Waverly Church of Christ

Long ago Solomon wrote, “Behold, children are a gift from the Lord, the fruit of the womb is a reward” (Psalm 127:3).

If anyone would have known that it would have been Solomon — with 300 wives and 700 concubines he no doubt had many children running around the palace.

Not everyone feels that way:

a. Children can be loud, noisy and rambunctious.

b. They are often meddlesome, constantly getting into things.

c. They get under your feet and are always running around the house.

d. Then there are those incessant questions.

One individual said, “Children are creatures who disgrace us in public by behaving just like we do at home.” (Grit)

Another added, “One nice thing about children: they seldom misquote you, they just repeat what you should have said.” (John Bernikow)

In our text today, Jesus and His disciples are on their way back to Capernaum from Caesarea Philippi:

a. There Peter declared Him to be the Christ, the Son of God.

b. There, on Mount Hermon, Peter, James and John caught a glimpse of Him in His glory.

c. Following this they along with the rest of the disciples witnessed a great miracle — Jesus cast a “deaf and mute spirit” out of a boy (Mark 9:14-27).

On their trip there and back two conversations had taken place:

a. At least twice Jesus had indicated that He would “be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill Him; and when He has been killed, He will rise three days later” (Mark 9:33; cf. Mark 8:31; 9:12).

b. On the way back to Capernaum “they had argued with one another about who was the greatest” (Mark 9:34).