MATTHEW 18:1-14
WHO IS THE GREATEST basketball player of all time? Those of us in Chicago know the answer to that question. Michael Jordan, of course. Who is the greatest criminal of all time? Chicagoans also know the answer to that question. But who is the greatest preacher of all time? Once again those of us in Chicago know the answer to that. (It was, not me.) Then again in my tracts I do kind of float like a butterfly and sting like a bee. Perhaps I am the greatest!
Ah, the sin of pride. If I may quote myself (and who else is worth quoting?), “Pride is the mother of all sins, and there is a bit of her DNA in all of us.” And perhaps (if I may correct myself) there is a bit more than “a bit.” Pride rears its ugly head in everyone everywhere. I have seen it in the kindergarten girls’ soccer team I coached, when one girl kicks the ball farther than the rest of the team in a practice drill and she thinks she has scored the winning goal in the World Cup finals. I have seen it in prisoners in the First Division of the Cook Country Jail, where one inmate thinks he rules the world because he rules the cell block. I have seen it in myself, and if you would let me close enough to your heart, I will see it in you as well.
Pride rears its ugly head in everyone everywhere. And it rears its ugly head here in 18:1: “At that time [seemingly right after the tax question and lesson] the disciples came to Jesus, saying, ‘Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?”’
Questioning Their Question
What a question! Had they forgotten the first beatitude—“Blessed are the poor in spirit” (5:3)? Had they forgotten the faith-filled Roman centurion’s humility—“Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof, but only say the word, and my servant will be healed” (8:8)? Had they forgotten that father’s mustard-seed faith—“a man came up to him [Jesus] and, kneeling before him, said, ‘Lord, have mercy on my son”' (17:14, 15)? Yes. Yes. Yes. It seems they had forgotten.
In 18:4 Jesus tells us that the motive behind his disciples’ question was pride, for he begins that verse, “Whoever humbles himself...” Jesus’ response in verse 4 and following indicates there was not a pure motive here, or even mere curiosity—“Oh, Jesus, out of curiosity, how does one become great in the kingdom?” The sense is more like, “Jesus, in your expert estimation, which one of us is now the greatest?”
Their question was so out-of-line. It was as out-of-line as my introduction to this chapter. Who do these guys think they are or have become? Half of them are fishermen. And the most educated and wealthy of the dirty dozen is likely Matthew, a former tax collector, which in Jewish culture was worse than having to wear an embroidered “A” on one’s chest for “Adulterer” (cp. 18:17).
When and why did these nobodies start thinking they were somebodies? I’m sure pride subtly set in due to all they had seen Jesus do and what they themselves had done—miracles! Peter, for example, had walked on water. He witnessed the transfiguration. Just that day he’d caught a fish with a shekel in its mouth, just the right amount of the temple tax. One can respond to such things in one of two extremes—humility or pride. Pious Peter got proud, as did the rest of them, so it seems. In fact, with Peter’s highs and lows in the last month or so, perhaps the eleven got to thinking, “Well, now is as good a time as ever not only to make the starting lineup but to become the go-to guy.” So they collectively ask, “Who among us is presently the greatest? Line us up and rank us.”
Entrance and Elevation
Our Lord Jesus, however, will have none of their presumption. In verses 2-4 he gives a visual and verbal rebuke:
And calling to him a child, he put him in the midst of them and said, “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.”
Knowing human nature as I hope we do, the disciples’ question shouldn’t surprise us. However, Jesus’ answer is almost as surprising today as it was then! First, it’s surprising that he answers their question about elevation (whose the greatest?) with a comment about entrance (who says you’re even in?).
They assumed they were in “the kingdom” (i.e., the saved community under Christ’s kingship), and thus their only concern was greatness—how many diadems will be on my crown compared to his and his and his and his? But Jesus turns the tables on them. He says in essence, “What you should be worried about—with such an attitude as expressed in your question—is whether you are in the kingdom or not. Big-headed people can’t fit through the narrow gate. Fat camels can’t squeeze through the eye of the needle.” To quote him exactly, “Truly, I say to you” (v. 3)—when Jesus uses that language you better listen up—“unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” Never mind whose first among the Twelve; make sure you are one of the Twelve. “Forget greatness; get in!” That’s the first surprise.
The second surprise is that Jesus calls for a re-conversion to childlikeness. In John 3:3 he says, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God,” and here in 18:3 he says similarly, “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” Where we might expect Jesus to say, as would be typical of a rabbi of his day, “If you want to get in you must have an Olympicsized righteousness—abounding in good works, martyr-like in self-sacrifice, skilled in reading and teaching the Torah,” he says nearly the opposite: “You must become like a child.”
What is so surprising or shocking about that is that children were the lowest of the low in the ancient world. That might be hard for us to imagine since children today have TV shows and movies and video games and amusement parks and toys and cell phones and even restaurants designed for their pleasure and in their honor. That is the world we live in, but that was not the world in which Jesus lived. Some scholars are convinced that this is the first and only time in ancient Jewish literature (perhaps all ancient literature) where a child is used as a positive example. What Jesus does here is original and radical. And did you know that in Koine Greek the word for “child” is neither masculine nor feminine? It’s neuter. Here is a wooden translation of the Greek of verse 2: “And having called a child he [Jesus] set it in [the] midst of them.” It?
So, what’s surprising here—our second surprise—is that “It is in, and it is up.” If you want to get in the kingdom you must be like it, and if you to move up in the kingdom you must move down like it. It is in, and it is up. And it is everything in the Christian life. There is no stage before it and none after it. It is a constant state of being. It is a rule of life. It is being re-converted each and every day after the day of your conversion. It is being born again and again and again.
With a lot hanging on what if is, let me define it (i.e., what it means to be “like children”). My definition comes solely from our text. In this text being “like children” does not mean being innocent, simple-minded, easily amused, or possessing the uncanny ability to throw temper tantrums. Rather, it means humility—“whoever humbles himself like this child” (v. 4).
But humility then is defined by “this” particular child’s attitude and action toward Jesus. Jesus calls this child to himself, and she (let’s make “it” a “she” to be even more radical for Jesus’ day) comes to Jesus (a) because she must trust (cp. “believe in [him],” v. 6) that he’s okay to come to, and (b) because she listens to him, like a child is supposed to listen to an adult, but also like all believers are supposed to—remember the transfiguration?—“listen to him” (17:5). So she is humble, and that humility expresses itself as mustard-seed faith expressed itself in 17:14, 15 by trusting in Jesus and listening to (i.e., obeying) him. That’s what it means to “turn and become like children.” We didn’t literally see this visual parable (a little girl [or boy] coming to Jesus) as the disciples did, but hopefully we can see it. Hopefully we can get at what Jesus is getting at—to get in the kingdom and to move up in it (so to speak) requires humility. “Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you” (James 4:10).
Actions toward the Little Ones
In his book What Is Christianity? Adolf von Harnack wrote:
Humility is not a virtue by itself; but it is pure receptivity, the expression of inner need, the prayer for God’s grace and forgiveness, in a word, the opening up of the heart to God. This, then, is the source and origin of the love of one’s neighbor.
Note the transition Harnack made from humility before God to love toward neighbor. Humility is the source of a right relationship with God, and it is the source of a right relationship with others. Coming out of verse 4 into verses 5-14, Jesus makes that same transition. In verses 5-9 our Lord teaches them and us about our actions toward little ones and in verses 10-14 about our attitude toward little ones.
First, we have our actions toward little ones (vv. 5-9). I say “little ones” instead of “children” because Jesus makes this linguistic shift in verses 5, 6. He starts (v. 5), “Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me,” then continues (v. 6), “but whoever causes one of these little ones...” and only uses the term “little ones” from that point on. This might just be a parallelism (child = little one), and that seems to be the case in verses 5, 6. But in what follows (vv. 7-14) we learn that Jesus subtly shifts from talking about literal children to certain children of God, those he labels “little ones.”
By “little ones” Jesus could mean everyone in the kingdom of heaven regardless of age, or he could mean, as I think he means, “the least of these my brothers” as he would phrase it in 25:40. That is, “little ones” are those Christians who are most often marginalized or whom we’d be tempted to marginalize due to lack of wealth, health, giftedness, or spiritual maturity. They are those with little resources, little social standing, and perhaps little faith (i.e., the weaker brethren of Romans 14:13; 1 Corinthians 8:13). They are those prone to wander like that one lost sheep of verse 12.
So then, regarding these “little ones” within the Ecclesia, Jesus calls his Ecclesia (especially the more mature or less “little”) to action. And the primary action here is guarding oneself as a means of guarding them. You see, we are not only to “receive” these little ones into our fellowship because Christ receives such into his fellowship—we open the Ecclesia door to them “in [his] name” (v. 5)—but we are also to protect them once they’re in. Jesus teaches:
Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me, but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea. Woe to the world for temptations to sin!
For it is necessary that temptations come, but woe to the one by whom the temptation comes! And [note the connection] if your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life [eternal life] crippled or lame than with two hands or two feet to be thrown into the eternal fire. And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into the hell of fire. (vv. 5-9)
Here Jesus uses two graphic and grotesque images to wake up Christians. Yes, these are warnings for believers, not unbelievers. Christian, if you think your little sins are not a big deal to Christ and his Ecclesia, you couldn’t be farther from the mind of Christ. To our Savior, personal holiness is a matter of life and death, the Kingdom and the grave for you and others.
The two judgment images here involve water and fire. First fire. Imagine being thrown into a pit that’s on fire—“the hell of fire.” You are engulfed by flames. Eternal fire is everywhere!
Then water. Imagine a great millstone—a two-ton slab of circular stone so huge and heavy that it needs a donkey to move it -fastened around your neck. There you are wearing this heavy and horrific concrete collar. Then imagine being taken out to the middle of the sea and left to yourself. Bye-bye. Down you go. You’ll hit the bottom pretty fast. And you’ll hit the bottom and stay there. There is no means of escape from this “dark, eternal grave”. Death by fire or death by water; burning or drowning—what will it be? Neither option sounds all that pleasant.
Wake up. Shape up. Grow up. Your personal holiness matters. “be killing sin or it will be killing you” and potentially killing others, these “little ones” in the Lord. What we do privately—with our hand or our foot or our eye (those are private or personal parts)—actually can affect other believers. That’s what Jesus is teaching here. How you see things (the eye) affects how others see, what you do (the hand) affects what others will do, and how you walk (the foot) affects how others will walk (cp. Ephesians 4:25). You see, the Ecclesia, especially the local Ecc;esia, is like a thousand dominoes perfectly spaced apart, standing together. We are all equal in God’s sight, and we all can potentially affect one another equally. But we know that if the first domino falls, all fall. We should also know that even if the five hundredth domino tips and touches this way and then tips and touches that way, it would affect us all equally. We would all fall down as well.
So the action here is guarding oneself as a means of guarding all, but especially “the little ones” (dominos 1-100). And note that the action here is not half-repentant (“Lord, take these three fingers, but leave the thumb and pinky”), and it’s not gradual (“Lord, this week I will give up my right hand, and next week my left”). The action here is immediate, decisive, and absolute, and it’s going hurt (have you ever broken a sinful habit?). “If your hand... causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away” (18:8; cp. 5:30). Ouch!
Jesus has talked this way about sexual sin in the Sermon on the Mount (5:29, 30). But here he expands it to every imaginable sin. Do you grasp for worldly power? Do you rush to judgment? Do you easily lose your temper? Do you overstuff your stomach? Do you gossip? Do you hoard money? Do you overlook the unimportant? Do you think yourself so very important? Cut it off and cut it out. Cut off pride. Cut off lust. Cut off sloth. Cut off anger. Cut off greed. Cut off envy. Cut off gluttony. Cut off those seven deadly sins and seventy more because they will kill you—“It is better for you to enter life with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into the hell of fire” (v. 9b)—and because they endanger the lives of the “little ones,” some of your dear brothers and sisters in Christ. This is serious stuff. So take it seriously.
Attitude toward the Little Ones
But also take seriously verses 10-14, where our Lord transitions from teaching about our actions toward little ones to our attitude toward them.
Look at verse 10a. Here Jesus teaches, “See that you do not despise one of these little ones.” Attitude check! Why should we not “despise” or look down on them, as would be natural? Or, put positively, why should we value them? Jesus gives one reason (they matter much to God) and two illustrations.
The first illustration is about “their angels”: “For I tell you that in heaven their angels always see the face of my Father who is in heaven” (v. 10b). There is no need for us to get bogged down on whether or not every child or every “little one” has a guardian angel. It seems they do—if not a guardian angel (cp. Acts 12:15), guardian angels (cp. Luke 16:22)—that is, in the words of Hebrews 1:14, “ministering spirits sent out to serve... those who are to inherit salvation.” (Note, however, that the guardian angel or angels here are in Heaven, not on earth as popularly depicted.) But the point is not that some or all Christians have angels who protect them. Rather, the point is, if these beings (“angels”) who serve these “little ones” (they are “their angels”) are “in heaven” (that’s an important place to be) and they there are directly looking upon God (these must be angels of "the very highest order”), how much more valuable are “the little ones” they serve and protect? Does that make sense? If your bodyguards are Moses and Elijah, you must be fairly important. And if your angel stands perpetually before the face of God, your stock has substantially gone up. God values these little ones.
The second illustration of this divine value is the Parable of the Lost Sheep. Our Lord says:
What do you think? If a man has a hundred sheep, and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go in search of the one that went astray? And if he finds it, truly, I say to you, he rejoices over it more than over the ninety-nine that never went astray. So it is not the will of my Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish, (vv. 12-14)
I will identify the characters in this parable and then highlight two points. There are three characters: (1) the ninety-nine sheep, (2) the strayed sheep, and (3) the man, who is obviously a good shepherd.
The shepherd represents Jesus Christ. I say that because (a) Jesus is often called a shepherd, (b) this shepherd is called “a man,” and (c) what the shepherd does here fits the purpose: “For he [Jesus] will save his people from their sins” (1:21).
But also look at the footnote in our text: “Some [Greek] manuscripts add verse 11 [taken from Luke 19:10]: ‘For the Son of Man came to save the lost.’” That’s not a bad insertion at all. The shepherd represents any good shepherd, but especially the Great Shepherd, our Lord Jesus Christ.
The hundred sheep represent the Ecclesia or the community of the kingdom of heaven. The ninety-nine are either the spiritually mature or more likely those not currently backsliding. Presently they are doing a good job of sticking near Christ and Christians and are cutting off sin. The strayed sheep then is the backsliding Christian, or more specifically the Christian who is so proud he doesn't think he needs the shepherd or the other sheep to guard him and so foolish or sinful that he thinks he can wander off into various sins without any real danger.
Those are the characters of the parable. But what is the point? As parables are flexible entities (sometimes you can find a point for each character or a point for each phrase), let me give you one point before I give you the primary point. God is joyously gracious to each Christian.
By God I mean Father and the Son, but here especially the Father (vv. 10, 14) and the Son as shepherd (vv. 12, 13). The joyous part comes from God’s great joy in finding the estranged sheep—“I say to you, he rejoices over it” (v. 13). The gracious part comes from God pursing the estranged sheep.
Look how gracious God is here! Coming out of the warning in verses 5-9 about not straying into sin or else, I find it refreshing, uplifting, and encouraging that if and when I do stray verses 10-14 teach that God pursues, finds, and returns straying sheep. Now don’t misread me here. I think eternal judgment awaits the “unrepentant lost”—even those within the Ecclesia whose lifestyle is characterized by unrepentant behavior. But the “wandering lost”—the lapsed little one who didn’t know better or didn’t know how to return once he did know better—God goes after with the same passion and (if you’ll allow me) frantic effort as a loving father who has his lost three-year-old daughter in a 600,000 square-feet supermarket.
God is joyously gracious... to each Christian. Yes, to each Christian. Notice the word “one” (eight times) and “ones” (three times) and the emphasis on the individual in this otherwise very communal passage. Our passage begins with Jesus calling “a child” to himself, and it ends with Jesus saying that it is God’s will that not “one of these little ones should perish” (v. 14). Again, coming out of verses 5-9 (which speak so much of life together/Ecclesially community/the necessity of many to make it) I find it refreshing and uplifting and encouraging that God cares for each individual Christian equally. The “statistically unimportant”—one out of one hundred—is important to him. One matters (you matter) so much to the Father that he sends out his Shepherd on the ultimate search and rescue mission. “Of those whom you [the Father] gave me,” Jesus says in John 18:9, “I have not lost one.” Not one.
That is the other point to this parable: God is joyously gracious to each Christian. But here is the primary point. It’s simple, and it’s short. The primary point goes back to verse 10a: “See that you do not despise one of these little ones.” It’s about our attitude. “Let not earth despise those whom heaven respects” is how Matthew Henry summarizes it. I put it this way: we are to value each and every little one as God does. That’s the primary point of this parable.
Humility before God (vv. 1—4) leads to love of the least—in attitude and action (vv. 5-14).
Humility is the source both of a right relationship with God and with others. That’s what our Lord teaches here.
Kitchen Shelf Proverbs
My wife and I have gotten in the good habit of praying before bed, and also in the good habit of asking each other some accountability questions, and if needed confessing our sins to each other and to God. One day—the day after I had confessed a sin to Emily—I saw on the kitchen shelf over our sink a 4x6 postcard with two handwritten verses from Proverbs.
A man without self-control is like a city broken into and left without walls. (25:28)
It is not good to eat much honey, nor is it glorious to seek one’s own glory. (25:27)
When my beloved wife got up that morning, I said to her, “Thanks for the stinging rebuke.” She said, “What do you mean?” I said, “The two Proverbs in the kitchen.” “Proverbs?” she said, “Oh, I wouldn’t be that cruel. Those weren’t for you. They were for me and for the kids, for us to memorize.” And I said, “Then they’re for us all, aren’t they?”
Yes, pride and self-control and loving others—what God’s Word teaches about those topics in Proverbs and Matthew and other places—that’s for the whole family—the whole O’Donnell family, the whole local Ecclesial family, and the whole, holy, Ecclesia—east to west, north to south, first century to the very last.
(R. Kent Hughes. and Douglas Sean O'Donnell., 2013; edited Carl Hinton., 2020)