The Ragamuffin Gospel: Good News for the Bedraggled, Beat-Up, and Burnt Out

by Brennan Manning

In the present day, we tend to idealize childhood as the happy age of innocence, insouciance, and simple faith; but in New Testament times the child was considered of no importance, meriting little attention or favor. “Children in that society had no status at all—they did not count.”3 The child was regarded with scorn. For the disciple of Jesus, “becoming like a little child” means the willingness to accept oneself as being of little account and to be regarded as unimportant. The little child who is the image of the kingdom is a symbol of those who have the lowest places in society, the poor and the oppressed, the beggars, the prostitutes and tax collectors—the people whom Jesus often called the “little ones” or the “least.” Jesus’ concern was that these little ones should not be despised or treated as inferior (see Matthew 18:10). He was well aware of their feelings of shame and inferiority, and because of His compassion they were, in His eyes, of extraordinarily great value.