Children the great omission

                                                                                                             (By Evan. Silvanus D Singh)

Praise the Lord friends. Today we have gathered here as a Middleton society and talking about Children, the great omission, I am presenting biblical and theological perspective. Omission means the act of omitting, something left out, and something not done or neglected.

In the Old Testament children are considered as gracious gifts of God (Ps. 113:9; 127:3; 128:5-6). Having large numbers of children are considered a divine blessing (Gen. 24:60; Ruth 4:11-12).

 In the NT we find that Jesus accepted them, accepted their worship. When he got angry, he was angry at his disciples for keeping the children from coming to him. “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these (Mk. 10:14). Do not despise one of these little ones, for I say to you that their angels in heaven continually see the face of My Father who is in heaven (Mt 18:7). "If anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him if a large millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea (Mk 9:42). 

Pastors, missionaries, church leader’s even theological teachers and students know those references. There are more than 1400 references in the Bible, which talk about children and many of those references have theological significance but it’s being ignored. As students in seminary we never see anything about children, never see their importance, never see how God uses, and never see how important it is in church ministry.

1/3 of the world population is under the age of 15. Data says that around 1 million children are recruited into prostitution every year, 180 million are child laborer, 200 million live or work on the street, 121 million have no primary education, and millions of children are not getting basic needs every day. We have good preachers, good administrators, and great leaders, but very few who really work for children. What is the percentage of the church budget allocated for children in our churches? We don’t have a budget for children or only a few, even though they are our future. Nobody is talking about children, nobody cares about them. As the people of God, we have forgotten our responsibilities towards children. As students of theology, we conduct various programs inside and outside the community, but we also never talk about children. We have already established various kinds of theologies which talk about liberation, justice, and equality. But in reality we forgot the issues concerning children.

It’s time to wake up. The church has a great challenge.