Matthew 18:10-11

Jesus warned His disciples not to look down on His followers who were very humbly following Him. The Twelve were in danger of using worldly standards to measure and give value to their fellow disciples, as we are today (cf. Matthew 5:3). Judas Iscariot was one disciple who failed to heed this warning.

Many interpreters believe that the last part of Matthew 18:10 teaches that God has guardian angels who take special care of small children. However the context of Matthew 18:10 is not talking about small children but disciples who need to be as humble as small children. Furthermore the angels in this passage are continually beholding God’s face in heaven, not watching the movements of small children on earth. Evidently the angels in view are the supernatural messengers (the normal meaning of "angels") who assist God’s people (Hebrews 1:14). This seems to me to be more likely than that they are the spirits of believers after death who constantly behold God’s face (cf. Acts 12:15). [Note: B. B. Warfield, Selected Shorter Writings, 1:253-66.] Another view is that they are the spirits of children who have died. [Note: Thomas, p. 268.] Are there guardian angels for children? I like to think there are because of God’s concern for children (e.g., Matthew 19:14-15), but I cannot point to a verse that teaches this explicitly.

The Jews believed that only the most knowledgeable of the angels beheld God’s face while the rest remained outside awaiting His bidding. [Note: Edersheim, The Life . . ., 2:122.] Jesus taught that the angels responsible for believers all have access to Him, because of God’s love for His own.

Matthew 18:11 does not appear in the earliest ancient copies of Matthew’s Gospel. Probably scribes influenced by Luke 19:10 included it here in later versions of the text.