Scripture Daily

Context No. 720 of 4322 · Matthew

Context · Reflection

Matthew 18:1-6: in context

1In that hour the disciples came to Jesus, saying, “Who then is greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven?” 2Jesus called a little child to himself, and set him in the middle of them 3and said, “Most certainly I tell you, unless you turn and become as little children, you will in no way enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. 4Whoever therefore humbles himself as this little child is the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven. 5Whoever receives one such little child in my name receives me, 6but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to stumble, it would be better for him if a huge millstone were hung around his neck and that he were sunk in the depths of the sea.

The disciples come to Jesus with a ranking question, the kind that had been simmering among them for a while: who, then, is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven? Instead of naming one of them, Jesus calls over a little child and stands the child in the middle of the circle. Unless you turn and become like little children, he tells them, you will never even enter the kingdom, let alone rank in it. Whoever humbles himself like this child, that one is the greatest. He answers a question about who is highest by pointing at the person with no standing at all in that world, a child, and saying: start there.

Then his tone hardens. Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me, he says, but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to stumble would be better off with a great millstone hung around his neck, sunk in the depths of the sea. It is one of the fiercest things he ever says, and it guards the very ones the disciples had just been looking past in their scramble for greatness. The lesson runs both ways at once: to be great, become the little one; and whatever you do, do not be the ruin of one.

The disciples wanted to know who ranked highest, and Jesus set a child in front of them and warned against harming one. Am I climbing over the little ones to be great, or protecting them as he said to?

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