Until the appearance of The Urantia Book. We were all left wondering about all of those years between the time Jesus was found in the Temple, and the beginnings of his public ministry.
Jesus lived an amazing life. As you know, he was a Divine Son of God, incarnated on this planet as a helpless baby. He was truly human as well as truly Divine, and as a human, he lived the same kind of life as all humans live; he was born, he had parents, he had playmates, he went to school, he learned how to work with wood, he played a musical instrument, he was popular with his peers, and, as a young adult, he traveled his world. He was a good student, and a good son; he had brothers and sisters, and became a father-brother to them following Joseph's untimely death when Jesus was but 15 years-old.
He lived a normal, unpretentious kind of a life, along with all the ups and downs that most people are subject to, not unlike that of his contemporaries. And during this physical life that he lived, he also had a rich inner life in which he gradually became aware of who he was and what his true mission on this world was to be. This is, of course, what set Jesus apart from everyone else - then and now. For Jesus discovered at age fourteen just what that mission was to be, and just who he truly was. After that, his whole life was focused upon the ways and means of executing his mission according to the will of his Father in Heaven. But he never abandoned his purely human life, along with all of its responsibilities; he was ever true to the duties that he had as a member of his family, and a upstanding citizen of his community. And at the end of this phase of his life, he was finally able to devote himself wholly to his mission - that of publicly proclaiming the "good news" of man's sonship with God and salvation by
faith.
You'll be happy to know that now you can read the complete story of Jesus' matchless life, including all of those missing years, by going to this link: The Life and Teachings of Jesus. [2]
This link will start you off at the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem. In this amazing document, you'll read about all of the above times of Jesus' life, and much, much more. Even the events that you have known from reading the Bible are expanded and elaborated - restated for our 21st century times. The message of Jesus' life is so powerful and so life-changing that The Urantia Book states:
(2090.4) 196:1.3 [3] Of all human knowledge, that which is of greatest value is to know the religious life of Jesus and how he lived it.
That religious life of Jesus started long before his ministry began, and I hope you'll enjoy reading about it in its entirety. Today, as 2000 years ago, Jesus stands as the highest example of a human being living a life dedicated to God.
In the narrative of Jesus' life, you'll hear Jesus referred to as "Michael" many times, and in order to understand this designation, part of the revealed knowledge of you might want to read the following section of The Urantia Book as well: The Spirit of Bestowal. [4]