<p>9:47 <i>But when Jesus saw the reasoning of their heart, he took a little child and set him by his side</i>- The disciples are framed as doing exactly the opposite soon afterwards, when they forbad the little children s.w. to come to Jesus (19:13)- whereas the Lord actually invited them to Him. Again we note how the Gospel writers present the disciples as so often out of step with their Lord.</p><p>The Greek for &quot;set&quot; means to stand, not to sit- this is how it is usually translated. Mk. 9:35,36 says that the Lord&nbsp;<i>sat</i>&nbsp;but He&nbsp;<i>stood</i>&nbsp;the child in their midst. But&nbsp;<i>histemi</i>, often translated &quot;set&quot; in Mt. 18:2, has the strong connotation of standing up or setting someone up in a position. &quot;The midst&quot; suggests the disciples were in a closed circle, and the Lord stood the child within the circle. If you call an onlooking child into the midst of a group of unknown adults, they will typically not want to come. We see the powerful attraction of the Lord to children in that this child came, although likely with much nervousness, wanting to come to Jesus, but not into that closed circle of men- just as so many today. Almost certainly the child came to the Lord and He held the child close to Himself; for He goes on to urge the disciples to &quot;receive&quot; such little ones, implying they were reluctant to have the child amongst them. That closeness to the Lord was what was being set up as an example. The scene is portrayed graphically if we put the Gospel records together- the Lord&nbsp;<i>sat</i>&nbsp;with the men in a circle around Him, He calls the child to Him, stands him up &quot;by Him&quot; (<i>para</i>&nbsp;Him means close by Him, Lk. 9:47) and then 'takes' him, cuddling the child to Himself &quot;in His arms&quot; (Mk. 9:36)- whilst He is sitting down. The natural response of the child who had been stood would be to want to sit down, holding on to Jesus, and not to stand above those men with their attention focused upon him. This natural desire to come down, to humble self, is what is being memorialized by the Lord as the pattern for all who wish to enter His Kingdom. Perhaps we can imagine the scene even further- the child would've wanted to come to Jesus personally, but the circle of disciples with their apparent superiority and judgmentalism would've been off-putting. But still the child came, and the Lord in Luke's record urges the disciples to allow the child to join the circle and &quot;receive&quot; him. This scenario is seen so often in the body of Christ in our days. In the early church, there soon developed a problem about 'receiving' others, not least children, women and Gentiles- and the Gospel records through this incident show how seriously wrong the disciples were not to do so. Luke's record goes on to record the incident with John's disciples where the Lord's disciples didn't want to &quot;receive&quot; them- implying they did not immediately grasp the teaching themselves.</p>