Bedside Watchman -- AS LITTLE CHILDREN

Last Updated on : October 11, 2014

The Bedside Watchman

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February 13th -- Mark 9

AS LITTLE CHILDREN

THE theme of the child runs through a whole section of the Gospel of Mark, but always with the child standing as a type of the genuine believer. The child's well-being is made the measure of conduct, the child's spirit is the rule by which others are judged. Not that Jesus would idealize children; growing up in a large family, he had doubtless seen the "foolishness" that is bound up in the heart of a child (Proverbs 22:15). But he saw the child as small, dependent, and therefore trusting; he saw also the child's directness a ndsimplicity, the outward-looking to those who are loved and admired. There is a candid logic in children which can be devastating to their more complicated elders, and it is this which enables them to recognize a truth and see its consequences; and that is the frame of mind which makes faith possible. In this Jesus saw in children the type of the children of God. And it is in the service of such as these that the true disciple will find his exaltation.

L. G. SARGENT, The Gospel of the Son of God, page 133