2026-06-21 - Josh Patterson

There's a couple of things I just want to pull out of that very briefly.

The first is this.

There's two points.

The first one is this.

Just notice that Jesus loves you.

children.

Verse 13 we read says that people were bringing their children to Jesus to have them touch them.

So most likely it's parents, mums and dads bringing their children, bringing you guys to Jesus.

I think that would have been common for parents to do that with priests and with rabbis and important Jewish leaders.

But as people started to follow Jesus, as they saw the wonderful things that Jesus did, they saw the miracles that he did, they saw that he healed people and they heard what he taught.

People thought that they could bring their children to Jesus and Jesus would bless them.

And that would be good.

But just notice what the disciples did.

People were bringing their children to Jesus to have him touch them.

But the disciples rebuked them.

The disciples rebuked them.

They basically told the parents off.

Isn't it nice to see your parents told off rather than you told off for once? But as the mom and dads were bringing their children to Jesus, the disciples started to tell the parents off, saying that they shouldn't be bringing their children to Jesus.

What are the disciples thinking? Well, it seems to them that for Jesus to spend time with children, to pray for children, to bless them, In the disciples' minds, it's a bit of a waste of time for Jesus.

Jesus doesn't need to be bothered about, you know, hugging children and blessing them and spending time with them.

Jesus needs to be going and caring for the sick people and be caring for the lame people and be caring for those who actually really do need his help.

Jesus doesn't have time.

for children.

That's what the disciples were saying.

And we said before, Jesus uses children as an example, and children were loved by their parents, and that society is true, but they weren't given much preference, they're not given really any status, and the disciples seem to think there's no point in Jesus spending his time with children.