A child became an objective lesson
A child became an objective lesson
At that moment the disciples approached Jesus, saying: Who, then, is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?
I do not know if you have detected in this question a certain material ambition. It seems as if these men have been speaking on this Subject and perhaps some of them believed that they could reasonably be considered the most important in the kingdom of heaven. So the Lord adopted an attitude that must have caused a great sensation. Let's read.
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"And He, calling a child, put him in their midst"
What does this teach us? It shows us that the boy approached the Lord without hesitation. In the Gospel according to Mark 10:14, we read that the Lord said: "Let the children come to me; do not stop them." The problem was not with children coming to Him, but with preventing adults from hindering them when the little ones approached the Lord. We have here a beautiful image of Jesus, placing a child in their midst. And then, he said to them, as verse 3 expresses:
"And he said: Truly I say to you that if you do not convert and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven."
This verse has been abused and misinterpreted. Let us remember that the Lord was speaking of conversion and not of a reversal. Some think that these words mean that one must, in some extraordinary way, return to childhood, or that one must behave in a childish or youthful way to enter the kingdom of heaven. The Lord was not talking about going back to the past childhood but rather about moving on to a new life. It provides logic to the disciples' thinking, by diverting their attention from the Topic of having a high position in the kingdom to another matter of fundamental importance such as securing entry into that kingdom. This was a statement as radical as that of Jesus in the Gospel of John 3.3, when he said: "Truly, truly, I say to you, he who is not born again cannot see the kingdom of God." The important thing that was emphasized in this verse is the new birth. You have to become a child in the sense that you have to be born again. When you are born again, you begin to live spiritually as a child.