{"id":7168,"date":"2015-12-04T00:05:21","date_gmt":"2015-12-04T08:05:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/?p=7168"},"modified":"2015-12-03T14:18:58","modified_gmt":"2015-12-03T22:18:58","slug":"children","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/2015\/12\/04\/children\/","title":{"rendered":"Children"},"content":{"rendered":"

Some Greeks had gone to Jerusalem to worship during Passover. Philip from Bethsaida in Galilee was there too. So they went to him and said, \u201cSir, we would like to meet Jesus.\u201d Philip told Andrew. Then the two of them went to Jesus and told him….<\/p>\n

\tSome people brought their children to Jesus so that he could bless them by placing his hands on them. But his disciples told the people to stop bothering him. <\/p>\n

\tWhen Jesus saw this, he became angry and said, \u201cLet the children come to me! Don\u2019t try to stop them. People who are like these little children belong to the kingdom of God. I promise you that you cannot get into God\u2019s kingdom, unless you accept it the way a child does.\u201d Then Jesus took the children in his arms and blessed them by placing his hands on them. (John 12:20-22 and Mark 10:13-16)<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\tSome famous people have \u201chandlers.\u201d Some CEOs are hard to contact, hiding behind a wall of secretaries and assistants. Perhaps you can arrange an appointment for next year. But Jesus didn\u2019t operate like that, despite the best efforts of his disciples to \u201cprotect\u201d him. Jesus opened himself to the most unexpected visitors.<\/p>\n

\tLike non-Jews or children. <\/p>\n

\tOnly when a child came of age, which in Judaism was at the age of thirteen when they had their bar mitzvah and could be counted as a full member of the synagogue, did children begin to matter to society. Until then, they had no standing. The disciples only naturally assumed that a great man\u2014certainly the Messiah and future king\u2014had better things to do than pay attention to children, therefore. <\/p>\n

\tJesus became angry when the children were excluded and told his disciples to let them come. The kingdom was open to everyone, even those that seemed not to matter. It fact, it was the weak and lowly, those who lacked power and prestige, who were most reflective of the nature of the kingdom. People entered the kingdom God not based on who they were, where they came from, or what they could do, but based solely on what Jesus did on the cross. So Jesus called the children to himself. He allowed non-Jewish people to talk to him.<\/p>\n

\tActions, ability, or connections don\u2019t matter. How much money you have doesn\u2019t matter. You\u2019re welcomed into the kingdom of God not because of who you are, but because of who the king is.<\/p>\n

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Some Greeks had gone to Jerusalem to worship during Passover. Philip from Bethsaida in Galilee was there too. So they went to him and said, \u201cSir, we would like to meet Jesus.\u201d Philip told Andrew. Then the two of them … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_s2mail":"yes"},"categories":[18,17,16],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7168"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7168"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7168\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7170,"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7168\/revisions\/7170"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}