The Bible Says
Luke 2:41-51 Meaning

There are no apparent parallel Gospel accounts of Luke 2:41-51.

In Luke 2:41-51, during a Passover trip to Jerusalem, Jesus remains behind in the temple, astonishing the teachers with His understanding, and when found by His anxious parents He explains that He must be in His Father’s house.

Luke begins his account of this event from Jesus’s boyhood with a general observation:

Now His parents went to Jerusalem every year at the Feast of the Passover (v 41).

The Feast of the Passover (also known as a Seder) recalled the way God delivered Israel out of slavery in Egypt-by sending His angel to slay every firstborn son of Egypt because they had not spread the blood of a sacrificial lamb over their doorpost at night, as He had commanded. The angel of the Lord passed over those houses which had the lamb’s blood on their doorposts. God commanded the Israelites to observe the Passover every year to remember what He had done for them.

Passover also pointed to God’s greater deliverance that would be fulfilled in the Messiah. Jesus is our Passover lamb, who would take away the sin of the world (John 1:29, 1 Corinthians 5:7). Decades after this event in Jesus’s childhood, He would be crucified at Passover.

Follow this link to learn more about how Jesus is the fulfillment of Passover.

Jesus’s parents (Mary His mother, and Joseph His adopted father) continued to observe the Law of the Lord after they relocated to Nazareth (Luke 2:39). This meant traveling the roughly three-to-five day journey to Jerusalem every year at the Feast of Passover.

Adult males were required to observe the Passover every year, which included offering a sacrifice-which was done in the temple in Jerusalem. So only Joseph was required by Law to go. Mary was not required by Law to go to Jerusalem, but she went with Joseph anyway.

The Law of Moses provided gracious allowances for Israelites who were unable to observe the Passover at its appointed time because of ceremonial uncleanness (such as from contact with a dead body) or being on a distant journey (Numbers 9:10-11). Rather than excluding these individuals, God permitted them to celebrate the Passover exactly one month later-on the 14th day of the second month.

Luke’s comment that Joseph and Mary went to Jerusalem every year at the Feast of the Passover infers that they were particularly dedicated in the Passover’s observance at the proper time. Joseph went every year at the Feast and did not use excuses to not attend the Feast. His faithfulness is consistent with what the Bible says about him-that he was a righteous man (Matthew 1:19a).

After making this general observation that they went every year at Passover, Luke begins to tell of a specific year when Jesus’s family went to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover.

And when He became twelve, they went up there according to the custom of the Feast (v 42).

It is not entirely clear if Joseph and Mary brought their children with them every year to Jerusalem at the Passover. Luke’s language may suggest that they did not bring their children (including Jesus) with them to the Feast of Passover until they had attained the age of twelve.

If they did not bring Jesus until He was twelve, then this may have been the first time Jesus visited Jerusalem since His parents fled to Egypt and returned to Nazareth with Him. We know they brought Jesus to Jerusalem for His dedication to the Lord in the Temple when He was one month old (Luke 2:22-23). And Jesus would likely have no human memory of this event. Further, it would be unlikely that He would have had many if any solid memories of visiting Jerusalem when He lived in nearby Bethlehem, because His family departed to Egypt when He was about two years old (Matthew 2:13-16).

When Jesus was twelve years old, His parents brought Him with them, and they went up to Jerusalem according to the prescribed custom of the Passover Feast.

This very well may have been the first time Jesus was aware that He was going to Jerusalem-the city of God’s holy temple and where His ancestor David sat on the throne.

Jerusalem was a large city whose population swelled with pilgrims such as Jesus’s family during the time of Passover. By considering the number of lambs that were slaughtered in the temple during the Passover, the ancient Josephus estimated that over 1 million Jews were typically in Jerusalem for this holy Feast.

Jesus’s hometown of Nazareth was a tiny village by comparison. Visiting Jerusalem must have been memorable and exciting for a twelve-year-old boy partaking in the holy day that celebrated Israel’s deliverance from Egypt and founding as a nation.

Twelve years was a milestone in the life of a Jewish boy.

Twelve was the age when Jewish boys began their apprenticeship. Jesus apprenticed under His adopted father-Joseph-as a carpenter (most likely stonemason) (Matthew 13:44a, Mark 6:3a). And He likely began His apprenticeship with Joseph that year.

(We will explain more about the significance of how Jesus’s apprenticeship plays into the events of Luke 2:41-51 later in this commentary).

Twelve was also considered the final age of Jewish boyhood.

At thirteen, Jewish boys had their Bar Mitzvah, which commemorated entrance into religious adulthood and personal responsibility before God. At thirteen, Jewish males became personally accountable for observing the commandments of the Mosaic Law. At age twelve, a Jewish boy was not considered responsible-it was the boy’s parents who were responsible for their son’s spiritual and religious obligations.

This visit to Jerusalem at Passover may have been intended to be part of Jesus’s preparation for His Bar Mitzvah, the following year.

Because the events of Luke 2:41-51 occurred when Jesus was twelve, He was still considered a boy in religious terms and not an adult. This would be Jesus’s final Passover as a child.

The expression they went up describes the considerable elevation gain on their way to Jerusalem. Jerusalem has approximately 1,400 feet higher elevation than Nazareth. And the physical ascent of going up becomes even more apparent when one considers that the most common route from Galilee to Jerusalem runs through Jericho; there is well over 3000 feet of elevation gain in the 18 miles between Jericho and Jerusalem.

Luke does not describe the events of the Feast of Passover when Jesus was twelve, but he does report about what happened after the Feast.

And as they were returning, after spending the full number of days, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem. But His parents were unaware of it (v 43).

Jesus and His parents spent the full number of days celebrating the Feast of the Passover.

This expression-full number of days-indicates that they kept the entirety of the Law concerning the Passover. They did not partially keep it. They fully kept it.

The full number of days likely entailed the selection of the lamb which was required four days before the Passover (Exodus 12:3, 6). And it certainly included the Passover Feast (the Seder) which was taken at sundown when Passover began. And it likely included the Feast of Unleavened which lasted for seven days immediately after Passover (Exodus 12:17-18) and the Festival of First Fruits which occurred on the day after the first Sabbath following Passover.

Because Passover is the first and most prominent of these consecutive holy days, it is often used as shorthand to describe all three holy days: Passover, Unleavened Bread, and First Fruits.

The full number of days may have been two weeks or more that twelve-year-old Jesus spent in Jerusalem with His parents commemorating the Feast of the Passover.

After spending the full number of days celebrating the Passover, Jesus’s parents decided it was time for them to begin their multiple-day journey back to their home (and possibly younger children) in Nazareth.

Jesus’s parents began the journey returning to Nazareth, but the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem.

Notice how Luke described Jesus as-the boy. This reiterates how the age of twelve was still considered boyhood by Jewish custom.

Jesus did not go with His parents back to Nazareth. He remained in the big city of Jerusalem.

But His parents were unaware that their son stayed behind.

Luke explained the reason they were unaware of this:

But [they] supposed Him to be in the caravan (v 44a).

Jesus’s family did not travel to Jerusalem alone. They traveled in a caravan.

It was safer and more helpful to travel in numbers in the ancient world rather than alone. This was especially true for families with children. It could quickly turn deadly if someone became injured or sick in the desert heat without anyone to help them. And highwaymen and robbers were known to lurk, attack, murder, and steal from vulnerable travelers (see the Parable of Good Samaritan-Luke 10:30).

The reason why Jesus’s parents were unaware that their son stayed behind in Jerusalem instead of returning to their home was because their caravan was large enough that they did not notice He was not with them. They wrongly supposed that Jesus was somewhere else among the caravan.

Luke reports: and [they] went a day’s journey; and they began looking for Him among their relatives and acquaintances (v 44b).

If the caravan in which Jesus’s parents travelled to Jerusalem took the traditional route from Judea to Galilee, a path which went around Samaria (rather than through it), then a day’s journey would most likely mean the group had reached the vicinity of Jericho when Jesus’s parents began their search for their son.

The city of Jericho and the Jordan River, about 15-18 miles east of Jerusalem, provided an excellent place to stop and rest for the night before resuming the trip north toward Galilee.

When the caravan arrived at their first resting point (Jericho or elsewhere) Jesus’s parents began looking for their twelve-year-old son among their relatives and acquaintances, but they could not find Him.

This would alarm any parent. And Mary and Joseph likely felt the gamut of emotions from fear to frustration when they realized Jesus was missing. Mary and Joseph probably asked the same kinds of questions every parent has asked when they cannot locate their child in an unfamiliar place.

• “How could our child have gotten lost?/How could we have left him?”
• “When and where was our child last seen?”
• “Is our child safe?”
• “Why didn’t we do this or that to make sure our child was with us?”
• “What can be done to find our child as quickly as possible?”

Jesus’s parents may have felt additional worries because they had been told by angels that their son was the Messiah and Son of God.

When they did not find Him, they returned to Jerusalem looking for Him (v 45).

Mary and Joseph decided to return to Jerusalem to look for their son when they did not find Jesus among their relatives and acquaintances.

Luke does not indicate if Jesus’s parents began the one-day journey back to Jerusalem that very hour and traveled back up the road by night or if they decided to wait until the morning when it was safer to travel back to the city in search of their boy.

By the time they had gotten to Jerusalem, Jesus had been separated from His parents no less than two days-one day traveling from the city and one day returning back to the city. When they got there, they were looking for Him but they did not immediately find Him. The ancient city was large, and they did not find Jesus in the places they first looked. They would likely have begun their search looking at places they had been staying or anywhere else they first hoped and presumed they might find Him.

Jesus’s parents did not find Him even after one day of looking for Him in Jerusalem. They did not find Him after two days of looking.

Then, after three days they found Him in the temple (v 46a).

These three days of His parents searching for Him in Jerusalem while He was lost to them seems to foreshadow Jesus’s three days when He was lost in the grave and entombed in the garden outside Jerusalem. In both cases, Jesus was “returned” after three days.

• As a boy, Jesus reunited with His parents after three days of looking for Him.
• And as a man, Jesus rose from the grave after being dead for three days.

Jesus’s parents found Him in the temple.

The temple was where sacrifices were daily offered on behalf of the people. Jesus was likely found outside the temple proper, somewhere in the temple compound. The temple compound in Jesus’s day was massive. It covered a staggering thirty-five acres, or twenty percent of the walled city space of first century Jerusalem.

In Hebrew, the temple is called the “Beit Hamikdash” which means “the holy house.” It was intended to be the dwelling place of God's earthly presence.

See The Bible Says article “The Temple” to learn more about the temple.

They found their son sitting in the midst of the teachers, both listening to them and asking them questions. And all who heard Him were amazed at His understanding and His answers (vv 46b-47).

When Mary and Joseph finally found Jesus, He was sitting in the midst of the teachers, dialoging with them.

In this context, teachers means leading professional experts in the Law. These were not ordinary teachers of Jewish schoolboys-the teachers who instructed in the synagogue schools. These teachers were those who instructed and trained the brightest scribes, pharisees, and priests-the men who would sit on the Sanhedrin, the highest council in Jewish culture. Given that they were in the temple, it was likely that some of these teachers were members of the Sanhedrin themselves.

The context suggests that they-Jesus and the teachers-were discussing the meaning of Scriptures-the Law of Moses and the Prophets.

Jesus was both listening to them speak and He was asking them questions. And He was providing answers to His and their questions. All who heard this boy were amazed at His understanding of the Law and the Prophets.

In modern American terms, the boy Jesus interacting with these teachers would be the equivalent of a twelve-year-old boy engaging with Ivy League Law professors, U.S. Senators, and/or federally appointed Judges, and discussing the intricacies and applications of the U.S. Constitution and the Federalist Papers.

Jesus was amazing all who heard Him with His knowledge and answers. It was improbable that a twelve-year-old boy could have acquired such deep understanding of these topics from His synagogue in Nazareth. Jesus’s knowledge and ability to answer their questions indicates that He was being trained by God His Father. This is a hint that Jesus as a twelve-year-old boy already had or was at least beginning to have a sense of His role as the Messiah and identity as the Son of God. (More on this later.)

When they saw Him, they were astonished; and His mother said to Him, “Son, why have You treated us this way? Behold, Your father and I have been anxiously looking for You” (v 48).

Mary and Joseph were astonished and surprised when they saw Jesus.

They were surprised to find Him in the temple. And they were shocked to see Him engaged in impressive discussions with esteemed teachers of the Law.

Jesus’s mother gave her son a relieved rebuke: “Son, why have You treated us this way? Behold, Your father and I have been anxiously looking for You.”

Her question seems to have tried to make Jesus feel guilty or sorry for what He had done to Mary and Joseph. She explained how she and Jesus’s father (by this she meant His adoptive father: Joseph) had been looking everywhere for Him for days. The implied question to this rebuke is: “Did you ever think about the fact that we were worried and looking for you for five days now?”

Rather than condemn Mary for her rebuke, it is best to be sympathetic toward her. It is sometimes difficult to raise imperfect children. Apparently, it is even harder to raise a perfect child.

Jesus was not sorry for what He had done. He was right in what He did. But rather than rebuke His mother, Jesus respectfully responded to His parents with two rhetorical questions.

And He said to them, “Why is it that you were looking for Me? Did you not know that I had to be in My Father’s house?” (v 49).

These questions reframed the issue from being neglectful and disobedient to His parents (He was not neglectful or disobedient) to questioning why Mary was so concerned for Him in the first place.

The first rhetorical question was: Why is it that you were looking for Me?

The implication to this question was that there was no need for Mary and Joseph to look for Him.

There was no need for Jesus’s parents to search for Him because He had not wandered off or become lost. He was exactly where He knew He should be. Jesus remained in the temple deliberately, knowing it was the proper place for Him to be at that time.

The second rhetorical question was: Did you not know that I had to be in My Father’s house?

This question answered the first question, that Jesus was where He was supposed to be.

The place Jesus was supposed to be for this time period was in My Father’s House. As mentioned above, the Jewish name for temple was descriptive and it means: “the holy house” because it was intended to be the house for God’s presence on earth.

Jesus referred to the temple, not as “the holy house” but as My Father’s house. In so doing, Jesus referred to God as My Father and by implication He referred to Himself as God’s own Son.

Referring to God as My Father clearly demonstrates how the twelve-year-old boy Jesus already knew His special and divine relationship with God. Jews referred to God as “Our Father.” But Jesus referred to God as My Father to describe the unique relationship they shared.

Jesus’s response also gently reminded Mary of the truth about His identity and mission.

• Joseph was not His father-but rather God was His Father.
• And Nazareth was not His home. Jesus’s home was Heaven.

Putting both responses together, Jesus was telling Mary that she should have known that as God’s Son, He would be found in His Father’s house and therefore known to come looking for Him there-in His Father’s earthly house (not Nazareth).

Jesus’s question reminded His parents of His holy mission. The angels had told His earthly parents of His identity at the time of His birth. But Jesus had now lived twelve years where He was apparently an exceptionally good but otherwise ordinary person. It did not occur to them that Jesus was a chosen vessel of God, therefore was not in danger of being killed prior to His time. It did not occur to them to consider that He was beginning to prepare for His divine mission.

This is completely understandable given that Mary and Joseph had now twelve years for their memory to fade regarding the miraculous events surrounding the time of Jesus’s birth. Further, Mary was an ordinary human, and a mother. She was distraught as she looked for her son.

We can consider that Mary’s distress was a foretaste of the sorrow that she would later experience as Jesus fulfilled His Father’s mission by dying on the cross.

As a twelve-year-old boy, (the age of apprenticeship) Jesus was about His Father’s business. He was not only apprenticing under Joseph as a craftsman, He was also beginning to apprentice under His heavenly Father. His occupation as the Son of God would lead Jesus to save His people and redeem the world.

Mary and Joseph did not understand all that Jesus meant at this time.

But they did not understand the statement which He had made to them (v 50).

Jesus’s parents did not grasp what it meant for Him to be the Son of God, or that the temple was His Father’s house, or that they need not have been worried about Him or about where to find Him. In time, they apparently did begin to understand the meaning of their son’s statement. It is likely that Mary was Luke’s source for this account. It seems less likely that a secondhand source would have both heard and recalled from Mary her inner thoughts regarding this event.

For the present, they were likely perplexed by His statement and yet were also relieved to have been reunited with their son after days of looking all over Jerusalem for Him. To be fair to His parents, Jesus’s disciples also did not understand many things He said to them until after His resurrection.

Luke closes this account with its final events and then an observation about Mary.

And He went down with them and came to Nazareth, and He continued in subjection to them; and His mother treasured all these things in her heart (v 51).

Jesus went back down (in elevation) with His parents and returned to their home in Nazareth.

Luke reports that Jesus continued in subjection to His parents as a boy. The fact that He continued in subjection meant that He had not broken their rules or neglected their authority as His parents-even in remaining in the temple.

To be in subjection to someone is to submit to their authority and their will above one’s own. Mary and Joseph as Jesus’s parents had authority over Him when He was a boy. And He continued in subjection to them until He came of age.

It is normal and proper for children to be in subjection to their parents.

One of the Ten Commandments is:

“Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be prolonged in the land which the Lord your God gives you.”
(Exodus 20:12).

As a human child, Jesus was in subjection to His parents.

And as the Messiah, Jesus followed the Law perfectly-including this commandment to honor His parents.

As was God, Jesus was perfect. This meant that even though Jesus was perfect, He submitted Himself to imperfect parents. This shows that subjection and submitting is a choice and is not a sign of inferiority. The greatest and only perfect human subjected Himself to the authority and choices of imperfect people in obedience to God’s good design.

This principle of subjection can also be applied to marriage, where:

• Wives are commanded to submit themselves to the will and leadership of their husbands as Christ submitted His own will to His Father (and to His earthly parents).
  (Ephesians 5:22-24)

• Husbands are commanded to love, serve, and care for their wives as Christ loved and sacrificially served the church.
  (Ephesians 5:25-30)

In obedience to the Law of Moses, Jesus continued in subjection to His earthly parents until He came of age.

Luke ends this event describing Mary’s thoughts and feelings about it: and His mother treasured all these things in her heart.

This description echoes the similar phrase from Luke 2:19:

“But Mary treasured all these things, pondering them in her heart.”
(Luke 2:19)

All these things include:

• the fact that she had left her twelve-year-old-son in Jerusalem
• how she wrongly assumed He would naturally join the caravan back to Nazareth
• that her boy was in the temple amazing the teachers of the Law with His questions and answers
• and perhaps her role as His mother

Luke’s observation suggests that she recognized the significance of what was happening and preserved it carefully in her memory. The word treasured implies that she guarded or kept these things close. Mary intentionally gathered her thoughts and stored her memories about the ordeal of her son’s birth in Bethlehem during a census, the angelic announcement, the shepherds’ visit, and the sense of amazement surrounding all these things.

In this context: her heart refers to a place of reflection-part of her inner soul, not a feeling of emotion. This statement also infers that Mary was a source for Luke’s gospel account, as it seems unlikely that a secondhand source would have heard and remembered such an intimate detail.

Mary was not a passive observer of these events. She was a major participant in all these things. And Mary was actively seeking to understand God’s purposes through them.