was Jesus born into poverty ?

And Jesus saith unto him, The foxes have holes, and the birds of the heaven have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head. Mt 8:20

I don't think His birth was any different; His parents had to wrap Him in rags when He was born.

All the more awe and marvel that such a one could impact the course of history as much as He has.

 

1 Corinthians 1:25, 26
25. Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men.
26. For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called:

 

In 2 Cor. 8:9 Paul stated, "though He was was rich, He became poor, so that through His poverty, may become rich".

I see it that He came to the poor because rich people trusted in their wealth and not God. Now, you can be rich in $$$, and poor in spirit and God saves you. But the rich loved their wealth too much. It not the position of their $$$ that was the problem, but their heart. For out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh(Matt. 12:34, Luke 6:45). Only God can change their heart.

 

Excellent pertinent passage there Willis!

 

It seems clear that Joseph and his family were not in the main class of the poor of the time. Those were the agricultural day laborers like the ones in the parable who were waiting to be hired for work in the vineyard in Matthew 20:1-16, which I won't quote here for length. I feel certain most of us on this thread know the story anyway.

Joseph, by contrast, was a skilled craftsman, his profession being definitively named in the tax collector's gospel.

Matthew 13, NASB
55 "Is not this the carpenter's son? Is not His mother called Mary, and His brothers, James and Joseph and Simon and Judas?" ​

The Greek word tekton means not so much "carpenter" as it does "builder," which even in those days was a trade of prosperity, not poverty. Very likely he found good building work at the Romanized city of Sepphoris, near Nazareth.

More than 30 years later Jesus himself was known as a tekton.

Mark 6
3 "Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon? Are not His sisters here with us?" And they took offense at Him.​

But by the time of his ministry he had apparently moved away from Nazareth to Capernaum. Very likely one reason for this was that that was the home of his relative Zebedee, whose fishing business was profitable enough to support not only his sons James and John but also hired workers, the "servants" alongside of whom James and John worked when Jesus called them in Mark 1:19, 20. So, although his standard of living was surely well below what would now in the West be considered the poverty line, so would most of the professions of the Mideast in the first century. Jesus was by no means among the poor of his own time.

Yes, Jesus, it is said, did become a homeless wanderer who had "no place to lay his head" as stated in Matthew 8:20, but He also apparently rented or bought a house in Capernaum.

Mark 9
33 They came to Capernaum; and when He was in the house, He began to question them, "What were you discussing on the way?" ​

Jesus chose poverty, not because of His family background, but because He chose to follow his Father’s call into itinerant ministry.

 

Carpenters in a land that's mostly desert... I guess that carpenters were poor folk.

Rob

 

You'd guess wrong, Rob. Carpenters in a desert are a highly valued commodity. But you've made an erroneous supposition. Nazareth wasn't in a desert.

The city of Nazareth was one of the most beautiful places in all of Galilee. It was situated on the most southern of the ranges of lower Galilee, among the hills which are referred to as the south ridges of Lebanon, just before they sink down into the plain of Esdraelon (about 10 miles away). A rocky gorge descends southward to a plain between two craggy hills. It was situated on the southeast slope of a hollow pear shaped basin, which descends gradually from the elevated plateau 1500 feet above sea level and opens out through a steep winding way (the stem of the pear) into the plain of Esdraelon, 1000 feet lower. It was a secluded village lying in a basin, surrounded by the Nazareth limestone hills, which were said to "rise round it like the edge of a shell to guard it from intrusion.", and the cedar forests of Lebanon supplied much of the lumber for the age's high-dollar construction. The Romans had the transportation method for bringing the supplies south, and the trip wasn't very long. There were also cypress forests in Israel's mountains. Read Haggai 1:8.

Where do you think all those houses in Jerusalem came from? They weren't mud huts. They were stone and stucco built on a wood frame. That is proven through the archeological explorations of the ancient tells in the city that new construction hasn't obliterated.

Carpenters weren't poor. They were in great demand. The trade suited Christ's mission prior to His Earthly ministry.

 

Looks like He's continuing to work it in Heaven ...
John 14:2 NKJV
In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.

 

Well, remember the gifts the wise men gave Jesus, I believe these gifts may have provided for the family when Joseph had to flee into Egypt. They must have lived in Egypt for at least two years, as that is when Herod killed all the children in Bethlehem.

I doubt Jesus was poor, carpenters make good money, and the scriptures say Joseph was a just man. He likely worked very hard and did an excellent job, and probably had a great reputation and plenty of customers.

 

Good points. I had not thought about the gold, frankencene given to Him...

 

A sacrifice had to be made 8 days after the birth of a child. It was to be a one year old lamb and a turtledove or young pigeon. If one could not afford a lamb, then 2 birds were accepted. Mary offered 2 birds indicating they could not afford the lamb offering.

 

The gifts offered by the magi were also symbolic.

Gold = divinity

Frankincense = holiness

Myrr = used for burial

 

I agree. I have to wonder if the people He built for prior to His 30th birthday ever marveled at how straight and plumb everything was. I've a feeling it was perfect. It would have been a characteristic of His work that people remembered when He started speaking publicly about His Father.

I imagine He did piecework, too, in the winter when building was slow. In Matthew 11:28-30 He spoke of taking His yoke upon us, it being easy and his burden light. It is a reference to the yokes made for the oxen in training. They were yoked to an older ox, who knew the moves, and upon which the yoke was tight, but loose upon the trainee. It allowed for the leadership of the older ox to be felt through the younger oxen's side of the yoke, but didn't chafe, bind or cut, because it was loose. Until he learned, he was kept in the looser yoke to learning didn't hurt. That's how we are to follow Him, but climbing into a yoke with Him.

But the farmers for whom He made yokes? Do you suppose they ever noticed they never had to bring the yoke back to be refitted, shaved down or remade, for the older ox? It was always perfect. You know it had to be. Both the yoke, and the ox, were made by Him.

 

He came unto his own. He called middleclass tradesmen to be His Apostles.

Jn 12:8
8 For the poor always ye have with you; but me ye have not always.

Us and them.

 

Rich and poor are relative terms, not absolute.

Like in Jn 12:8 that prophet posted for us above, the poor will always be with us. Why is that? Because there will always be some that are poor relative to the others around us. The poor in America live better than the wealthy in most of the world. The poor in most of the world today live better than the rich in the days that Christ walked the earth.

Jesus gave up the riches of heaven and became poor in comparison coming to earth.

 

Think that He came to a family that was lower to middle class, a working class family, that is unless you holdto charasmatic theology tht he came as the king, that he had riches, fine clothes etc!