Wright, David F.2019-09-252019-09-252016-09-142004http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12424/157072"This recent consensus, which declines to see in Jesus' blessing of the children any connection with the baptism of children, in fact reflects the mind of the early church fathers almost to a man. It was the sixteenth-century Protestant Reformers who brought the account into the baptism of infants, probably not fully understanding what they were doing but finding it a useful shield against Anabaptist protests. Its apologetic value in favour of paedobaptism reached a peak in the mid-twentieth century when, in writers like Joachim Jeremias, Oscar Cullmann and T.F. Torrance, by way of the so-called koluein-formula it furnished even liturgical evidence of apostolic practice. As the Church of Scotland's Special Commission on Baptism put it: 'the Evangelists intend us to interpret that blessing [by Jesus] in terms of [the children's] baptism'."engWith permission of the license/copyright holderChildrenChurchCovenantinfant baptismBiblical TheologyBiblical hermeneutics, Interpretation of the BibleBiblical TheologiesDogmaticsEcclesiologyArticle