Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Jesus Blesses the Children (Mark 10:13-16)

In the Commentary on Mark from Baker, Robert Stein comments in p. 461 that this passage does not fit particularly well for the "house" of 10:10, however, after thinking for some time, I would say that it's could be a good fit.

The disciples were not happy when some people brought children to Jesus. The "house" in Mark is usually a place where Jesus would reveal secret to His disciples. By bringing the children to the "house", that means the people were not just bringing the kids to Jesus, but to join their inner circle, or even to share their secret! This is, of course, not something that the disciples could easily accept and that might explain why the disciples were not happy about that.