Children in the Church

What I want to do in this article is briefly discuss the place of children in the church. In other words, how does God view our children? Are they pagans? Christians? Or something else? To begin, I want to clarify that when I speak of children, I am talking about the children of believers. Where do they stand before God? What I want to argue for in this article is that our children belong to God, members of the covenant. This is an important issue because it has huge practical implications for the church. I will not attempt an exegetical dissection of a passage, rather, I would simply like to offer some theological reflections about the place of baptized children in relation to the covenant. Although this is not an exercise in exegesis, I do have a few passages in mind as I think about this topic (Mark 10:13-16, Acts 2:38-39, Deut 5:8-10). It is clear that the God of the Bible is a covenant making God. And whenever God calls people into covenant with Him, He always includes their children. God promises to be a god to them and to their offspring. In this way, the children are both heirs of the covenant promises and stipulations. Children are real members of the covenant community, set apart from the rest of the pagan world. In fact, Jesus makes this emphatically clear in Mark 10. This is the scene where Jesus sharply rebukes his disciples for hindering children from coming to Him. The reason for His rebuke, Jesus declares, is because "the kingdom of God belongs to such as these". The reason I bring this topic up is because I want to encourage christian parents about the status of their children. Our God looks upon them with favor. We need not seek their conversion as though they are pagans until such a time as they make a profession of faith, but rather, we can be assured, because of God's faithfulness, that they are "christians". It is so easy in our day and age to plant seeds of doubt, sometimes unknowingly, in the minds of our children by our emphasis on professions of faith. Sometimes our children feel left out enough when the tray passes them by. Let us not distance them any farther. Rather, let us place our confidence in the God who has promised to be the God of our children for a thousand generations.