This parable fits into the context of Matthew 18. At the beginning of the chapter the disciples ask Jesus, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” (v. 1). Jesus answers: 1) the one who is humble, like a little child (vv. 2-9); 2) the one who cares for the weak or lost believer (vv. 10-14); and 3) the one who forgives other people (vv. 15-20).
There are many images in the Bible that picture the protecting care of God for his people, but there is probably no image that is more greatly loved than that of the shepherd and his sheep, which is why it is found so often. What Christian can mention God as shepherd without thinking of the twenty-third Psalm: “The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want” (v. 1, KJV)? Or the tenth chapter of John where Jesus applied the image to himself: “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep” (v. 11)? Yet it is not only in these well-known passages that the image occurs. A psalmist wrote, “We are his people, the sheep of his pasture” (Ps. 100:3). Isaiah said about God,
As we concluded yesterday’s study, we noted, “Sin is so serious that any inclination toward it must be dealt with radically.” What should be done? Many people know that these verses led the early church father Origin to have himself castrated in order to avoid sexual temptation. But this is not exactly What Jesus meant since here, in Matthew 18:8-9, Jesus explains his reference to eyes and hands (v. 9 adds “eyes”) by speaking of “things that cause people to sin” (v. 7). He means: Get rid of whatever is tempting you to sin.
What happens when people try to become great? They put themselves ahead of others, particularly the small and the weak, and they trample on them in order to get to the top themselves. What Jesus is saying in verses 1-6 is. . .that, instead of striving to become greatest in the kingdom of heaven (v. 1) [and] in the process of attempting this hurting others instead of guarding them (v. 6), the disciples should rather learn to forget about themselves and to focus their loving attention upon Christ’s little ones, upon the lambs of the flock and upon all those who in their humble trustfulness. . .resemble those lambs.
In the first three verses of this section Jesus is thinking of children as examples of humility, which he demands of those who would be saved. But in the next two verses he seems to be thinking of children not in terms of their humility but as those “little ones” who are weak or helpless. He is not thinking of children literally. He is thinking of believers who, because they have become like children in their humility, have come to “believe in me” (v. 6). What Jesus is concerned about and warns us about is harming such a believing person spiritually.
