24. Chapter 24: His Attitude Toward Children
Chapter 24 His Attitude Toward Children A leading modern scientific student of childhood, a paidologist—to use the technical word—has written:[1]
“We have another oracle most closely associated with ‘dasewige weibliche’ and to which we can always turn, viz., dasewige kindliche. The oracles of the latter will never fail. However distracted we are in the mazes of new knowledges, skills, ideals, conflicts between old and new; unable though we may be to thrid all the mazes of our manifold modern cultures; we do know that there is one supreme source to which we can look for guidance and which alone can tell us what is really best worth knowing and doing, save us from misfits, perversions, the wastage of premature and belated knowledge, and that is the child in our midst that still leads us because it holds all the keys of the future, so that service to it is the best criterion of all values. It epitomizes the developmental stages of the race, human and prehuman, is the goal of all evolution, the highest object of that strange new love of the naive, spontaneous, and unsophisticated in human nature.”
[1] G. S. Hall. “Jesus, the Christ, in the light of Psychology,” Vol. I, p. 275. N.Y.,1917. Can you paraphrase this quotation? Do you agree with it? Does it remind you of anything Jesus said? or Isaiah?
Jesus was infant, child, boy, young man, and man. What does this signify?
Why should God come into human life in the form of an infant?
Why should this infant pass through all the stages of human growth, except senescence?
Compare this conception with that of the Greeks that Juno came full-grown from the brain of Zeus. Remember, however, the different conception of Hermes and the infant Dionysus.
What biblical word, if any, reveals more of God’s goodness and love than the word “child”? Do the birth-stories of Matthew and Luke glorify only the infancy of Jesus or all childhood? Does the idea of the virgin birth tend to sublimate sex in all parenthood? So Jesus experienced all the processes and stages of development. When he became a man, how would you characterize his attitude toward children?
How did this attitude differ from that of the disciples? (See Matthew 19:13.) Which of the two attitudes was more characteristic of the times?
What motives led the people to bring their children to Jesus? (See Luke 18:15.) What emancipating words for childhood did Jesus speak? (Mark 10:14.)
How was he affected by the interference of the disciples? (Mark 10:14.) (Have you noticed that Mark, though the briefest gospel, has the fullest references to the emotions of Jesus?)
Make a list of all the things that Jesus did for children, so far as you can. Support each item by an actually reported instance, or by clear deduction from such. How long is your list? Compare it with the following:
Some Things Jesus Did forChildren 1. He took them in his arms and blessed them.
2. He provided for their physical wants in feeding the four and five thousand—“besides women and children.” He commanded that something to eat be given the raised daughter of Jairus (Mark 5:43).
3. He healed them. How many were boys? (See John 4:46-54 and Matthew 17:14-21.) How many were girls? (See Mark 7:24-30 and Matthew 9:18-34.) Are there still others? May he have healed some not recorded? (See Mark 1:32-34.) 4. He observed the manner of their play and life.
He had noted their game of wedding and funeral (Luke 7:32), their sleeping in bed with their father (Luke 11:7), and the good gifts they had received from their parents (Matthew 7:11).
What other things had he observed? Is it too much to say that here is one beginning of modern child-study? With what emotions did Jesus regard children? Write down all you can, with your reason in each case. Compare your answers with the following list.
How Jesus Felt about Children:
1. He felt indignant that his own disciples should stand between the children and himself, and so manifested his interest in their welfare.
2. He used the diminutive of affection combined with an endearing term in raising the daughter of Jairus, saying, Talitha cumi (Mark 5:41), “Lambkin, arise” From all he did for them we conclude he loved them. Compare the tender words to Peter: “Feed my lambs” (John 21:15); also Mark 7:27.
3. He must have regarded them with a kind of sacred awe, “for I say unto you, that in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 18:11). What does this saying mean?
4. He felt respect for them, for he taught us not to despise them (Matthew 18:10).
5. He felt sympathy for them. To the women of Jerusalem bewailing his fate, he said, “Weep for yourselves and for your children” (Luke 23:28). So some of the emotions with which Jesus regarded children are interest in their welfare, love, awe, respect, and sympathy. Have you other emotions to report? Have you additional illustrations of these?
What are some of the ideas that Jesus had about children? Give quotations or references to support your views. Some of these ideas have already been suggested.
Compare your views with the following:
Ideas That Jesus Had about Children:
1. They are a type of true greatness and of membership in the Kingdom. “Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 18:4). “Of such is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 19:14).
2. They are not to be offended. “Whosoever shall cause one of these little ones that believe on me to stumble, it were better for him if a great millstone were hanged about his neck, and he were cast into the sea” (Mark 9:42). Could this refer to those young in the faith, as well as to children?
3. They are identified by him with himself.
“Whosoever shall receive one of such little children in my name, receiveth me” (Mark 9:37). Is this saying commonly realized?
4. They are specific objects of the Father’s loving purpose. “It is not the will of your Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish” (Matthew 18:14). In what higher esteem could children be held? They typify the heavenly kingdom in humility, trust, and service; they are not to be despised or caused to stumble; receiving them is receiving Christ and receiving Christ is receiving God; their guardian angels do not have to wait for the Father’s favor, but always behold his face; while they themselves are individual objects of his providential win. Did children come to Jesus readily? Were they happy m his company? What does this show as to the element of childhood in his own nature? Did they ever sing his praises? (See Matthew 21:15.) What was their song?
Plato held that souls preexisted m heaven and at birth came into the body.
Wordsworth sang: “Heaven lies about us in our infancy.”
Jesus said in prayer: “I thank Thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou didst hide these things from the wise and prudent and didst reveal them unto babes” (Matthew 11:25).
Also he quoted the Psalms in defense of the children singing his praises: “Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected praise” (Matthew 21:16). Are these views of Plato, Wordsworth, and Jesus harmonious? In what sense are they true?
What difference would they make in our practice if we acted upon them?
Jesus sometimes addressed his adult disciples as children. Have you some illustration of this? What is the significance of this fact? See John 13:33 and John 21:5. A colleague of mine, a leader in the experimental study of education, Professor P. R. Radosavljevich, writes me in a letter concerning Jesus as a teacher as follows:
I think such a topic deserves thorough study in every department of education, for there is a peculiar tendency in modern times to deviate as much as possible from the greatest sources in our noble profession. Jesus Christ is no doubt one of the greatest masters of ours, and the attitude of the Great Teacher toward the children ought to be taken as a real model for all the Christian and non-Christian educators. Almost all modern studies in child-study lead to the pedagogy of Jesus, for here the child is treated not as an adult, but as a child in the spirit of Love, Truth, and Freedom. All criteria of modern free schools depend upon this great triad.”
So, in the judgment of this modern investigator, the attitude of Jesus toward children is the best we know in education today. In what respects do we commonly fail to exemplify love, truth, and freedom in our attitude toward children?
What modifications in our practice as parents and teachers would you propose in the light of the attitude of Jesus toward children?
If all childhood is divine—“for of such is the kingdom of heaven”—what kind of adulthood, if any, is no less so?