all the pettinesses, and paltrinesses, and wearinesses, and sorrows of our daily trivial lives, then we shall find, as Jesus Christ found, that the carpenter’s shop is as sacred as the courts of the Temple, and that to obey Mary was to do the will of the Father in heaven.

What a blessed transformation that would make of all lives! The psalmist long ago said: ‘One thing have I desired of the Lord, and that will I seek after, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life.’ We may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of our lives. We may be in one or other of the many mansions of the Father’s house where-ever we go, and may be doing the will of the Father in heaven in all that we do. Then we shall be at rest; then we shall be strong; then we shall be pure; then we shall have deep in our hearts the joyous consciousness, undisturbed by rebellious wills, that now ‘we are the sons of God,’ and the still more joyous hope, undimmed by doubts or mists, that ‘it doth not yet appear what we shall be’; but that wherever we go, it will be but passing from one room of the great home into another more glorious still. ‘I must be about my Father’s business’; let us make that the motto for earth, and He will say to us in His own good time ‘Come home from the field, and sit down beside Me in My house,’ and so we ‘shall dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.’

Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

2:49 Didn’t you know that I must be in my Father’s house? Jesus was aware that his greatest loyalty belonged to his Father in heaven.

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Luk 2:49. Εἶπε, He said) In a kind tone, without any agitation.—τί, what,[33] why) This is the first recorded word of Jesus, [and contains a summary of all His actions.—V. g.] With it may be compared His last words, as well before His death, as also before His ascension, Act 1:7-8. He did not blame them, because they lost Him; but because they thought it necessary to seek for Him; and He intimates both that He was not lost, and that He could have been found anywhere else but in the temple.—οὐκ ᾔδειτε, did ye not know) They ought to have known by the so many proofs which had been given. To know what is needful, tends to produce tranquillity of mind.—τοῖς) Comp. Joh 16:32 [“Ye shall be scattered every man to his own;” where the Margin of Engl. Bible has “to his own home”], ΤᾺ ἼΔΙΑ.—ΤΟῦ ΠΑΤΡΌς ΜΟΥ, of my Father) Whose claim on Jesus is of [infinitely] older standing than that of Joseph and Mary, [and Whom He had known from His tender years, without requiring any instruction in that respect on the part of His parents, who, we may take it for granted, were not aware of the fact.—V. g.] By that very fact, He declares Himself Lord of the temple: He afterwards avowed this more openly, Joh 2:16; Mat 21:12-13. [Moreover the same Being, whom He looked to (had regard to) in His first words as recorded by the Evangelist, He looked to also in His last, namely, His Father, saying, “Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit” (Luk 23:46).—Harm., p. 59.]—δεῖ, it is necessary) He thus informs them that He has not violated the obedience due to them; and yet He thereby, in some measure, declares Himself emancipated from their control, and whets the attention of His parents; Luk 2:51.—εἶναί με, that I be) Comp. Heb 3:6.

[33] What reason was there that ye sought me: as she had asked τί; so His reply begins with the same word.—ED.

Bengel's Gnomon of the New Testament — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1860) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Luk 2:49 . ἐν τοῖς τοῦ πατρός μον , in the things of my Father (“about my Father’s business,” A. V [36] ); therefore in the place or house of my Father (R. V [37] ); the former may be the verbal translation, but the latter is the real meaning Jesus wished to suggest. In this latter rendering patristic and modern interpreters in the main concur. Note the new name for God compared with the “Highest” and the “ Despotes ” in the foregoing narrative. The dawn of a new era is here.

[36] Authorised Version.

[37] Revised Version.

The Expositor's Greek Testament, edited by W. Robertson Nicoll (1897–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

49. ἐν τοῖς τοῦ πατρός μου, ‘in my Father’s house.’ The Syriac, Origen, Epiphanius, Theodoret, Theophylact, and Euthymius agree in this rendering. The Vulg[68] (like the Arabic and Aethiopic) leaves the meaning vague in his quae Patris mei sunt, and Wyclif follows the Vulgate “in those things that be of my Father.” See Excursus I. These words are very memorable as being the first recorded words of Jesus. They bear upon them the stamp of authenticity in their half-vexed astonishment, and perfect mixture of dignity and humility. It is remarkable too, that He does not accept the phrase “Thy father” which Mary had employed. “Did ye not know?” recalls their fading memory of Who He was; and the “I must” lays down the law of devotion to His Father by which He was to walk even to the Cross. Psa 40:7-9. “My meat is to do the will of Him that sent Me and to finish His work,” Joh 4:34. For His last recorded words, see Act 1:7-8.

[68] Vulg. Vulgate.

τοῦ πατρός μου. This is the first germ of our Lord’s special revelation of the fatherhood of God. It is remarkable that Christ always says ὁ πατήρ μου (with the article) but teaches us to say πατὴρ ἡμῶν (without the article): e.g. in Joh 20:17 it is. “I ascend unto the Father of me and Father of you.” God is His Father in a different way from that in which He is ours. He is our Father only because He is His Father. See Pearson On the Creed, Art. i.

EXCURSUS I

ON THE MEANING OF ἐν τοῖς τοῦ πατρός μου IN Luk 2:49 (THE FIRST RECORDED WORDS OF JESUS)

In my Life of Christ (I. 78) I deliberately adopted the rendering of the English Version, but my view of the meaning has since been changed by a monograph kindly sent me by the Rev. Dr Field of Norwich, from which I here borrow some illustrations.

It might seem that the words lose something of their force and beauty by the adoption of the rendering “in my Father’s house;” but we must remember (1) that they are the words of a young and guileless Boy who was “subject unto His parents;” (2) that they must be interpreted with reference to their context. Joseph and His mother might have known that He would be “about His Father’s business” without knowing where He was. The answer had reference to His mother’s gentle reproach about their agonising search for Him. His answer is “Why this search? might you not have conjectured that I was in my Father’s House?” The other meaning would therefore be less appropriate. It is also less supported. We have no exact instance of ἐν τοῖς τινος εἶναι meaning “to be about a person’s business,” though we have something like it, e.g. 1Ti 4:15 ἐν τούτοις ἴσθι, and the Latin “totus in illis.” This idiom seems however to imply an absolute absorption which is not here intended. If the word ὅλος had been added the sense and the idiom would indeed have been clear, and there would have been a distant analogy to the phrase employed in the story that when the young Alexander talked with the Persian Ambassadors he did not ask about the Golden Vine, the king’s dress, &c. but “was entirely occupied with the most important matters of the government” (ὅλος ἐν τοῖς κυριωτάτοις ἧν τῆς ἡγεμονίας) so that the strangers were amazed (ἐκπεπλῆχθαι), Plut. II. 342. But had our Lord meant to say ‘Know ye not that I must be absorbed in my Father’s work?’ He would have expressed His meaning less ambiguously, and if He spoke in Aramaic those who recorded the sentence in Greek would hardly have left the meaning doubtful.—On the other hand “in my Father’s House” is the ordinary and natural meaning of the words.—Οἰκήμασι or δώμασι might be understood, but in fact the article alone—τὰ, ‘the things or belongings of’—was colloquially used in this sense; e. g. ᾆ τὰ Λύκωνος (Theocr. II. 76), ‘where Lycon’s house is;’ εἰς τὰ τοῦ ἀδελφοῦ, ‘into my brother’s’ (Lysias c. Eratosth. p. 195), ἐν τοῖς τοῦ δεσπότου ἑαυτοῦ εἶναι αὐτὸν ἀνάγκη (Chrysost. Hom. LII. in Gen.), ‘wherever he may chance to go he must be in his Master’s house.’ Est 7:9, ἐν τοῖς Ἀμὰν, ‘in Haman’s house’ (LXX[425]); Job 18:20, ἐν τοῖς αὐτοῦ ζήσονται ἕτεροι, ‘others shall live in his house.’ See too Gen 41:51, LXX[426] In this interpretation the Vulgate, Arabic, Ethiopic, and Peshito Syriac concur, as do Origen, Theophylact, Euthymius, Epiphanius, and Theodoret.

[425] LXX. Septuagint.

[426] LXX. Septuagint.

But it may be asked ‘may we not admit both meanings, one as primary and one as secondary?’ This is the view adopted by Alford and others; but I agree with Dr Field in the remark that “it is certain that only one of the meanings was in the mind of the artless Child from whose lips they fell, and that that meaning” (so far as the mere significance of the words was concerned) “was rightly apprehended by those who heard them.”

Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge University Press, 1896; 21 vols, various authors incl. Carr, Maclear, Plummer, Farrar, Lumby, Moule, M. R. James, Simcox) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

about my Father's business--literally, "in" or "at My Fathers," that is, either "about My Father's affairs," or "in My Father's courts"--where He dwells and is to be found--about His hand, so to speak. This latter shade of meaning, which includes the former, is perhaps the true one, Here He felt Himself at home, breathing His own proper air. His words convey a gentle rebuke of their obtuseness in requiring Him to explain this. "Once here, thought ye I should so readily hasten away? Let ordinary worshippers be content to keep the feast and be gone; but is this all ye have learnt of Me?" Methinks we are here let into the holy privacies of Nazareth; for what He says they should have known, He must have given them ground to know. She tells Him of the sorrow with which His father and she had sought Him. He speaks of no Father but one, saying, in effect, My Father has not been seeking Me; I have been with Him all this time; "the King hath brought me into His chambers . . . His left hand is under my head, and His right hand doth embrace me" (Sol 1:4; Sol 2:6). How is it that ye do not understand? (Mar 8:21).

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Verse 49. How is it that ye sought me?] Is not this intended as a gentle reproof? Why had ye me to seek? Ye should not have left my company, when ye knew I am constantly employed in performing the will of the Most High.

My Father's business?] Εν τοις του πατρος μου, My Father's concerns. Some think that these words should be translated, In my Father's house; which was a reason that they should have sought him in the temple only. As if he had said, Where should a child be found, but in his father's house? This translation is defended by Grotius, Pearce, and others; and is the reading of the Syriac, later Persic, and Armenian versions. Our Lord took this opportunity to instruct Joseph and Mary concerning his Divine nature and mission. My Father's concerns. This saying, one would think, could not have been easily misunderstood. It shows at once that he came down from heaven. Joseph had no concerns in the temple; and yet we find they did not fully comprehend it. How slow of heart is man to credit any thing that comes from God!

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

(49) Wist ye not . . .?—This is, as it were, the holy Child’s defence against the implied reproach in. His mother’s question. Had they reflected, there need have been no seeking; they would have known what He was doing and where He was.

About my Father’s business.—Literally, in the things that are My Father’s—i.e., in His work, the vague width of the words covering also, perhaps, the meaning “in My Father’s house,” the rendering adopted in the old Syriac version. The words are the first recorded utterance of the Son of Man, and they are a prophecy of that consciousness of direct Sonship, closer and more ineffable than that of any other of the sons of men, which is afterwards the dominant idea of which His whole life is a manifestation. We find in a Gospel in other respects very unlike St. John’s, the germ of what there comes out so fully in such words as, “My Father worketh hitherto, and I also work” (Joh_5:17), “I and My Father are One” (Joh_10:30). The words are obviously emphasised as an answer to Mary’s words, “Thy father.” Subject unto His parents as He had been before and was afterwards, there was a higher Fatherhood for Him than that of any earthly adoption.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

49. about my Father’s business] Rather, in my Father’s house. See Excursus I. These words are very memorable as being the first recorded words of Jesus. They bear with them the stamp of authenticity in their half-vexed astonishment, and perfect mixture of dignity and humility. It is remarkable too, that He does not accept the phrase “Thy father” which Mary had employed. “Did ye not know?” recalls their fading memory of Who He was; and the “I must” lays down the law of devotion to His Father by which He was to walk even to the Cross. Psa_40:7-9. “My meat is to do the will of Him that sent Me and to finish His work,” Joh_4:34. For His last recorded words, see Act_1:7-8.

my Father’s] it is remarkable that Christ always says ὁ πατήρ μου (with the article) but teaches us to say πατὴρ ἡμῶν (without the article): e. g. in Joh_20:17 it is, “I ascend unto the Father of me and Father of you.” God is His Father in a different way from that in which He is ours. He is our Father only because He is His Father. See Pearson On the Creed, Art. i.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

And they understood not the saying,.... What he meant by his Father's house, or his Father's business, and the necessity of his being there, and about that:

which he spake unto them; at that time, and as above related.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

49 And he said unto them, How is it that ye sought me? wist ye not that I must be about my Father’s business?

Ver. 49. Wist ye not] Men, be they pleased or displeased, God must be obeyed.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

How is it ... - “Why” have ye sought me with so much anxiety? “Mary” should have known that the Son of God was safe; that his heavenly Father would take care of him, and that he could do nothing amiss.

Wist ye not - “Know ye not.” You had reason to know. You knew my design in coming into the world, and that design was “superior” to the duty of obeying earthly parents, and they should be willing always to give me up to the proper business for which I live.

My Father’s business - Some think that this should be translated “in my Father’s house” - that is, in the temple. Jesus reminded them here that he came down from heaven; that he had a higher Father than an earthly parent; and that, even in early life, it was proper that he should be engaged in the work for which he came. He did not enter, indeed, upon his public work for eighteen years after this; yet still the work of God was “his” work, and always, even in childhood, it was proper for him to be engaged in the great business for which he came down from heaven.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

I must be about the things that are my Father’s? By these words he shewed, that not St. Joseph, but only God, was his father. (Witham)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

Some read it—that I must be in my Father’s house? Then the sense must be, why did you seek me in any other place than the temple, that is, my Father’s house, there lieth my business. But the phrase seemeth rather to signify as we translate it. He doth here signify that God was his Father: that Mary might have known, not only from the revelation of the angel, but because she had not known man; but she did not yet fully understand his Divine office as Mediator, and the great Prophet promised, that should reveal the will of God to people; much less did she yet fully and distinctly understand, that he was by nature the eternal Son of God: she believed so much as was revealed to her clearly concerning Christ.

It is said,

they understood not the saying which he spake unto them; they had not a clear and distinct understanding of it. In the mean time, from these words of our Saviour, and this fact of his, we may learn, that inferiors are not in all things under the power of their most natural superiors; particularly not in such things wherein they cannot yield obedience to them without a disobedience unto God. There are some cases wherein, instead of obeying, we are bound to hate both father and mother by our Saviour’s precept.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

49. How is it—The first word of Jesus’s utterance on record. It exhibits even in this his childhood the characteristics of his style of discourses even in his later years. Especially do we find those characteristics which belong to the discourses preserved by John, and which are by rationalists pretended to be John’s own composition. We find the same parabolic force, which conceals the meaning under the figure; for the moment not understood, yet so remembered as to be understood hereafter.

How is it that ye sought me?—Why did ye not come directly here? Where else could I be than in this holy, blessed spot? Strange that so beautiful a gush of childlike holy joy, at the delightfulness of his present place, should be interpreted into an expression of disrespect to his parents!

Wist—Knew.

My Father’s business—There seems to be a strong reason for giving this the meaning assigned by many scholars, Know ye not that I must be in my Father’s house? Why seek me? There is one sole blessed place suitable for me, and where I might be expected to linger. Yet both the terms house and business come in fact to the same thing. If he was in his Father’s house it must be on his Father’s business. If on his Father’s business where but in his Father’s house?

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

How is it that ye sought me? To the gently veiled reproach of Mary, Jesus replies, apparently with wonderment, with another question. It had come upon him so quietly and yet with such irresistible force that the temple of God was his real earthly home, that he marvelled at his mother"s slowness of comprehension. Why should she have been surprised at his still lingering in the sacred courts? Did she not know who he was, and whence he came? Then he added, Wist ye not that I must be about my Father"s business? There was an expression of Mary"s which evidently distressed the Child Jesus. Godet even thinks that he discerns a kind of shudder in his quick reply to Mary"s "thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing." "In my Father"s house, where my Father"s work is being done, there ought I to be busied. Didn"t you know this?" But the twelve silent uneventful years of life at Nazareth, the poor home, the village carpentry, the natural development of the sacred Child, had gradually obscured for Mary and Joseph the memories of the infancy. They had not forgotten them, but time and circumstances had covered them with a veil. Now they were very gently reminded by the Boy"s own quiet words of what had happened twelve years before. Scholars hesitate whether or not to adopt the rendering of the old Syriac Version, "in my Father"s house," instead of the broader and vaguer "about my Father"s business," as the Greek will allow either translation. It seems to us the best to retain the old rendering we love so well, "about my Father"s business." The whole spirit of Jesus" after-teaching leads us irresistibly to this interpretation of the Master"s first recorded saying.

The dawn of sacred duty: a sermon to the young.

"Wist ye not that I must be about my Father"s business?" There comes a time in our history usually in the days of later youth or early manhood when all things begin to wear a more serious aspect to us; when "the powers of the world to come" arrest us; when we ask ourselves very grave questions; when we have to confront a new future. It is the dawn of sacred duty in the human soul.

I AS IT PRESENTED ITSELF TO JESUS CHRIST. His parents thought that his absence from their company was due to thoughtlessness or to absent-mindedness; they supposed it was to be explained by the fact that their Son was still a boy. On the contrary, the one thing that accounted for it was that he was beginning to be a man; that the burden of manhood"s responsibilities was already resting on his shoulders; that the gravest solicitudes were already stirring in his soul. And the form which this sacred anxiety took was a holy and filial concern to be "about his Father"s business." It had dawned upon his mind that his heavenly Father had sent him into the world to accomplish a special work, and that the hour had struck when he must address himself to this high and noble task. Therefore it behoved him to learn all that he could possibly acquire, to understand the things he had been taught, to receive from parents and teachers every truth he could discover and preserve. And the deep earnestness of his own spirit made it a matter of surprise that others, especially his elders and superiors, should not have perceived the same thing. "Wist ye not," he said wonderingly, "that I must be about my Father"s business?

II AS IT APPEARS TO OUR MINDS NOW. There are various ways in which sacred duty may dawn on the human mind; the special form which this holy earnestness will take is affected by peculiarities of mental constitution, of parental training, of personal experience. It may be a deep sense of:

1. The value of the human soul, with its possibilities of nobility on the one hand and of degradation on the other.

2. The nearness and the greatness of the invisible and eternal world.

3. The seriousness of human life in view of the glorious and true success to which it sometimes attains, and also of the pitiable failure into which it sometimes sinks.

4. The strength and weight of filial and fraternal obligations. How much is due to the earthly father, and how wise it is to be guided by his ripe experience! how serious a thing it is to be setting an example to those who are younger!

5. The attractiveness of Jesus Christ his purity and lovableness, his worthiness of the full affection and devotion of the human heart.

6. The claims of the heavenly Father, of him from whom we came, in whom we live, and by whom we are momently sustained; of him who has loved us with so patient and so ceaseless an affection. Must we not listen when he speaks, respond to his call, be found in his service, become the object of his Divine approval? When this solemn and sacred hour dawns upon the mind of the young, it is a time

a. for profound and prolonged consideration;

b. for earnest prayer;

c. for unreserved consecration; it will then prove to be a time for

d. true and lasting joy. C. (Psa_108:1)

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Why sought ye me? - He does not blame them for losing, but for thinking it needful to seek him: and intimates, that he could not be lost, nor found any where, but doing the will of a higher parent.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

Observe here, that Christ blames not his parents for their solicitous care of him, but shows them how able he was to live without any dependency upon them and their care; and also to let them understand, that higher respects had called him away; that as he had meat to eat, so he had work to do, which they knew not of. For, say he, Wist ye not that I must be about my Father’s business? As if he had said, "Although I owe respect to you as my natural parents, yet my duty to my heavenly Father must be preferred. I am about his work, promoting his glory, and propagating his truth."

We have also a Father in heaven. O how good it is to steal away from our earthly distractions that we may employ ourselves immediately in his service! That when the world makes enquiry after us, we may say, as our Saviour did before us, Wist ye not that I must be about my Father’s business?

William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

49. How is it that ye sought me? Did ye not know that I must be in my Father's house? That is, in the temple, where they did find him. They ought to have come there at once. These words are the first in which he reveals his consciousness of his supernatural birth.

B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.

49. τί ὅτι ὲζητεῖτέ με; Not a reproof, but an expression of surprise: comp. Mar 2:16. He is not surprised at their coming back for Him, but at their not knowing where to find Him.

Here also א has the pres. ζητεῖτε.

ἐν τοῖς τοῦ πατρός μου. “Engaged in My Father’s business” is a possible translation: comp. τὰ τοῦ Θεοῦ (Mat 16:23; Mar 8:33); τὰ τοῦ Κυρίου (1Co 7:32, 1Co 7:34). But “in My Father’s house” is probably right, as in Gen 41:51 Irenæus (Hær v. 36, 2) paraphrases the ἐν τῇ οἰκίᾳ of Joh 14:2 by ἐν τοῖς: comp. ἐν τοῖς Ἀμάν (Est 7:9); ἐν τοῖς αὐτοῦ (Job 18:19); τὰ Λύκωνος (Theoc. 2:76). Other illustrations in Wetst. Arm. and Diatess-Tat. have in domo patris mei. The words indicate His surprise that His parents did not know where to find Him. His Father’s business could have been done elsewhere. There is a gentle but decisive correction of His Mother’s words, “Thy father and I,” in the reply, “Where should a child be (δεῖ), but in his father’s house? and My Father is God.” For the δειʼ see on 4:43. It is notable that the first recorded words of the Messiah are an expression of His Divine Sonship as man; and His question implies that they knew it, or ought to know it. But there is nothing which implies that He had just received a revelation of this relationship. These first recorded words are the kernel of the whole narrative, and the cause of its having been preserved. They must mean more than that Jesus is a son of Abraham, and therefore has God as His Father. His parents would easily have understood so simple a statement as that.

International Critical Commentary — older volumes (1896–1929), various authors — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

And he said. The first saying of Jesus which is preserved to us. Must [δει] . Lit., it is necessary, or it behoves. A word often used by Jesus concerning his own appointed work, and expressing both the inevitable fulfilment of the divine counsels and the absolute constraint of the principle of duty upon himself. See Mt 16:21; Mt 26:54; Mr 8:31; Luk 4:43; Luk 9:22; Luk 13:33; Luk 24:7, 26, 46; Joh 3:14; Joh 4:4; Joh 12:34. About my Father 's business [εν τοις του πατρος] . Lit., in the things of my Father. The words will bear this rendering; but the Rev. is better, in my Father 's house. Mary 's question was not as to what her son had been doing, but as to where he had been. Jesus, in effect, answers, "Where is a child to be found but in his Father 's house ?"

Marvin R. Vincent, Word Studies in the New Testament (1887–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.