“How Vast the Resources of His Power …” No. 7

THE MIND OF A CHILD

It is noteworthy that when our Lord was asked about greatness He made no reference to generals, kings or rich men in His reply. When He was asked “Who is really greatest in the kingdom of Heaven?,” He made an object lesson out of it, as He so often did. He proceeded to show them what greatness is: “Jesus called a little child to his side and set him on his feet in the middle of them all.” Our Lord often did the unexpected thing, which was the case this time. Even His own disciples must have been completely disarmed when He replied to a question about greatness by calling for a child.

It is one of those stunning moments in the life of our Lord. And yet it is consistent with all that He did and all that He was. He was born, not of a queen in a palace, but of a peasant girl in a barn. It was not the renowned Greeks or Romans that gave Him to the world, but a despised and insignificant nation that was hardly known in distant places. His home town, in contrast to the great cities of that era, would never have gained a place on the map except for the fact that He was born there.

Even though His contemporaries thought of Him as a rabbi, He was not a part of the clergy. He did not come up through the seminaries. He was nearly always unorthodox, at least in official terms. His methods were freelance and unsophisticated. His hands were those of a fisherman and lumberjack. He walked our of a carpenter’s shop to challenge the assumptions of institutional religion and to give Himself to a lost world. His chosen envoys were not bankers, merchants, clergymen or university professors. They too were common laborers. His message was not a philosophy or a systematic theology. It concerned the abundant life which one can find only in God, and it was taught in simple language, despite its profundity. He talked to the rich and poor alike, and He had as much time for a prostitute as He had for a procurator. He even washed the feet of those He asked to serve.

All this conforms to Paul’s point in 1 Cor. 1:28: “He has chosen things of little strength and small repute, yes and even things which have no real existence to explode the pretensions of the things that are-that no man may boast in the presence of God.”

So when the question of greatness comes up, Jesus calls for a child-that no man may boast in the presence of God!

Matt. 18:3 goes on to read according to Phillips’ rendition: “Believe me,” he said, “unless you change your whole outlook and become like little children you will never enter the kingdom of Heaven. It is the man who can be as humble as this little child who is ‘greatest’ in the kingdom of Heaven.”

This shows that the disciples were doing some wrong thinking about the nature of the kingdom. They were viewing it in terms of worldly power and glory. Greatness was to them a matter of pride. Perhaps they were thinking of the greatest in the kingdom as being someone like Judas Maccabaeus, the Jewish general who led a revolt against Syrian oppression. How amazed they must have been when Jesus contradicted this image so boldly by placing a child in their midst! Quite obviously we have here the difference between the spiritual and the carnal. Man’s carnal mind evaluates everything in terms of power, influence, strength, money, fame, fleshly pleasures; the spiritual mind sees love, joy and peace as the worthwhile values, with only modest emphasis given to material things.

And this is the difference between Christ’s kingdom and the kingdoms of this world. As Paul states it in Rom. 14:17: “After all, the kingdom of Heaven is not a matter of whether you get what you like to eat and drink, but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.”

There are some interesting traditions about the child that Jesus called to illustrate the nature of the kingdom. One is that the child grew up to be none other than Ignatius of Antioch, and important writer among the apostolic fathers who finally died a martyr’s death. Since he was surnamed Theophoros, meaning “God-carried,” the tradition grew that Jesus carried him on His knee, and that it was he whom Jesus placed in the midst of the disciples. Another tradition is that it was Peter’s own child that Jesus used for His illustration.

But any child serves to illustrate the point of our Lord’s lesson, despite the fact that children are often more like devils than angels. All of us, especially those of us who have experienced bringing up a family of children, know how bad kids can be, cruel and deceitful as well as rowdy and destructive. The longer I serve as a father to my three adopted children (ages 7, 9 and 11) the more baffling I find the Lord’s teaching that “Unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” It appears to me that they fuss with each other nearly all the time, and that they are at war more than they are at peace. And just any day I fear one of them might be killed by the other two. I don’t know why they are so rowdy unless it is because they play with the brethren’s children so much!

Even as I compose this essay Benjy and Philip are at war. They are 7 and 9, and it is good that they are no bigger than they are, for surely by now they would have killed each other. Two paragraphs up I was interrupted by a weeping Philip, who is the older of the two boys, but the latest to enter our family, having come from Germany at age 5. Benjy, who is smaller as well as younger and who came to us from Indiana at only 11 months, had clobbered Philip in a tussle that started out as only play. I asked Philip where Benjy had hit him, and behind a wall of streaming tears he replied “All over the place.”

Maybe I am wrong, but I urged Philip to defend himself when Benjy makes these attacks. It’s a problem in our family. If we get them raised without fratricide, we will rejoice. I explain to Philip that if he will “beat the stuffings” out of those that jump on him (it happens at school too) that they will leave him alone. Up until now he finds more wisdom in running!

I am saying all this to point out that sometimes I live with these kids and like it (I make speeches to PTA’s on how to do this!) and sometimes I live with them and don’t like it. And sometimes I am made to marvel how the Lord could ever have said that we must become like children if we wish to enter His kingdom.

But there is another side to this, which is the most important side, and is of course what Jesus was referring to. For instance, Benjy just now barged into my study with seven clothes pins fastened to his anatomy—two on each ear, one on his nose, and two dangling from his drooping lower lip. (They’ll likely all be on Philip’s toes before the hour is over!) He came in to tell me that he and Philip were playing at hanging up the clothes for Mother. A few paragraphs above they were fighting, but now they are at peaceful play. Even though they fight like dogs, whenever Benjy manages to catch Philip, they take their brotherhood seriously.

Nobody is likely to jump on Phoebe, of course. Not a second time at least! At 11 she weighs much more than she needs to, and she is solid. And she has no reservations about defending herself. She may even be inclined to move from defense to offense, if she is not watched. An older boy across the street took care of this problem by walloping her with a board across the head. Her mother thought this terribly unjust and she got hopping mad, and was soon ready to take it up with the boy herself. She fumed around for awhile trying to decide on strategy, whether to draw the lad into some trap or to do something more civil. Finally she decided on reporting it to his parents in hope that they would flog the daylights out of him. So she stalked toward her mission when, lo and behold, she was met halfway by Phoebe and the boy, arm in arm, declaring that all is forgiven and that all’s well with the world. Mother found it not quite as easy to forgive as Phoebe, but at least she retreated and took the defeat like a good soldier ought.

In saying that we have a resource of spiritual power in cultivating the mind of a child, we are, of course, aware of an important distinction that is carefully preserved in scripture. While we are to have childlike minds, we are not to have childish minds. Paul insists upon this difference in 1 Cor. 14:20: “Brethren, do not be children in your thinking; be babes in evil, but in thinking be mature.”

Phillips’ translation is helpful: “My brothers, don’t be like excitable children but use your intelligence! By all means be innocent as babes as far as evil is concerned, but where your minds are concerned be full-grown men!”

What is there about a child that impressed our Lord to the point that He would insist that grown people are to become like children if they want to be saved? The question is not an easy one, for a child is many things. It is obvious enough that it is wrong for us to be as children in some respects. Even Jesus criticized “this generation” for being too much like recalcitrant children (Matt. 11:16).

We suggest the following traits as a description of the childlikeness that our Lord praises, and which serves as a resource of power in our lives.

1. Simplicity

The sins that Jesus hated the most were pretense and hypocrisy. Let’s face it, most of us are fakes a lot of the time. We are always trying to impress somebody. We even deceive ourselves about our own motives. Not so with children. It was a child in the old German story of the naked king who amusingly pointed out that the king had no clothes on, while all the grown folk were saying what they thought they were supposed to say, that the king was garbed majestically. Because he has not yet learned duplicity the child says what he thinks. Most of us are like the carver of wood who covers his mistakes with wax so that the buyer will not see the flaws. The child is “without wax,” which is the basic idea in sincerity. One of the tragedies of our times is that sincerity has become such a rare virtue.

2. Innocence

Jesus appreciated children because they were not sinners like adults. It is the age of innocence. Grownups become tainted and scarred by sin, and many of them get that “hard” look. Children are pure and sinless, and the look of innocence and purity is refreshing to those who have to live in a sinful atmosphere. While it is absurd to think of a grownup literally becoming an innocent child again, we can understand that Jesus refers to a spiritual rebirth, which brings us back to the state of holiness that we enjoyed as a child. By God’s grace we overcome sin and become like a child. And so the Bible says: “Like newborn babes, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up to salvation” (l Pet. 2:2).

3. Trust

At this writing my three little orphans are asleep, apparently with not a worry in this world. They could not care less about whether the stock market goes up or down tomorrow. They have no concern about whether the crops will get enough rain or too much. They don’t even worry about these unpaid bills that lie before me. They sleep in peace. Theirs is a life of trust. They believe that with their parents around everything is going to be all right. I’ve always enjoyed that story about the little boy that was riding a train that was having a hard time making the grade, while the other passengers were anxious. “Aren’t you scared?,” someone asked him. “No,” was his reply. “My father is the engineer.”

By their very nature children are trustful, and they will trust if their parents do not condition them to doubt. This is why it is so wrong to play tricks on a child, such as slipping out the backdoor, leaving him with a strange babysitter. Even if he howls his lungs out when the parents leave, he should be told that the parents are leaving and when he can expect them to return. He will believe his parents at their word unless they continually deceive him. And a child that doesn’t know when his parents are telling the truth is an anxious child.

The heavenly parent never deceives His children. It is when we, like a child, have implicit trust that God will do what He says He will do that we can live the abundant life. We don’t have to worry about the stock market or bills or health. The promise that “I will never fail you nor forsake you” can give us the peace of a sleeping child if we will but believe.

The child’s trust is so real that he accepts what he cannot understand, but it is hard for an adult to do this. If he can hold his father’s hand, the child will go anywhere, however dark it may be. It is a tragedy that our faith is so weak that we insist on seeing every step ahead before we venture forth.

Even our missionaries are reluctant to respond to the call they feel until their support is assured and every eventuality anticipated. We are tempted to say here that the missionaries who have been forsaken in the field and have had to return home have been those who trusted more in some church than in God. The heavenly Father never forsakes the man who puts his trust in Him.

4. Dependence

We gain both strength and peace if, like a child, we humbly acknowledge our dependence upon our Father. One of the most provocative lessons of all the Bible is in Luke 7, which depicts in bold contrast the independent and self-sufficient Pharisee and the contrite, self-effacing woman of sin. Jesus points out that the Pharisee “loved little” because he was forgiven little-meaning that he did not recognize himself as in any particular need of the grace of God. The sinful woman, however, wept at the feet of the Master, fully ware of her need for God. God can hardly supply strength for the man who believes in the sufficiency of his own strength. Man’s extremity is God’s opportunity. And should we not always, amidst the uncertainties of this world, acknowledge our extreme circumstances. We are at the brink of disaster at every moment.

No man could have had more reason to feel secure than President Kennedy on Nov. 22, 1963. At one moment he was young, rich, powerful; the next moment nothing mattered but his relationship to God. Each of us is just as vulnerable to tragedy every day as was President Kennedy on that day. The worst of tragedies may come from Satan, whose activities against us are described as those of a roaring lion Out to devour whom he may. Only God can deliver us from evil. Perhaps this is the point of Enoch’s life when it is summed up as “Enoch walked with God.” It is the feeling of utter dependence upon Him, a complete reliance on His strength. The worst of all tragedies is for man to attempt to walk alone. It is childlike to be dependent.

5. Wonder

Man’s mind may be measured by the size of the things he wonders about. This makes the mind of a child as vast as the universe itself. The questions these kids can ask! It is sad that little children, so awed by the wonders of nature, grow up to become insensitive to the mysteries that once fascinated them. Something important is lost when man begins to take this amazing world for granted.

I tell my girls at the university that I highly favor star-gazing and moon-watching—assuming of course that the interest is truly astronomical rather than anatomical! I point out how Plato defined philosophy as beginning and ending in wonder, and how he insisted that astronomy be a required course. He believed that if one beholds the order and majesty of the heavens he will be inspired to make his personal life orderly and majestic. So at Texas Woman’s University we recommend star-gazers for husbands. It was when King David was watching the stars that he was moved to ask one of life’s biggest questions: “When I consider the heavens, the work of thy hands, and the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained, what is man that thou art mindful of him?”

When there is no longer any wonder life becomes inert. The child’s mind is so animated because it is free and wonderful. He has to learn later not to ask questions and not to think, except in certain predetermined channels.

6. Teachableness

The same Bible that tells us to be like children tells us “Be not like the mule,” which has reference to the animal’s disinclination to be educated. And yet some mules appear to learn more than some people! In that passage about the mule (Psa. 32:9) the point is made that the mule “must be curbed with bit and bridle.” Some people are perfectly content to have their minds shackled and their mouths muzzled. Few of us dare free our minds and think for ourselves! We choose to be like the unteachable mule, safe and secure in the stable of self-righteousness, and nibbling the straw of party pride.

One reason the child is teachable is that he does not have to be untaught. He is mostly free of prejudice. He can get excited over the ideas and the materials themselves, not depending on prestigious names to lend support to them. He is teachable also because he is not interested in pushing himself forward, and he is not seeking prominence. He therefore does not get in his own way like grownups do. The child chooses to remain in obscurity. He has a humility that is unaware of itself. There is a big difference between the innocent little girl that timidly hides behind the door when company comes and the middle-aged woman she sometimes grows up to be who fights her way to a bargain counter in order to nab a remnant form her neighbor’s grasp. And the difference is somehow related to the nature of the kingdom the difference between being childish and childlike.

We can thus appreciate our Lord’s statement: “You must let little children come to me, and you must never stop them. The Kingdom of Heaven belongs to little children like these!” (Matt. 19:14)

Just as we gain strength by being weak and wisdom by being ignorant, so we gain maturity by being childlike. —the Editor