In A Visit to Vanity Fair, Alan Jacobs makes an interesting observation about interpreting Matthew 18:1-4. In this passage, Jesus says, “I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” Jacobs points out that a common understanding of this verse is that we are suppose to have a child-like faith. He believes this interpretation ignores the immediate context of the verse which which is focused on humility. And Jacob does not think this means having the humility of a child but suggests that it means considering oneself to have the worldly status of a child. He goes on to say that children are not very humble by nature and that this was the normal view of biblical commentators down through the ages. The status interpretation also fits well with the notion of the first shall be last and the last shall be first.
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Jacobs makes several other interesting observations in this essay. He mentions that the difficulty of a passage is not always obvious, but many times it is the ones that "seem perfectly transparent to understanding". (This was by way of C.S. Lewis.)
He also discusses how our perception of children has changed over time. Before the Victorian period, children were not considered to be as innocent as we do today. One of his supporting claims is that children's Bibles have changed significantly. For example, the pegging of Sisera's head to the ground could be found in almost every German or French Bible for children in the 17th century. You would never find one today that had it because we consider our children to be too innocent to be exposed to a story like that.
Posted by: CJ Costello on Saturday, January 28, 2006