Matthew chapter 18

At the begining of this chapter the disciples ask a very important question of Jesus. "Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?" To which Jesus gives an equally interesting answer. "I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.
And whoever welcomes a little child like this in my name welcomes me. But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea."
So what does this mean when Jesus want us to be "like little children"?
ajlin wrote "a childlike faith is necessary to enter the kingdom of heaven (see Mark 10:15) and while a childlike humility is necessary to grow in grace (see Matt. 18:4), a childish understanding of the nature of God and His work is no-where commended in Scripture. On the contrary, a refusal to mature in understanding concerning the things of God receives a rebuke" as seen in Hebrews 5:12-14. So we are to be like little children in our Faith and Humility, being innocent and in submission to Him but not childish in our understanding of His teachings and Word.

Jesus says that if your Hand, Foot, or even your Eye causes you to sin it is better to remove it than to be cast into Hell because of it. This is true, it is far better to be a one legged man in heaven than be an ablebodied man in Hell, but this is not the point of the statement. Of course Jesus does not want us to mutilate ourselves. What then is the crux of this lesson? "Woe to the world because of the things that cause people to sin!" our hands, feet or eyes do not cause us to sin. It is our sinful nature and wicked hearts which cause us to sin, not an actual body part. Jesus wants us to remove the temptations from our lives rather than keeping them there and continuing to sin. If a man were an alcoholic it would be beter for him to not sit at the pub each day crying out to God 'help me to stop drinking!' rather he should not go to the pub in the first place if the Holy Spirit is convicting him of drinking too much.

The Parable of the Lost Sheep is a beautiful representation of the doctorine of election, but we should not get carried away and read into the text what is not there or miss what is. The Parable is explained by "In the same way your Father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should be lost." and "these little ones" are the children from verses 2-6. This parable is specifically about children who already believe in Jesus. It can be generally applied to all believers but Jesus is specifaccly refering to children here.

Verses 15-20 is an interesting passage and ends with the often quoted but seldom correctly "For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them." Nathan White has examined this passage in his post Exegetical Fallacies Part 2 but I will offer the crux of his words here.
"First things first, this passage is about Church discipline. Jesus is laying the guidelines for dealing with sin among those who profess to be believers. One thing to notice is that a man cannot be cast out of the church by just one person. He must be approached by one first (given the sin is a private matter), and if there is no repentance, more than one go to him, and if he still doesn’t repent, it becomes public knowledge to the entire church.

So after explaining church discipline, we then get to verse 20 and it begins with the word ‘for’. What does this tell us? This is short for ‘therefore’, and it points us back to the previous thought. Thus, we can clearly see that the ‘two or more’ Jesus described in verse 20 is simply a reference to the fact that when two or more agree to cast one out of the church, Jesus is giving them the authority to do this in His name. One person cannot cast another out of the church, it must be agreed upon by more than one believer. When more than one agree, Jesus is in the midst of them and essentially agrees with their decision."

The Parable of the Unmerciful Servant is another one we should examine the context of. This parable is all about forgiveness and the that consequence of being unforgiving is being unforgiven. The Parable is about a servant who does not forgive a fellow servant, this parable is prompted by Peter asking "Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me?" Effectively Jesus says that every time forgiveness is needed we are to forgive our brothers from our heart or else just as the King had the unforgiving servant jailed and tortured "This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart." Of course we should always be prepared to forgive, just as Jesus forgave us but this passage only says there are consequences if we do not forgive our brothers, other christians. The Lord has forgiven them, who are we to refuse forgivenes? All our forgiveness provides is an end to conflict and bitterness, Jesus' forgivenes provides eternal salvation and fellowship with Him.