Luke 18:15-17: Receiving the Kingdom like a Child

INTRODUCTION

We come to a new section in Luke, 18:15-17, which is of great interest to us because Jesus talks about children. Children play a large part in our lives and are very important to us. The world has many wrong understandings about children that need correcting. Children are viewed as discardable tissue or part of a woman’s body and so can be aborted at their convenience. Others see children as possessions that belong to them to shape and mold as they desire. Many have child idolatry where their sense of identity and purpose is wrapped up in children. Many think that children are angels that are sinless and can do no wrong. Today we are seeing an increase in seeking to make children independent and autonomous as young as possible, the key new role being defined for parents is one enabler, and facilitator of self-discovery and self-definition. The traditional parental role of helping our children to know the truth about God, the world and themselves is now perceived as oppression and an imposition. The Bible of course has always presented God’s view of these things, children are not a mass of tissue, nor even technically part of a woman’s body, they are unique human beings made in the image of God with an eternal soul. Children are not our possessions but gifts from God. They are not our idols but a stewardship that we will have to one day give an account for. They are not angels but sinners in need of salvation in Jesus Christ, and they need the new birth to help them produce Christlikeness. They are not autonomous self-defining deities, they are created beings accountable to God entrusted to the delegated authority of their parents who are obliged by God to love them, model good behavior before them and bring them up in the instruction and discipline of the Lord. Many of these truths that you and I took for granted are now revolutionary and scandalous. The world needs the truth of God’s word when it comes to children more than ever before. Children were a major casualty in the sexual revolution of the twentieth century with the legalism of abortion, no fault divorce, the rejection of chastity before marriage, and pornography. In the twenty first century children continue to be the greatest casualty in the gender wars as young impressionable minds are being told that they are not necessarily male or female and can define their own gender as they see fit. Hormone suppression, sex reassignment surgery, progressive sex education curriculums, increase in teen suicide, the pressure of an online world and many other factors hurt our children spiritually, emotionally and mentally.