阅读经文 

人们往往喜欢听平凡人成为非常成功的人、或甚至像灰姑娘成为皇室成员的故事。盼望逃脱贫穷和得享昌盛，是人之常情。

可是，耶稣家乡的人，似乎没有这种想法。他们认为，由于耶稣在一个木匠家庭出生，祂是没有可能成人就变成弥赛亚的。因此，当耶稣医好瘸子和病人时，当祂平静风浪和赶出污鬼时，那些看着祂长大的人，除了视祂为一个木匠外，很难想像到祂有其他的身份。

问题是，这些人不接受耶稣不同寻常的教导，正是因为他们自认为已经很知道耶稣是谁——就是这样简单。

人若认为自己已经认识所有关于耶稣的事情，是一件很危险的事。如果我们对耶稣已是耳熟能详，我们岂能预料会在祂身上看到什么伟大的地方呢？

认识耶稣是谁以后，人们不再能够感到诧异，相反地，耶稣倒是诧异他们有如此多的不信。马可在这里指出，比信心更令人诧异的，就是不信！当我们看到多方面的证据时，我们实在需要绞尽脑汁找很多理由去否定和漠视它们，才可以不相信的。

People often like stories about ordinary people becoming highly successful or even becoming royalty——like Cinderella. It’s not unusual to hope for an escape from poverty to be blessed with prosperity.

But the people in Jesus’ hometown didn’t seem to think that way. They figured that because Jesus was born into a carpenter family, there was no way he could grow up to be the Messiah. So when Jesus healed the lame and the sick, when he calmed the storm and cast out demons, it was difficult for the people who knew him growing up to imagine him as anything besides a carpenter.

The trouble was that these people did not accept Jesus’ amazing teachings precisely because they thought they knew him—period.

What a danger it can be for any of us who may think we know everything about Jesus. If Jesus is already familiar enough to us, will we expect anything really great from him?

Instead of the people being amazed by learning who Jesus was, Jesus was amazed that they had so much unbelief. Mark is suggesting that what is more amazing than faith is unbelief! Unbelief requires an exhausting amount of denial and dismissal when we are presented with all the evidence.