"Has God indeed
said...He who spares his rod hates his son, But he who loves him disciplines him
promptly."? Proverbs 13:24
Summary
Are you really
supposed to use physical chastisement as the only means to correct your
children for acts of rebellion? How do you interpret it?
Proverbs 22:15,
"Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child; The rod of correction
will drive it far from him."
Proverbs 23:13-14,
"Do not withhold correction from a child, For if you beat him with a rod, he
will not die. You shall beat him with a rod, And deliver his soul from
hell."
Proverbs 19:18, "Chasten you son while there is hope, And do not set your heart
on his destruction."
Is your response,
"Oh, it doesn't mean what it says...", or "The original languages tell us that
it doesn't really mean what it says...", or "The culture at that time was
different...", or a myriad of other
excuses?
If your excuses are
wrong, then God says you are actively hating your child.
Introduction
If there is an area that grieves my heart the most in terms of the Lord's ways
not being lived out, it is this one. I detest to see children raised to be
selfish tyrants, and as such, whose destiny is very grim indeed. It is
common place in the world, to see children as young as two years old ruling over
their parents by threat of tantrum! Truly, the concept of respect of
adults is going quickly in the world. But what grieves me more than this,
is to see professing Bible believing parents acting not too differently than the
world. In this area particularly, the world's psychological precepts have
essentially won out over Biblical precepts in the church [link to
Can 'Christian' Psychology Help
Me?].
Perhaps this issue is the one that speaks the loudest to me regarding the
reality of the soon return of Jesus Christ. I shudder to think of a world
ruled by the generation of selfish, manipulative tyrants now being raised.
As parents who are Jesus' disciples, we must stand on the Word of God, for if we
don't our children will have precious little chance to trust in the Lord.
What does the Word say regarding child discipline?
15 Biblical Principles
for Raising Children Who Will Trust in and Serve the Lord
1.
First and foremost, you, parent, obey the Lord and His Word and don't explain it
away with psychobabble.
-
Hebrews 12:6-11, "'For whom the Lord loves He
chastens, And scourges every son whom He receives.' If you endure
chastening, God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom a
father does not chasten? But if you are without chastening, of which all
have become partakers, they you are illegitimate and not sons.
Furthermore, we have had human fathers who corrected us, and we paid them
respect. Shall we not much more readily be in subjection to the Father of
spirits and live? For they indeed for a few days chastened us as seemed
best to them, but He for our profit, that we may be partakers of His
holiness. Now no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but
painful; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of
righteousness to those who have been trained by it."
-
Proverbs 13:24, "He who spares his rod hates
his son, But he who loves him disciplines him promptly.
-
Proverbs 19:18, "Chasten you son while there
is hope, And to do not set your heart on his destruction."
-
Proverbs 22:15, "Foolishness is bound up in
the heart of a child; The rod of correction will drive it far from him."
-
Proverbs 23:13-14, "Do not withhold
correction from a child, For if you beat him with a rod, he will not die.
You shall beat him with a rod, and deliver his soul from hell."
-
Proverbs 29:15, "The rod and rebuke give
wisdom, But a child left to himself brings shame to his mother."
What is unclear about
spanking with the rod?
2. What is the way a
child should go? OBEDIENCE - "Children, obey your parents in the Lord,
for this is right." (Eph. 6:1).
Why should we train
our children to be obedient to us/authority? Because we desire to set them in
the ways of Jesus who perfectly obeyed His heavenly Father. We want them used to
obeying authority so that if they choose to follow the Lord, they will be
prepared to obey Him out of their love for Him (John 14:15).
3. What is the meaning
of "train" regarding teaching obedience? Proverbs 13:24, "He who spares his
rod hates his son, But he who loves him disciplines him promptly."
This verse tells us that the essence of training is discipline, and that prompt
physical chastisement with the rod is God's way.
4. The world tells us,
and we have been raised to some degree, believing that chastisement/correction
is wrong. That "hitting" or "whipping" or "beating" a child is evil.
Those are Satan's words. God uses, in His Word, "correct with a rod", or what
this culture knows as "spank with an implement".
God COMMANDS us to
spank with an implement in Proverbs 23:13-14, "Do not withhold correction
from a child, for if you beat him with a rod, he will
not die. You shall beat him with a rod, and deliver his soul
from hell." The promise from God is that if we do "beat him with a rod" we will
deliver his soul from hell. What a wonderful reward for obedience to the Lord!
Please notice the
strong language the Lord uses regarding how strenuously we are to administer
chastisement i.e. "beat him". This certainly does not describe a half-hearted
swack that barely brings enough pain to cause a few whimpers. Obviously it does
not mean to cause bruises either. The strenuousness of the spanking should
be in proportion to the child's stubbornness in general, and in proportion to
their defiance over the act of rebellion which brought the chastisement.
Very compliant children will not need as strenuous a spanking as prideful,
stubborn, defiant children.
Proper Biblical, and thereby loving, chastisement is not done in
uncontrollable anger, but rather not in anger at all or with anger clearly under
the control of the Holy Spirit. The goal of
chastisement is correction, not punishment.
The Bible says use a
"rod", and God has His reasons for commanding that we use a
rod. It is better to use a rod than one's hand because God says use a rod.
You can run to psychology [link to
Can 'Christian' Psychology Help
Me?] or to a wrong interpretation of the Scripture, but both paths are sadly
a means of you yourself rebelling against God and His clear Word.
5. Why do we need to
use chastisement to discipline our children? First, because God said to!
If that doesn't motivate you, then you are not a believer.
Second, because God
knows we are wretched sinners, including our children (Psalm 51:5; Prov. 15:11),
and He knows that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom (Prov. 1:7).
We are to teach our children to fear the justice of the One who hates
disobedience, and that is done through chastisement for disobedience. As a
sinner is made aware of sin, he/she is more likely to turn to God's mercy
someday. As parents, our job is to make our children aware of BOTH God's love
AND God's justice. Without awareness of His justice, our children will see no
need to run to Him to receive His forgiveness later on in life.
6. What is
disobedience? It is SIN, and it is comprised mainly of not doing what God tells
us. And since God has given us the responsibility and privilege of training our
children, our standard for our children obeying us is the same standard God
expects from us, which example was given by Jesus, and which obedience is...
• IMMEDIATE (John 5:19-20; Gen.
22:3; Luke 1:18-20) To be told God's will and to not immediately obey is sin -
for a child to be told what to do by his parents and to not do it immediately is
the sin of rebellion.
• COMPLETE (1 Sam. 15:3-28,
18-19) Half-way obedience is no obedience at all and is a form of the sin of
rebellion.
• WITHOUT COMPLAINING/WHINING
(Phil. 2:14; Num. 21:5-7) To complain about doing the Lord's will is sin, and
for a child to complain/whine about obeying his parents is another form of the
sin of rebellion.
All
disobedience/rebellion against God/parents/authority is sin and God commands
those who claim to be His children to chastise our children for their sins of
disobedience/rebellion. Disobedience can be either ACTIVE (saying 'NO' when
asked to do something) or PASSIVE (not openly saying no, but finding other ways
to not do immediately, completely and without whining/complaining what
the parent asks).
7. Patience
should be applied primarily towards a child trying to do something right,
NOT towards a child sinning.
If a child is
earnestly trying to obey a parent but is unable to for legitimate reasons, then
the parent should be patient towards the child. Father's must be particularly
aware of this since the Scripture tells dads not to exasperate their children
(or provoke them to wrath). What does "exasperate" or "provoke to wrath" mean?
It means demanding that the child do something they simply are not capable of
doing. However, God never asks us to be patient towards our own sin OR the sin
of our not-yet-of-age-children. Rather, he gives ample commands that it is to be
dealt with immediately and strenuously. We should be patient towards other
people's sin (including our spouses!), but we are to be very impatient with
our own sin or our young children's rebellion.
8. Many mother's are
taught or believe that chastisement is the father's role. This is false as the
following Scripture proves, "The rod and rebuke give wisdom, but a child let to
himself brings shame to his mother". (Prov. 29:15).
One extremely
important role of women throughout the Word of God is to train/raise the
children, which makes a whole lot of sense since the man is out providing for
the family. Two important things to notice about this verse. First, that mothers
are to use the rod and rebuke to train her children and give wisdom to her
children, AND second, if she does not, she is openly shamed by the disobedience
and foolishness of her children (Prov. 22:15). How that more mother's who
profess to know the Lord would sense that shame, and react in a way pleasing to
the Lord by diligently training their child(ren).
9. Children, being
sinners, oftentimes test how far they can press their own will against
submitting to their parents will. This must be diligently looked for and
corrected, for to ignore our children's rebellion and sin, is sin on our
part against the Lord since He commands us to diligently correct and discipline
our children.
It is particularly
prevalent for mother's to ignore their children's sin and so mother's must be
particularly diligent in this area.
10. It is important to
know that after proper discipline is administered AND the child asks for
forgiveness, then this is to be followed up by immediate forgiveness by the
parent and a warm hug.
The actual, heartfelt
words 'I forgive you' is the best way to convey this! This is extremely
important and if sincere forgiveness is withheld, then the parent sins and
causes a hardening of the child's heart (Matt. 6:15).
11. To OBEY is better
than to PAY LIP SERVICE (Matt. 21:28-31).
We must be careful
not to train our children to verbally respond in the affirmative but still be
disobedient. If we tell our children to do something and they whine/complain
about it, and we demand a verbal affirmation from the child while still allowing
the child to whine/complain after the child has responded 'yes', then we are
training our children to place words above deeds, which is training in sin and
hypocrisy.
12. If we ask our
children to do something more than once because they did not do it immediately,
completely, and without whining the first time, then we sin by allowing our
children to rebel against us, and thereby against the Lord (1 Sam. 2:22-25, 30).
A good warning sign
that we are allowing our children to sin/disobey/rebel is if we find ourselves
in anger, sternly warning our children to obey or else. If we use verbal threats
like, 'All right, I've had it' or 'O.K., that's enough', or shouting the child's
name to make our children obey, then that might very well mean that we have
chosen to allow our children to sin without chastising them just prior to our
making that statement. We often do this because of our laziness or aversion to
doing things God's way, and have said in essence, "O.K. I've been ignoring your
sin, and now I'm finally getting tired of it, so I will now obey God and
properly train you". What does the child learn from this 'patience toward sin'
other than some sin and rebellion is O.K. Wouldn't it be better to discipline
immediately and prevent the child from sinning and the parent from getting
angry? The wise dad or mom disciplines right away and doesn't tolerate
disobedience/rebellion at all. This way, the parent is consistent and the child
learns faster and more proficiently and is trained much more quickly, thereby
allowing peace to prevail much faster, which is God's will for the believing
home.
13. Explaining the
reasons to a young child why they should not sin MUST FOLLOW the chastisement
and forgiveness, NOT PRECEDE IT OR REPLACE IT.
As adults, if God
clearly asks us to do something and we don't immediately obey but rather ask Him
why we should do it, we sin. If a child is sinning (disobeying, whining or
complaining) and we respond by asking the child essentially, "why are you
sinning (whining)" instead of properly disciplining the child, we do things our
way and not God's way. It is also an irrational question to the child since the
answer is "because I am a sinner who is choosing to sin right now"! Sinners sin,
that's what we do! Children before the age of accountability, cannot answer the
question, 'this is why I am sinning', and must simply know the cost for sinning
by receiving chastisement from the parents. Children must obey their parents
just because God has said to, period. As the children get older, the parents can
and should explain the reasons why they should not sin.
14. The Bible everywhere
teaches that children are to respect their parents AND other adults (authority),
even as wives are to respect their husbands (Eph. 5:33).
One of the biggest
victories of Satan is to convolute and pervert this authority and have children
commanding, bribing, black mailing, extorting or otherwise manipulating their
parents. We are to train our children to be servants, even as we desire to fully
serve the Lord. This is done by training/teaching our children to be humble
servants - they are to do our will, we are not to do theirs! Parents are
not to 'serve' their children by conveying to them that they are so important
that the parent must meet every desire of the sinful child. Humble servants
don't demand attention and if parents respond to the children's every desire
(not legitimate need), the parents sin by training up self-centered, selfish
children, which is the opposite of training humble servants.
Children are sinners
and demand "ME"! We must diligently train them to understand what Jesus means by
"the last shall be first", and the Lord has given the chain of authority in the
family as the starting place for this training/model, and a child's place is at
the bottom of the chain of authority. This relational fact must be established
before one can start pragmatically training children to be servants. If we are
primarily serving our children, then we are teaching them that they are really
important and worthy of being served, and thereby we encourage
self-centeredness.
Jesus says to
serve/love those whom you'll get nothing back from (Luke 6:32-33) and those who
we as adults are to serve are the poor, helpless, weak people (Matt. 25:35-46).
We naturally (in the flesh) desire to exalt our children because we see
ourselves in them and we, as sinners, love to love ourselves. Instead, we must
set a schedule consistent with God's desires and decide how time is best spent
or else we are abrogating authority/leadership to our children.
15. The Scripture tells
us women/girls are beautiful to the Lord if they are quiet and gentle (1 Pet.
3:4). We must train our little girls towards this.
The Scripture says
that wise men and women are men and women of few words who carefully consider
what they say (James 1:19; Prov. 10:19). Are we training our children properly
in this area, or are we encouraging many words? If adults are speaking, a child
should not be speaking while the adults are speaking nor making noise while the
adults are speaking. To allow a child to speak or make noise over adult
conversation is to encourage the child to disrespect authority and to exalt
him/her will as more important than the adults. A subtle form of rebellion by
children is to demand attention by making noise or other distractions while
adults are speaking. If we let their disrespect go un-addressed, we are allowing
them to sin and thereby training them against the Lord and His ways as clearly
revealed in His Word.
Concluding Exhortation
May the Lord help us
in this very important task and may we have the strength to trust in His ways
and lean not on our own understanding. May we, by His grace, turn away from the
world's foolish methods and beliefs, and instead turn to and fully embrace the
Lord and His ways as found in His Word, for all the answers. To do
anything less is to hate our children (Prov. 13:24).
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