Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Mark 9:36
And he took a child, and set him in the midst of them: and when he had taken him in his arms, he said unto them,
36. And he took a child“alittle child” (Mt 18:2);but the word is the same in both places, as also in Lu9:47.
and set him in the midst ofthem: and when he had taken him in his armsThis beautifultrait is mentioned by out Evangelist alone.
he said unto themHerewe must go to Matthew (Mat 18:3;Mat 18:4) for the first of thisanswer: “Verily I say unto you, except ye be converted, andbecome as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom ofHeaven:” that is, “Conversion must be thorough; not onlymust the heart be turned to God in general, and from earthly toheavenly things, but in particular, except ye be converted from thatcarnal ambition which still rankles within you, into that freedomfrom all such feelings which ye see in this child, ye have neitherpart nor lot in the kingdom at all; and he who in this feature hasmost of the child, is highest there.” Whosoever, therefore,shall “humble himself as this little child, the same is greatestin the kingdom of heaven”: “for he that is [willing to be]least among you all, the same shall be great” (Lu9:48).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
And he took a child,…. Which was in the house, and which he called unto him, and set by him, as the other evangelists observe:
and set him in the midst of them; his disciples, that all might see and learn from this instance;
and when he had taken him in his arms; and embraced him, to show his great regard to humility, and humble persons:
he said unto them; the following words.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Servant [] . Rev., minister. Probably from diwkw, to pursue; to be the follower of a person; to attach one’s self to him. As distinguished from other words in the New Testament meaning servant, this represents the servant in his activity; while doulov, slave, represents him in his condition or relation as a bondman. A diakonov may be either a slave or a freeman. The word deacon is an almost literal transcription of the original. See Phi 1:1; 1Ti 3:8, 12. The word is often used in the New Testament to denote ministers of the gospel. See 1Co 3:5; Eph 3:7; 1Th 3:2, and elsewhere. Mark uses doulov in Mr 10:44.
Let [] . Wyc. renders ordained.
When he had taken him in his arms [] . The verb is found only in Mark, and only he records this detail.
Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament
1) “And He took a child,” (kai labon paidion) “And taking a child,” not as a model, but as an object of kind treatment, perhaps Peter’s child, in whose home in Capernaum, He is believed to have stayed, Mat 8:14; Luk 4:38.
2) “And set him in the midst of them: (estesen auto en meso auton) “He set it(him) in their midst,” in the midst of the twelve apostles, to use as an object lesson, as He sat there instructing them, Mar 9:35.
3) “And when He had taken him in His arms,” (kai enagkalisamenos auto) “And holding him affectionately in His arms,” to suggest how all that the child represented should be treated with kindness, Mar 10:13-14.
4) “He said unto them,” (eipen autois) “He asserted to them,” in a manner of instruction, 1Co 3:18-19.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
(36) When he had taken him in his arms.The act is expressed in the Greek by a single participle which occurs only here and in Mar. 10:16. It may mean either that the child was taken up in our Lords arms, or that the arms were folded round him. The latter is somewhat the more probable.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
‘And he took a little child and set him in the midst of them, and taking him in his arms he said to them, “Whoever shall receive one of such little children in my name, receives me, and whoever receives me, receives not me but him who sent me.” ’
Some argue that the connection between this verse and the last is obscure. But it is not really so. Jesus was adept at dealing with questions by unusual methods to bring home the truth. He had made His statement about what true greatness consisted of and now he looked around for a way of illustrating it. A few words about greatness could pass by unnoticed but an apt illustration would speak volumes.
Not one of the disciples who had been speaking of greatness had thought in terms of thereby helping little children. Indeed when at another time certain mothers sought to bring their children to Jesus the disciples would try to turn them away. They did not have the heart of a shepherd. They thought that Jesus had more important things to deal with! All their thoughts were on their own importance. But Jesus here took a little child who was standing by, probably almost unnoticed by the disciples, and receiving him in His arms He quietly said, ‘look, true greatness consists in things like looking after little children like this, and guiding them aright’. For each little child represents an opportunity to serve Jesus. To receive them is to receive Jesus. And not one of the disciples would have argued about the importance of properly receiving Jesus.
The Old Testament constantly laid stress on the importance of teaching little children. This was the duty of every Israelite and Jew. (Compare Exo 12:26-27; Exodus 13, 8, 14; Deu 6:7; Deu 6:20-25; Deu 11:19; Deu 32:7) and it was considered so important that it immediately followed the ‘first great commandment’, the Shema (Deu 6:5-6). But so often it got overlooked because men were too busy.
So Jesus did not argue about who would be the greatest. Rather He sought to stress that what mattered was men’s attitude of heart. He sought to stress what was truly great. Those who were truly great heeded God’s commands and ensured that little children were taught. They cast out evil spirits with no thought of preferment (Mar 9:38). They gave cups of cold water to those who followed the Messiah (Mar 9:41). So He took up a little child and spoke about him. Many would consider a little child unimportant in the order of things, said Jesus, but if someone receives that child in the name of Christ, He is receiving Christ, and not only is he receiving Christ but he is also receiving the One Who sent Him. He is doing a great thing. He is dealing with what is really important without regard for his own position or how men see him. That is the true measure of greatness. It is such a man who is truly great.
The principle would appear to be twofold. Firstly that what seems unimportant to men is extremely important to God, especially the care of believing children for whom He has special concern (Mar 9:42). Every child offers an opportunity of receiving Christ and receiving God, because they offer an opportunity of humble service in His name. Furthermore the right teaching of these little children will be the safeguard of the future. So the truly great will not be too important to receive them and give them time. And secondly that the smallest thing done for Christ and for love of Him is extremely important (see Mar 9:41, and compare Mar 12:41-44), while larger things, if not genuinely done for Him, lose their importance. For the truth is that what men consider important, and see as contributing to their own importance, is often not very important at all in the final scheme of things. Indeed those who seek importance often merely demonstrate that they are unimportant. It is not just a question of getting children to ‘make a decision’. What matters is carefully bringing them up to know the truth. Very often this is left to mothers. How important mothers are in the scheme of things (1Ti 2:15). We almost take it for granted, but this is the very foundation of the Kingly Rule of God.
The idea that lies behind Mar 9:37 is the Jewish shaliach (agent, representative). A man’s agent is as himself. Thus little children, especially those of godly parents, are seen to be God’s agents and as such are His representatives and present real opportunity for serving Him.
‘He took a little child.’ Probably some relative of Peter’s, who knew them all and would possibly be hanging around wanting to be with the men, but of whom little notice was being taken. ‘Taking him in his arms.’ A personal touch, found only in Mark, suggesting an eyewitness who remembered exactly what happened, and bringing out that Jesus had time for all.
‘Whoever receives Me, receives not Me but Him Who sent Me.’ Here we see the claim of His special status, that He was sent by the Father, an idea common in John, and distinctly stated here (compare Mar 12:6 see also Mat 15:24; Luk 4:18; Luk 4:43; Joh 3:17; Joh 4:34; Joh 5:23; Joh 5:30; Joh 5:36; Joh 5:38; Joh 6:29; Joh 6:38-44; Joh 6:57 and often). And that to receive Him was to receive the Father, a further stress on His unique status.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
36 And he took a child, and set him in the midst of them: and when he had taken him in his arms, he said unto them,
Ver. 36. See Trapp on “ Mat 18:2 “ See Trapp on “ Mat 18:3 “
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
36. . ] This particular we learn from Mark.
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
Mar 9:36 . The child, produced at the outset in Mt., is now brought on the scene ( ), not, however, as a model (that in Mar 10:15 ), but as an object of kind treatment. : in Mk. only = taking it into His arms, to symbolise how all that the child represents should be treated.
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
when He had taken him in His arms. This is all one verb (enankalisamenos), and Occurs only here.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
36. . ] This particular we learn from Mark.
Fuente: The Greek Testament
Mar 9:36. , in the midst between Himself) and His disciples: as appears by comparing Luk 9:47, by Himself [He set the child by Him].-, having embraced him in His arms) Symbolical of the intimate union between Him and such children. Comp. Mar 9:37; ch. Mar 10:16. By that very act He conferred grace on the little one [and how great was the sweetness, with which the child was thereby bedewed, is not hard to understand.-V. g.]. So dear to Him, doth He teach us, that the lowly are.
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
Mar 10:16, Mat 18:2, Mat 19:14, Mat 19:15
Reciprocal: Luk 2:28 – took
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
CHRIST IN THE CHILD
And He took a child, and set him in the midst of them: and when He had taken him in His arms, He said unto them, Whosoever shall receive one of such children in My name, receiveth Me.
Mar 9:36-37
As Christs days on earth, so now, He comes to us under various formsas babe, as youth, as man, as a spiritual presence. Consider to-day His coming as a child. Notice:
I. To receive a child in Christs name is to receive Christ.He who receives a child, receives Christ under the veil of childhood. Your own nursery, in this light, may be as sacred a place as the inn at Bethlehem; they who take up their own treasure, in Christs name, as Christs disciples, certainly have hold of Christ. This word out of Christs mouth, like a two-edged sword, cuts through and cuts away a whole entanglement of sophistry and error. A mothers heart is the best place to seek for a comment on Christs words. She knows that infancy is the time of innocence; she can fondle her infant in Christs name, and see His innocency reflected in it. This view has a bearing on education. So much depends upon what you have to educate. If an infant is like the Infant Christ, you will give it one kind of education, if it is like a half-hatched basilisk, your training must of necessity be different.
II. What it is to receive a child in Christs name.
(a) As His representative should receive him. To act as He would act in the like case (Cf. Mar 10:13, etc.). How often when confronted with children we resemble rather St. Peter than Christ! They distract the attention, and we have more important matters to attend to! Can anything be more important? Trees, no doubt, are greater things than seedlings, but the gardener who postpones attention to his seedlings in order that he may prune and guard his trees, will find the seedlings sustain more hurt than any good to his trees can compensate. Trees will endure delay, but the same delay may kill seedlings. Children are the seedlings of humanity; and as such Christ would have you treat them. You can do more good through them than is possible if their claims should be ignored.
(b) To receive him as himself Christs representative. Respect and reverence due to children on this ground. We have as much to learn from them as they from us; nay more, for they are more like Christ than we are. Many things hidden from the wise and prudent have been revealed to babes. They who would learn to follow the Lamb must be content that a little child shall lead them.
Illustration
Christs words about children are not metaphor, but fact; it is for us to reverence children that we may again become like them. If we do not thus reverence childhood, and Christ under the veil of childhood, what do we but reject Christ, and offend those who represent Him? True, we may have to rebuke, or even punish children, as a means of guarding them from evil; but, with love to temper and direct the discipline, this cannot do them hurt. Thoughtlessness, neglect, caprice, impatience, selfishness in some one of its many formsthis it is which offends the little ones, and tends to make them unchildlike. It is not love that spoils, it is carelessness and lack of love. Remember, it is Christ through children Who appeals to us for help and sympathy.
(SECOND OUTLINE)
THE CHILD IN THE MIDST
I. Take care of the child.Receive, help, cherish, or protect a child, make the way of gooduess easy to him, and shield him from evil, and Christ declares that inasmuch as you have done it to the least of all His little ones, you have done it unto Him. On the other hand, offend any such child, that is to say, hinder or mislead, spoil or degrade him in any way; do anything to rob a child of any of these Divine gifts, rob him of his innocence or trustfulness or his guileless heart, and sow the seeds of evil habits or tastes in their place, and you know the denunciation or curse which the Divine voice has laid upon you for your evil deed. A child is a living symbol of that which draws to us the love of Christ, and we cannot doubt that he is so by virtue of his innocence, his obedient spirit, his guilelessness, or simplicity of character, his trustfulness, and by all the untarnished and unspoilt possibilities of goodness in him.
II. A new force in our own lives.As we contemplate such a scene as this in our Lords life with the little child in the midst, and listen to the Saviours words, all the commands and injunctions to keep innocency, to keep the spirit of obedience, to keep a guileless and trusting and loving heart, gain a new force. They seem to speak to us with new voices; for if the true lifethe life that has in it the hope of union with Christmust be a life endowed with these gifts, whether in youth or age, what a blessed thing it will be for you if you have never lost or squandered them!
III. A keener interest in social duty.And if we turn our thoughts from our own separate personal life, and look for a moment at our duty as members of society, how this picture of Christ embracing the little child, and blessing those who receive or help one such should stir us to new and keener interest in social duty! Does not this example and teaching of the Lord carry in it the condemnation of a great many of our traditional notions about our duty to the young? We see the Lords tenderness and love and care for the little child; we see how He values the childlike qualities, and how He enjoins the nursing and the cherishing of these. If, then, we have really learnt the lesson which He thus presses upon us, we shall feel something like reverence for every young life as it begins its perilous and uncertain course on the sea of mans experience.
Bishop Percival.
Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary
6
This child was small for Jesus took him in his arms, after he had placed him in full view of the apostles.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Mar 9:36. And taking him in his arms. Peculiar to Mark. The child seems not to have been brought in, but to have been a member of the household. Tradition says it was the martyr Ignatius, of Antioch, who was therefore called Christophorus (borne by Christ). The little one may have been the child of one of the Apostles, perhaps of Peter, whose house this may have occurred.
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
THE INFANT THE PARAGON
Mat 18:2-5; Mar 9:36-37; Luk 9:48. Mark: Jesus, calling to Him a little child, placed it in their midst, and said, Truly, I say unto you, Except ye may be converted, and become as little children, you may not enter into the kingdom of the heavens. Therefore whosoever may humble himself as this little child, the same is the greater in the kingdom of the heavens; and whosoever may receive one such little child in My name, receiveth Me. Mark: Taking a little child, He placed it in their midst, and taking it up in His arms, He said to them. . . . There is no mistake as to the conclusion that these are literal, natural infants, small enough for Jesus to lift up in His arms, exhibiting them illustratively. This is beautifully illustrative of the glorious, universal redemption in Christ, reaching every human being, even in the prenatal state, so soon as soul and body, united, constitute personality. Now as these infants, by the redemption of Christ, had been born in the kingdom, and could only get out by sinning out, which they could not do till they reached responsibility, it was demonstrative proof that they are all members of the heavenly kingdom; whereas, in the case of adults, the matter is at least problematical, so that we can not know for any one but ourselves the status before God. So here we have an irrefutable illustration of the consolatory fact that all infants are members of Gods kingdom, and here held up as paragons, because there can be no defalcation in their case, as they can only get out by actual sin, of which they are incapable till they reach responsibility. Hence, in their case, there can be no doubt, which can not be said of any adult, because no one but God knows the heart. It is a patent fact that infancy is the very period of an humble, loving disposition; humility and love constituting the preeminent graces of the kingdom. We may pertinently here observe that these infants are not sanctified, but possessed of depravity, manifested in evil tempers cropping out from the cradle; but, as Jesus says, they are normal citizens of the kingdom, standing where a genuine conversion brings every adult, and needing sanctification, like every justified Christian, such as those apostles, who there permitted ministerial ambition to show its cloven foot to their just reprehension.
Fuente: William Godbey’s Commentary on the New Testament
36 And he took a child, and set him in the midst of them: and when he had taken him in his arms he said unto them, 37 Whosoever shall receive one of such children in my name, receiveth me: and whosoever shall receive me, receiveth not me, but him that sent me.
Luke adds “for he that is least among you all, the same is great.” Note “is great” not will be great. Do your works here and you will be what you will be seems to be the idea. In short, do not worry about then but do now.
Matthew adds that if you humble yourself here you will be greatest in the kingdom.
Over all being accepting of a child is to be accepting of the Lord and that act relates closely with your position in the kingdom.
This whole concept of humility is a close relative of what has been mentioned of pastors/teachers in our pulpits today. Where is the humility? Pastors are to be accepting of the children, and accepting of being humble like a child. What a goal to set for one’s self.
It almost seems as though John takes the Lord’s words of being accepting of a child to heart and wonders aloud of someone they had seen ministering. It might well relate back to the whom will be greatest however since he seems to be looking down his nose at this one that had been ministering.
It seems from the text that John was answering a question or was responding to something the Lord had said. I probably is that he understood the Lord in his illustration of humility and serving and wondered at the man under discussion. This man was doing works in your name, but we told him to stop. The indication being “Were we correct in doing so?”
We want to see if we can find some principle for our own time here.
Fuente: Mr. D’s Notes on Selected New Testament Books by Stanley Derickson
A child was the least significant person in Jewish and in Greco-Roman culture. [Note: Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, s.v. "pais," by Albrecht Oepke, 5:639-52.] By using a child as His object lesson, Jesus was saying that service involves caring about people, even insignificant people such as children. The same Aramaic word means both "child" and "servant." [Note: Lane, p. 340.]
"Jesus was one of the first ever to see how essentially precious any person is, particularly a young child. A concern for children was not invented by the welfare state: it goes back to the teaching of Jesus." [Note: Moule, p. 75.]
Jesus proceeded to compare the humblest of His disciples to the child (cf. Mar 9:42). This was the focus of Jesus’ teaching that Matthew recorded (cf. Mat 18:3-14).