Mark 9:36-37

A child was the least significant person in Jewish and in Greco-Roman culture. [Note: Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, s.v. "pais," by Albrecht Oepke, 5:639-52.] By using a child as His object lesson, Jesus was saying that service involves caring about people, even insignificant people such as children. The same Aramaic word means both "child" and "servant." [Note: Lane, p. 340.]

"Jesus was one of the first ever to see how essentially precious any person is, particularly a young child. A concern for children was not invented by the welfare state: it goes back to the teaching of Jesus." [Note: Moule, p. 75.]

Jesus proceeded to compare the humblest of His disciples to the child (cf. Mark 9:42). This was the focus of Jesus’ teaching that Matthew recorded (cf. Matthew 18:3-14).