Week 2: Luke 2

My whole life I have sung the song "I'm Trying to Be like Jesus" and have had many many Sunday school lessons on what that entailed. This week in my New Testament class we discussed again what it meant to emulate Christ. In Luke 2:52 it reads: "And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man." This is a well known verse that I have always taken to mean something along the lines of "And Jesus grew up." That is an interpretation that I am confident I can handle without too much failure. However, my professor explained that this means he was growing intellectually, physically, spiritually, and socially which is a bit more challenging to emulate with perfection. Everybody grows up and that isn't much of an accomplishment but consistently growing in each of these areas is something that each of us could and should do better at. In order to be more like our Savior we need to do more than just read our scriptures and say our prayers. Christ improved in every aspect of His life as he grew up and in order to be like him we need to strive to achieve the same level of balance that he did.