“Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.” – Luke 18:17

These words have been used to silence doubts and insist on blind faith. But what if we’re reading them the wrong way?

As the oldest of seven kids, I’ve done my fair share of wiping dirty faces, checking for closet monsters, and speculating as to why the sky is blue. But I also grew up in a church that encouraged “child-like faith.” In that church, this phrase was often shorthand for, “We don’t have answers for this, but having questions and worrying about it shows a lack of faith.” Sometimes “this” was a problem the Church has struggled with for ages, such as the problem of suffering, but sometimes it referred to where funding would come from for the next church project. As a young adult, my belief that my faith should be unquestioning made me feel guilty when I had doubts about Christianity and God’s existence, but it wasn’t until recently that I recognized the disconnect between my experience with children and the phrase “child-like faith.” Children are no less fearful than adults, although their fears of things like closet monsters may seem irrational to older people. And anyone who has ever answered an endless string of “but why?” questions from a preschooler knows that it is difficult to satisfy a child seeking answers.

This led me to question where the concept of “child-like faith” originates in Scripture. The phrase itself doesn’t occur, but there are two places where Christ uses children as examples, and Christians often use these passages to support the idea. The first has to do with humility and commissioning rather than faith; the second requires a closer look because the Greek itself contains an ambiguity. Taken together, these passages call the believer to humility and the reception of those who appear to have nothing to offer, but they in no way support a view of faith that silences questions.

The first incident where Christ uses children as an example occurs after the disciples fight over which of them is the greatest and Christ puts a child in their midst. This is recorded in Mark 9:36-37, Matthew 18:2-5, and Luke 9:47-48. Both Mark and Luke focus on a concept that that could be called “transferred reception,” the idea that receiving person A is a way of receiving person B, who sent person A. “Whoever receives this child in my name receives me, and whoever receives me receives him who sent me. For he who is least among you all is the one who is great” (Luke 9:48). Within this particular story, it is the reception of this child (not all children) that is equivalent to receiving Christ. The child lacks the advantages the disciples must have listed in their argument over who was greatest, but Christ called the child and the child obeyed, just as Christ obeyed the Father. To become “like children” in Matthew’s account of this episode means obedience to the call.

The second place where Christ uses children as an example occurs when parents bring their children to Christ. The disciples rebuke the parents, and Christ rebukes the disciples (Mark 10:13-16, Luke 18:15-17). In both of these accounts, Christ tells his disciples, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God. Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.” (The Greek, like the English, is essentially the same in both gospels).

When interpreters use this passage to develop the idea of “child-like faith,” they assume that the passage means “whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child [receives it] shall not enter.” The bracketed words are not included in the Greek text of the passage but seem implied by the sentence structure. Sermons or books on this passage usually discuss ways in which children are naively trusting: they don’t worry about where their next meal will come from or whether or not their parents will take care of them. But the phrase “like a child” is difficult to interpret because there are few attributes of children given in the passage, so this interpretation depends on a characterization of children that comes from outside the text and cannot be universally applied to all (or most) children. There are, unfortunately, children who do worry about where their next meal will come from or whether their parents will care for them.