Connecting the Christian Faith with Children (part four)

4. Children in the Later New Testament

Where the Gospels are explicit about the place of children the rest of the New Testament is more implicit, but it seems clear that children were present and participated in worship “and there is no mention of them being excluded at any point.”[1] “There were no Sunday Schools, for Christian nurture took place within the home and the worshipping community.”[2]

“The letters to the Colossians and to the Ephesians are unique … because they contain injunctions addressed to children … the fact that children were spoken to and not merely talked about is very significant.”[3] “The expression ‘in the Lord’ which is used by Paul to describe the relation of the Christian to Christ is used of children, who are to obey their parents ‘ in the Lord’ (Ephesians 6.1) and it is continually ‘in the Lord’ that their upbringing is to take place (Ephesians 6.4). The very fact that children are addressed in the ethical sections of the letters along with fathers, mothers, masters and slaves shows that the children were thought of as an accepted part of the church … sharing fully in the life of the congregation.”[4] In other words, “the first Christians took children seriously.”[5]

All of this challenges us to rethink the place of children in the activities of God’s people today, and to “recapture in our own particular contexts the radicalness of Jesus’ teaching on children. Children are not only subordinate but also sharers with adults in the life of faith; they are not only to be formed but to be imitated; they are not only ignorant but capable of receiving spiritual insight; they are not ‘just’ children but representatives of Christ.”[6]

[1] Lake, Let the Children come to Communion (2006, SPCK), p.31
[2] Dallow, Touching the Future: A handbook for church-based children’s leaders (2002, The Bible Reading Fellowship), p.50
[3] Francis & Astley, Children, Church and Christian Learning (2002, SPCK), p.12
[4] Understanding Christian Nurture (1981, a report of the Consultative Group on Ministry among Children, British Council of Churches), quoted by Sutcliffe (ed.), Tuesday’s Child (2001, Christian Education Publications), p.158
[5] Francis & Astley, Children, Church and Christian Learning (2002, SPCK), p.13
[6] Gundry-Volf, ‘The Least and the Greatest’, in Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought (2001, Eerdmans), p.60