Everybody, what is going on? You know what time it is. You're listening to join the Journey podcast with your host, Emma, daughter.

Thanks for joining. Here's a question. Do you know why the disciples tried to keep children from Jesus?

In today's passage, Matthew 19, there are so many great topics to discuss, as our Devo author

Ryan Nixon pointed out.

But we're going to spend our time together today talking about verses 13 through 15, which read,

Then children were brought to him that he might lay his hands on them and pray.

The disciples rebuked the people.

But Jesus said,

Verse 14, let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs

the kingdom of heaven. And he laid his hands on them and went away. When we read that,

we're left asking three questions. First, why were the parents bringing their young children to Jesus?

It's pretty interesting that as Jesus had been teaching on marriage, parents started bringing

their kids to him to be blessed. It was tradition for Jewish parents to bring their kids to the

rabbi to be blessed, actually. But we must note, as Spurgeon pointed out, that Jesus didn't baptize them. He simply blessed

them. But if it was customary, why would the disciples want to keep the kids away from Jesus?

Here's the deal. In Jewish culture, children were treasured, but they were expected to listen,

learn, and be respectful. Almost like a don't speak and less spoken to kind of deal. Today, things are

different. Think about it. We love watching videos of little kids on YouTube being surprised,

pumping into things, accidentally saying a word they shouldn't. We view kids as innocent and entertaining.

We love kids and think they're a blessing. That's part of why we've got things

like children's choirs and some churches. We find it encouraging to hear little kids speaking or

singing truth. But in Jewish culture, things were much different. If a child wasn't your own,

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