Luke 2:46 And it came to pass, that after three days they found him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the doctors, both hearing them, and asking them questions.

When I began this series, I made an assumption that Jesus might have very well been Bar Mitzvah’d during the Passover season. This is an assumption based on Jewish traditions and issues which are not clearly identified within Luke 2. It is through my studies and understandings that I draw this conclusion which is conjecture not fact, which is opinion not theology. This is what Matthew Henry had to say about Luke 2:46.

“The third day they found him in the temple, in some of the apartments belonging to the temple, where the doctors of the law kept, not their courts, but their conferences rather, or their schools for disputation; and there they found him sitting in the midst of them (v. 46), not standing as a catechumen to be examined or instructed by them, for he had discovered such measures of knowledge and wisdom that they admitted him to sit among them as a fellow or member of their society.” Matthew Henry

Joining these men by sitting in their midst entreats Jesus as a man, as one of them, which speaks only to their attitude towards Jesus and not that of Jesus Himself. The twelfth year of age in Jewish custom is a preparatory year. It is a year which does not free that child to act as a man, but to prepare him for his obligations. Jesus, being perfect in performance in all things would never, in His perfection, have overstepped His bounds and sat with the elders without consideration of His duties and obligations.

We can for all practical purposes feel compelled to understand the possibilities surrounding scriptures. We can say, “It is my opinion”, “I see the possibility.”, even go so far as saying “It is my understanding.”; but we must not put forth these things as doctrine and truth. To do so would be to overstep our duties and responsibilities.

Jesus Christ in truth may be revealed in private but that does not give us the right to make doctrine of it. The Holy Bible alone dictates doctrine.

“but his mother kept all these sayings in her heart.”, and so should we.