Discipline your son, for there is hope; do not set your heart on putting him to death.
Discipline is a hard thing, for the disciplined; that’s definitional. Discipline which does not hurt is hardly even admonition. Discipline seems even cruel, to strike the errant when he is down. Certainly a thing can masquerade under discipline’s name which is cruelty. But discipline is a core duty of the family, part of its imitation of God’s relationship with us (Eph. 5:1), and to righteous discipline the Lord promises fruit, though at times that fruit is bitter.
Abandoning discipline, in a very real sense, is putting a child to death. The old saying runs, “Spare the rod, spoil the child,” and while the means may be debated, the essence ought not to be. All sons and daughters have wickedness in them, and so all parents, charged with the preparing of those children towards eternal righteousness (Duet. 6:5), must heed the instruction of Isaiah 26:9, that “When Your judgements are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness.” By God’s grace, children can learn from the foretaste of sin’s wage (Rom. 6:23, 8:22), from a small suffering, to abhor the fullness of rebellion, thus turning from death. If a parent refuses to discipline, therefore, he teaches the child to “deal corruptly” and to “not see the majesty of the Lord” (Is. 26:10), to that child’s death, even possibly his damnation.
The family’s role and duty of discipline, more, is a part and indicator of the family’s duty of education. While nowadays we too often turn to the state as the final abitrer of education, Scripture allots that role to the family, governed by the parents (Prov. 31; Eph. 5:25-33; 1 Tim. 2:15). This verse fo Proverbs likewise testifies that children are to be raised by the family.
The family, the parents particularly, provide the positive teaching: do this, learn this, don’t do that (preemptive). The parents teach their children to love the Lord. And then, when the children trespass and imagine themselves made happy by their vice, nascent or otherwise, the parent’s job is to use discipline to bring the child to an understanding of the eventual consequences of sin. The children thus learn to anticipate the suffering which sometimes delays as a necessary result of sin but which discipline makes near and immediately discernable.
Sometimes, however, the child of Christian parents does not take well to righteousness. He loves his sin; he chafes at rebuke and reminder. He is a fool. Men being who we are, the child can persist in this long, and the parents, being men after all, can grow weary. They can ask, with understandable worry, whether their long and thankless work will ever bear fruit. They are tempted to cut their losses, call the past years a sunk cost, and walk away.
To those so afflicted (Prov. 17:25), this verse brings comfort. Not all children of the covenant are saved, but for all children born to His covenant people there is hope. That discipline, hard and thankless as it is now, may still have effect by His grace (the only reason it ever had any effect), and the child need not be abandoned to death. All men, after all, are hopeless by their nature, incapable of honoring Him (Is. 64:6) in themselves (Is. 26:12). The recalcitrant son or daughter is no different, though the relationship makes their sin an exceptional agony to the parent.
More, God has promised to the parents who honor Him in their hearts, if imperfectly (1 John 1:8-10), that He will be faithful to bring their children to Him. This promise does not guarantee salvation to all, but the legacy of faithfulness is the pattern of history. Though it skips a generation or takes time to blossom, the Lord will fulfil His promise that, “My Spirit that is upon you, and My words that I have put in your mouth, shall not depart out of your mouth, or out of the mouth of your offspring, or out of the mouth of your children’s offspring… from this time forth and forevermore” (Is. 59:21).
Discipline hurts. Discipline makes both parent and child suffer (for every parent worth the name hates his child’s suffering). Discipline, however, is a crucial instrument given to parents by the Lord for the raising of their children to eternal life (Deut. 6:4-8). The Great Commandment, quoted by Christ in Matthew 22:36-40, was originally given in Deuteronomy 6 with instructions immediately attached to teach it to our children, that they might do the same in turn. Discipline is a means of that teaching, a way of life by making death’s walk unpalatable, and the Lord will give it fruit, in the parent and in the child.
God bless.
Sanctuary Functional Medicine, under the direction of Dr Eric Potter, IFMCP MD, provides functional medicine services to Nashville, Middle Tennessee and beyond. We frequently treat patients from Kentucky, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Ohio, Indiana, and more... offering the hope of healthier more abundant lives to those with chronic illness.
Colson Potter writes copious fiction and nonfiction, including a weekly Proverbs post and his blog at Creational Story.
