Mark 10:13-16

When a group of parents came bringing their little children to Jesus to receive his blessing, the disciples objected strenuously and evidently quite rudely. Jesus was too busy to be bothered with parents and their children, they reasoned. However, the disciples did not understand the spirit of their Master Teacher. Jesus seems always to have had time for those who sought his help and blessing, no matter how pressing the affairs of the moment were.

Jesus was genuinely displeased with his disciples for their impatience. In response, he uttered the words that have been cherished by young and old alike through the years as, taking the children in his arms and laying his hand on them (Mark 10:16), he said, Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the Kingdom of God belongs to such as these. (Mark 10:14).

These words of Jesus mean that all who enter the Kingdom of God must have the receptiveness, the simple trust, the sense of dependence, and the sense of helplessness that characterize a child.

Unless we are prepared to receive God's Kingdom (or salvation) as a child receives a gift at his father's hand, we shall not have it. It is a parable of pure grace. And men still receive God's Kingdom as little children. The Kingdom of our Father is not for the proud and self-sufficient, but for those who, owning their weakness, cast themselves on God's grace and mercy made available for them in Christ - Archibald M. Hunter, The Gospel According to Saint Mark, The Macmillan Company, New York, 1948, p. 101.

The phrase do not hinder them or forbid them not gives all of us concern. It is all too easy to discourage children from making Christ the Lord of their lives. We may discourage them by failing to show the fruit of the Spirit in our own lives, by failing to give proper place to prayer and the reading of Scripture in the home, by manifesting little or no interest in the services of the church, or by doing things that we would not want the children to do. In light of Jesus's words, the responsibility of parenthood is a serious matter. Indeed, the responsibility of all adults in this respect is a serious matter, for we never know when some little child is walking in our footsteps.