The Synoptic Jesus tells his followers they must become like little children to enter the kingdom — receive it, in fact, *as* a little child or stay locked out. Paul tells the Corinthians and the Ephesians the exact opposite: grow up, put away childish things, stop being kids tossed around by every wind of doctrine. Same word-family, same target audience, two different verdicts on whether being childlike is a virtue or a defect.
Proposed answers
People have answered this in several ways; GEBible presents them as equal peers.
14that we may no longer be children, tossed back and forth and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in craftiness, after the wiles of error;
What follows is one scholar’s way of reading this disagreement— a critical-historical view that often concludes the texts genuinely disagree. It draws on the peer-reviewed sources listed below and stands as one position among the answers above, presented for transparency, not as GEBible’s position.
How critical scholarship weighs this: Usually considered reconciled
This summarizes where critical scholarship tends to land on this tension — a report on the field’s center of gravity, not GEBible’s own ruling.
The claim rests on the English gloss "childish" flattening two different Greek words used for two different purposes. The Synoptic kingdom-sayings use *paidion* (diminutive of *pais*, a young child) and its plural *paidia*: "become as little children" (*paidia*, Matt 18:3); "suffer little children" (*paidia*, Matt 19:14); "receive the kingdom of God as a little child" (*paidion*, Mark 10:15; Luke 18:17). In every case the point is metaphorical and concerns posture, not cognition. In the ancient Mediterranean a small child occupied a position of negligible social status and total dependence; to "receive the kingdom as a little child" is to receive it as one with no claim, no standing, and nothing to offer but trust — the same status-reversal Jesus presses when the disciples quarrel over who is greatest (the immediate context of Matt 18:1-4). Davies-Allison read Matt 18:3 precisely as a saying about lowliness and dependence rather than intellectual immaturity, and Luz concurs.
Paul's target is different. In 1 Cor 13:11 he uses *nēpios* — "infant," properly one not yet able to speak (*nē-* + *epos*) — as a developmental stage left behind: "when I was a child (*nēpios*) I spake as a child... but when I became a man (*anēr*), I put away childish things." In 1 Cor 14:20 he sharpens it with deliberate precision: "be not children (*paidia*) in understanding (*tais phresin*)... in understanding be men (*teleioi*)," while granting that in *malice* one should be infantile (*nēpiazete*). Ephesians 4:14 extends the same figure: mature believers should be "no more children (*nēpioi*), tossed to and fro... with every wind of doctrine." Conzelmann treats the *nēpios* of 1 Cor 13:11 as straightforwardly negative — the figure of incomplete knowledge set against adult *teleios* completeness — and Thiselton and Lincoln read the Pauline texts the same way.
The harmonization, then, is not a strained dodge but a recognition that the two authors metaphorize childhood for opposite features: Jesus for the child's dependent lowliness, Paul for the child's cognitive immaturity. A single literal entity (a small child) supplies two metaphorical tenors, and there is no contradiction in commending one feature while deprecating another. Crucially, 1 Cor 14:20 shows Paul himself making exactly this differentiated judgment in a single breath — childlike in malice, adult in understanding — which demonstrates that the distinction is native to the texts and not imposed by harmonists.
The one genuine pressure point, which the harmonization must address rather than dodge, is Matt 11:25 (par. Luke 10:21), where Jesus thanks the Father for having "hid these things from the wise and prudent, and revealed them unto babes" — and the word is *nēpioi*, the very term Paul deprecates. Here the Synoptic tradition does valorize a kind of cognitive infancy: revelation goes to the unlearned rather than the clever. Bertram's TDNT entry traces this positive religious use of *nēpios* (dependence on God, receptivity) alongside its negative developmental use. So the lexical overlap the contradiction alleges is real at one node — but even there the referents differ: Matt 11:25 praises receptivity to divine revelation over self-sufficient worldly wisdom, whereas Paul deprecates doctrinal instability and gullibility within the church. These are compatible: one can be humbly receptive to God (Jesus' *nēpioi*) while being doctrinally mature and stable (Paul's adults).
The whole material is paraenesis — practical exhortation working through metaphor — not systematic anthropology, and metaphors are selected for the feature the speaker needs. Reading them as competing literal verdicts on "whether being a child is good" mistakes the genre. The tension is real at the level of vocabulary and is worth noting, but it dissolves once the distinct metaphorical referents are specified.
Where the critical reading lands: largely overstated; an equivocation on "childish" resolved by the texts' own differentiation between childlike dependence and childish ignorance.
Sources for this reading
W. D. Davies and Dale C. Allison, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel According to Saint Matthew, vol. 2 (ICC; T&T Clark, 1991) pp. 755-761on Matthew 18:3Matthew 18:3
Hans Conzelmann, 1 Corinthians (Hermeneia; trans. James W. Leitch; Fortress, 1975) pp. 226-227on nēpios in 1 Corinthians 13:111 Corinthians 13:11
Anthony C. Thiselton, The First Epistle to the Corinthians (NIGTC; Eerdmans, 2000) pp. 1063-1066on 1 Corinthians 13:11 and 14:201 Corinthians 13:11, 1 Corinthians 14:20
Andrew T. Lincoln, Ephesians (WBC 42; Word Books, 1990) pp. 257-260on Ephesians 4:14Ephesians 4:14
Georg Bertram, "νήπιος, νηπιάζω," in Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, ed. Gerhard Kittel and Gerhard Friedrich, trans. Geoffrey W. Bromiley, vol. 4 (Eerdmans, 1967) pp. 912-923on the dual valence of nēpios, with Matthew 11:25Matthew 11:25
Ulrich Luz, Matthew 8-20: A Commentary, trans. James E. Crouch (Hermeneia; Fortress, 2001) pp. 426-431on Matthew 18:1-5Matthew 18:1-5
Gleason L. Archer, Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties (Zondervan, 1982) pp. 343-344representative childlike-vs-childish harmonization
Examining the tension
What follows is one scholar’s way of reading this disagreement — a critical-historical view that often concludes the texts genuinely disagree. It draws on the peer-reviewed sources listed below and stands as one position among the answers above, presented for transparency, not as GEBible’s position.
How critical scholarship weighs this: Usually considered reconciled
This summarizes where critical scholarship tends to land on this tension — a report on the field’s center of gravity, not GEBible’s own ruling.
The claim rests on the English gloss "childish" flattening two different Greek words used for two different purposes. The Synoptic kingdom-sayings use *paidion* (diminutive of *pais*, a young child) and its plural *paidia*: "become as little children" (*paidia*, Matt 18:3); "suffer little children" (*paidia*, Matt 19:14); "receive the kingdom of God as a little child" (*paidion*, Mark 10:15; Luke 18:17). In every case the point is metaphorical and concerns posture, not cognition. In the ancient Mediterranean a small child occupied a position of negligible social status and total dependence; to "receive the kingdom as a little child" is to receive it as one with no claim, no standing, and nothing to offer but trust — the same status-reversal Jesus presses when the disciples quarrel over who is greatest (the immediate context of Matt 18:1-4). Davies-Allison read Matt 18:3 precisely as a saying about lowliness and dependence rather than intellectual immaturity, and Luz concurs.
Paul's target is different. In 1 Cor 13:11 he uses *nēpios* — "infant," properly one not yet able to speak (*nē-* + *epos*) — as a developmental stage left behind: "when I was a child (*nēpios*) I spake as a child... but when I became a man (*anēr*), I put away childish things." In 1 Cor 14:20 he sharpens it with deliberate precision: "be not children (*paidia*) in understanding (*tais phresin*)... in understanding be men (*teleioi*)," while granting that in *malice* one should be infantile (*nēpiazete*). Ephesians 4:14 extends the same figure: mature believers should be "no more children (*nēpioi*), tossed to and fro... with every wind of doctrine." Conzelmann treats the *nēpios* of 1 Cor 13:11 as straightforwardly negative — the figure of incomplete knowledge set against adult *teleios* completeness — and Thiselton and Lincoln read the Pauline texts the same way.
The harmonization, then, is not a strained dodge but a recognition that the two authors metaphorize childhood for opposite features: Jesus for the child's dependent lowliness, Paul for the child's cognitive immaturity. A single literal entity (a small child) supplies two metaphorical tenors, and there is no contradiction in commending one feature while deprecating another. Crucially, 1 Cor 14:20 shows Paul himself making exactly this differentiated judgment in a single breath — childlike in malice, adult in understanding — which demonstrates that the distinction is native to the texts and not imposed by harmonists.
The one genuine pressure point, which the harmonization must address rather than dodge, is Matt 11:25 (par. Luke 10:21), where Jesus thanks the Father for having "hid these things from the wise and prudent, and revealed them unto babes" — and the word is *nēpioi*, the very term Paul deprecates. Here the Synoptic tradition does valorize a kind of cognitive infancy: revelation goes to the unlearned rather than the clever. Bertram's TDNT entry traces this positive religious use of *nēpios* (dependence on God, receptivity) alongside its negative developmental use. So the lexical overlap the contradiction alleges is real at one node — but even there the referents differ: Matt 11:25 praises receptivity to divine revelation over self-sufficient worldly wisdom, whereas Paul deprecates doctrinal instability and gullibility within the church. These are compatible: one can be humbly receptive to God (Jesus' *nēpioi*) while being doctrinally mature and stable (Paul's adults).
The whole material is paraenesis — practical exhortation working through metaphor — not systematic anthropology, and metaphors are selected for the feature the speaker needs. Reading them as competing literal verdicts on "whether being a child is good" mistakes the genre. The tension is real at the level of vocabulary and is worth noting, but it dissolves once the distinct metaphorical referents are specified.
Where the critical reading lands: largely overstated; an equivocation on "childish" resolved by the texts' own differentiation between childlike dependence and childish ignorance.
Sources for this reading