Jesus spoke more about the acceptance and care of children than all other New Testament authors combined. Four features stand out:

1. The child is a model of our relationship to God ("unless you become like children, you will never enter the kingdom" Matt. 18:3). Abundant attempts to explain what Jesus meant highlight the difficult of his saying. Children are at their best when their parents are nearby, so perhaps this tells us something about God’s children—not at our best when alienated from our Heavenly Father.

2. The child’s access to Jesus should not be blocked by the adults ("let the children come to me; don’t get in their way" Matt. 19:14). Conventional views of life see children "getting in the way" of adults, but Jesus reversed the picture, telling adults not to get in the way of the children trying to reach him!

3. Childrens’ status with God is high ("in heaven their angels stand continually in God’s presence" Matt. 18:10). According to Jewish tradition (and Rev. 8:2), the seven archangels stand continually in the presence of God, so Jesus said, in effect, that they are looked after by the most powerful angels.

4. Causing the downfall of a child is a big-time wrong ("better for that person to have a millstone around his neck and be drowned in the ocean" Matt. 18:6).

Was Jesus also addressing Seventh-day Adventists when he underlined the seriousness of the sin of causing the downfall of a child? He pronounced a rare double woe in cases of children being caused to stumble: the first woe on the world, the second woe on the responsible individual. He expected his followers to provide a zone of safety, a child-friendly place in a harsh, exploitative world. How have we measured up?

Some additional questions:

1. If God is our spiritual Father and Christ is our older brother, what is the church’s role in relation to us? Is it a critical parent, or a nurturing parent? Or a blend of both?

2. Why is child rearing rarely preceded by adequate preparation for the parents-to-be, especially since we know so much about the importance of early childhood experiences to adult life?

3. If you designed a program for accrediting parents, what chief features would it include?

4. Is it possible to spot prospective good parents? Is it possible to spot potentially disastrous parents, and block them from stumbling into parenthood?

5. Were Adam and Eve equally unprepared for child rearing, as some parents are today? Were there feeding problems? Postnatal depression? Who did they find to babysit so they could have an evening out?

6. What does it say about us that we crowd all these detailed stories about children into one lesson?

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