This is the Bamel podcast with Marty Solomon. I'm his co-host, Brent Billings. Today we discuss the many teachings of Matthew 18, including some parables and rabbinic insights from Jesus.

It's a very ambitious goal to get through the entire chapter of Matthew 18, but we're going to do it.

The whole chapter, let's just do this. Again, this was part of my body of work earlier. I didn't even deal with, but our every verse promise Brent has changed that.

You're every verse promise. I deserve that. This is true. This is very true. All right, let's just dive right in. Some of this stuff we're going to deal with in depth. Some of us are just going to like, yeah, we've talked about that. Move along.

All right, here we go. At that time, the disciples came to Jesus and asked who then is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. He called a little child to him and placed the child among them.

He said, truly, I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever takes the lowly position of this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me. I won't be dealing with any deep exegesis here of this little teaching, but we did hear some of my creative thoughts. I think it was a few podcasts ago and I read that chapter that I had written about my daughter.

The episode was called She Giggled and we got to hear that that whole chapter opened with just some thoughts I had about how this interaction with the little children took place. I don't know if this was just an abstract teaching, but I envisioned there was more to it than just, oh, hey, Jesus, grab a little kid, pulling him over a certain amount of lap being like, hey, come like a child.

This isn't the only time the disciples talk about who's the greatest.

My goodness, no. I think we referenced that earlier in this session where we talked about just the diversity of the Havira that Jesus has here. You have so many different worldviews colliding in these 12-telma deem, let alone the others that probably follow them and go all the other places that they go, whether it's the 72 or the women, or there are other disciples other than the 12.

So there's a lot of people and I'm sure it leads to very common, I mean, I'm in campus ministry. I got a trouble around the country. I'll tell you one common experience I have at every campus ministry I go to. Different organizations, not just impact.

You always have a bunch of very young, groupy young adults who are very adamant about the worldview that they have and the things that they're learning. It's a part of the process. I don't fault them for it. It's a part of growing up. It's a part of owning your own worldview.

But there's a whole lot of like, no, this is obviously the way to see it. No, you're stupid. This is obviously the way to see it. And what is that really? That jockeying around of worldview is really just a conversation about who's the greatest.

Like you're not sitting around literally going, I'm the greatest. No, Peter, I am the greatest. They're actually arguing about my worldview and where I stand and it's really an argument about who is the greatest.

And I use young adults because it's easy to picture. But I'll tell you one thing I've learned being in church ministry is we get more sophisticated in the way that we have these arguments, but we don't change. Our human nature is still the same.

And if you don't believe me, jump on Facebook and look at the way that we post about this stance and that thing in this worldview and just these loud social media posts that scream, I'm the greatest.

So we're far from growing out of this 2000 years later, but you are correct.

All right. I got nothing more to say about that. Let's keep moving. All right. If anyone causes one of these little ones, those who believe in me to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.

Woe to the world because of the things that cause people to stumble. Such things must come, but woe to the person through whom they come. All right. So while we're here, I'll just some have suggested

that when Jesus says these little ones and there might be a couple other references and other gospels that impact this perspective.

But some people have suggested that when Jesus says that the term little ones is the same kind of term that it appears that Jesus will use elsewhere or the other rabbis of his day would use to speak of their Talmudine, kind of like their spiritual children, their little ones.

So it is possible that Jesus motions to his disciples and says, do not cause my disciples to stumble. I think back to what I believe was our last episode, Brent, where Peter was confronted about taxes.

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