13 People were bringing little children to Jesus for him to place his hands on them, but the disciples rebuked them. 14 When Jesus saw this, he was indignant. He said to them, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. 15 Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.” 16 And he took the children in his arms, placed his hands on them and blessed them.
Question 1
What kinds of things may change as children grow up?
Question 2
If a child can understand enough to be a Christian, what does this tell us about the good news of Jesus Christ?
Have you heard the phrase, “Children should be seen and not heard”? It suggests that children are not as important as adults and need to keep quiet. The disciples seem to be thinking something similar. As people bring their children to be blessed by Jesus, the disciples try to stop them. They thought the King would be far too busy to deal with small children, that he had many better things to do. But as we saw in Mark 9:30-7, Jesus had a loving attitude toward children. In fact, what Jesus is saying in this section is that we all have something to learn from children! Jesus says that the kingdom of God belongs to children, and that the only way to access the kingdom is to have the attitude of a child. Does this mean that only children can be saved by Jesus Christ? If so, that’s not good news for all those adult people when they hear about Jesus the first time. That’s clearly not what Jesus thinks, or he wouldn’t have wasted so much time talking to adults!
What Jesus thinks is that if you want to be part of the kingdom of God, then your attitude has to be the same as a child’s. What is a child’s attitude? There are two obvious things we can say. Children depend on other people. They can’t do things for themselves, but they ask their parents. Therefore, every Christian has to accept that they are unable to help themselves, and must rely on God. Only he can save. Secondly, children are supposed to listen to their parents and believe what they say. Even if they don’t understand everything, they know that their parents love them and so they listen and believe. In the same way the Christian is supposed to listen to what God is saying and believe. Even though we don’t understand everything, we know that God loves us because he sent Jesus Christ to die for us.
Question 3
Is Jesus’ attitude to children what you would expect?
Question 4
How is this going to change the way we share the gospel?
Pray
for help to rely on God and to believe in Him, as a child.
