Have You Not Read S2E14 - Disciplining Children

Welcome to Have You Not Read, a podcast seeking to answer questions from the text of scripture for the honor of Christ and the edification of the saints. Before we dig into our topic, we humbly ask you to rate, review, and share the podcast.

Thank you. I'm Dylan Hampton, and with me are Michael Durham, Chris Giesler, and Andrew Hudson.

What Proverbs 13:24 Means by the Rod and Discipline

Tonight we are dealing with questions that probably come up with parents, and we are going to start with the question, when we read Proverbs 13, 24, he who spares the rod hates his son, and he who loves him disciplines him promptly.

Does discipline then mean spanking? We'll start off with that one, and we have a second parter that we'll hit later in the show. Michael.

Right, so the Proverbs at this point in the book are very much isolated sometimes. There's a few of them, a few verses kind of stuck together, a series of parallelisms that constitute a little nest of verses together.

But in this case, this is the portion of the book of Proverbs called the sentences, and it's just two lines. You know, he who spares his rod hates his son, but he who loves him disciplines him promptly.

Okay, so this is a good question. Is this, it's just this referring to striking him with a rod, is this referring to spanking, is this referring to some sort of corporal punishment? That's a good question.

I think obviously that is entailed. Is that all that is entailed? No, right? So there is the clear apparent meaning of the text to spare his rod, right? What is involved there? Now, the rod, of course, takes different forms based on various cultures, but notice it is, you know, it is the father's rod.

It is the instrument that he has selected to discipline his son, whom he loves. So it is an instrument that the father has selected out of love that is particularly designed for his son in his love to discipline him in a way that is efficient and effective.

This is a sentence, this is a little clip of wisdom from Proverbs to highlight someone being a good father. And this is one aspect of being a father, and it's an important aspect. So for, you know, a variety of different cultural images for the rod, you know, we could think of, you know, the switch out past the woodshed, right?

We could think of, some people talk of the belt. Some people have used a paddle. In my family, we used one of those big, large paint sticks from Lowe's that cost a quarter for the five-gallon bucket you can stir up.

So this is going to include spanking. Yes, it is something that might be constituted at the beginning, the primary stages of discipline, right? But again, the instrument that the father chooses out of love for his son may not always be the same instrument.

It's going to be the one that effectively, promptly guides and shapes and disciplines his son.

I think the fact that we have so much instruction in Proverbs, it's instruction. It's a form of discipline or discipling. Here's what my wisdom that I have for you. And one or a few of those verses talk about spanking.

Others are just correction, words of correction.

Yeah, as needed. So we're kind of looking at what the situation calls for, right? And sometimes the situation calls for differences between children. Wouldn't you say, I might have a child who's built like a fullback and he might need the paddle, but I also might have one that's built like a twig and he may need the switch behind the woodshed.

Just a little bit of difference, but that's a point that you made toward love. The father knows his sons, he knows his daughters and he loves each one of them as they are and disciplines them accordingly.

Do you guys implement some of those principles within your own households?

You know, sometimes it's called a punishment fitting the crime. But the idea here is that it's meant to turn aside, to correct. It's not out of hatred towards your child, it's out of love. Like we are heaping upon in a way to show how much I truly love my child.

I will do things for their good out of love that I may not like. It may hurt me to see me to have to harm my child, but that harm is not meant to harm, it's meant to heal. To turn aside from wickedness and that looks different for different children.

I know in my household, there are times that it has come to, you are not listening in all the ways that I have talked to you about this. It is now time for your body to be inflicted with pain. So your ears can work again.

Yeah. In my Bible, there's a reference to an Egyptian quote talking about boys ears being on their backsides, getting their attention. I don't find that to be in my household, the problem my son doesn't necessarily, he's not the one that is getting most of the attention whenever it comes to corporal punishment.

And that's an interesting thing to think about how your children have very different predilections and demeanors and you must seek to honor Christ whenever it comes to discipline. Amen to that.

So what would you say to somebody, could you, you mentioned this off mic earlier, what would you say to somebody who says that, is this the rod of rule that you, how are you referencing that?

It's rulership or reigning, governing over is the idea that you're not, you see the sin and you just look over and look past it and let them do whatever they want. While you're not exercising the governorship over which that you have been given, you are to be in dominion over your household.

Why would you, do you hate your son? Do you want them to be undisciplined? I even said this word during Sunday school with my children in Sunday school, do you want to be a bastard? Is that the idea that I don't care for my son in the form that they're illegitimate?

Yeah, yeah. No, I wanna show you love, you are a son of the household. Right. So I am gonna exercise my rule and reign and rulership under Christ that he has instituted. Right. And if this is a good thing,.

Which means I love you. Yeah, and we see Christ using the rod as well, right? Like in Psalm 2, it's not unused. He's going to break them like earth and wire and he's going to use his rod that he's been given.

Is definitely a symbol of authority, right? And again, there's different types of authority, different types of relationships. The instructions, for instance, and the scripture about how a father is to relate to their children is not the same category of how masters relate to their slaves, but there's a rod in each relationship, right?

So we are recognizing that the rod is a symbol of authority and we even find in Isaiah 11 that the rod is in the mouth of the Messiah, that he disciplines through and his authority is in his word, okay?

As we think about the description of a father in relationship to his children and that he has this rod, this authority that he has chosen in love to discipline, to shape, to turn aside, to direct his son, his daughter, his children, we should recall Hebrews chapter 12 and let's not forget what those to whom this book is written forgot.

Verse five says, and you have forgotten the exhortation which speaks to you as sons. My son, do not despise the chastening or the discipline, right? The same thing that we're thinking about from Proverbs, chastening of the Lord, nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by him.

We don't want our children to despise our discipline. We don't want our children to be discouraged, despondent, give up when we rebuke them. We don't rebuke them because we want them to stop trying. We don't rebuke them because we want them to give up.

Right. We're trying to turn them aside to better paths to move forward on those paths of wisdom and righteousness. For whom the Lord loves, he chastens. Lord didn't love Esau, he never chastened Esau.

The Lord loved Jacob, he chastened Jacob. He scourges every son whom he receives, he loves. So if you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons. For what son is there whom a father does not chasten?

This is what you were saying, Andrew. But if you are without chastening, of which all have become partakers, then 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? And he continues on with his metaphor and makes great application from it. But we are to think as fathers in chastening and disciplining our children and applying the rod that we have selected, we are to remember we have a father in heaven who loves us and who chastens us.

And he has his selected instruments to accomplish that task. And that should be in our minds.

As we relate to our children. Yeah. Coming from a household myself that had loads of boys with ears on their tails and also had the rod used to correct that, I noticed that my dad didn't, he didn't discipline me and then start to bring in the barriers of everything.

He didn't start to try to insulate. He always gave me opportunity to obey in that situation again. And I'm saying that broadly. I'm sure there were things that should never have been done. There was a corporal punishment and then obviously there were boundaries set because we hadn't been there yet.

But if there were already boundaries and I knew it, it wasn't like it was brought back in. He was always giving me an opportunity to obey in that situation. And would you say that's a biblical thing for a father to do is as we discipline, we're not trying to micromanage and bring in the boundaries all the time, but trying to show our sons how to fill those boundaries with obedience rather than cross them with disobedience.

Yeah, if we were in situation like where, okay, so I am a husband and a father, okay? But I have a heavenly father. If I need chastening and I often do, right? So the Lord chastens me and disciplines me.

He doesn't then say, well, you don't get to be married for a while. You don't get to be a father for a while. We're gonna take this away from you until you can get it right, right? These are the right legitimate roles and freedoms and purview that God has accorded.

So there's not something to be taken away as part of this discipline and chastening, okay? If there's something deadly and dangerous, poisonous, wrong, that does get taken away, right? So there's a

You could die. Right, exactly. And a lot of this discipline, is it not? I mean, a lot of the discipline, a lot of the chastening, a lot of the, even the spanking and the slapping of the hands and so on, and the flicking of the mouth, especially when they bite their siblings and that kind of thing.

All of that is tempered for the stage that the child is at. Some children notice discipline a whole lot more than others. Some of my kids just kinda, they would just shrug off what I inflict on my other kids that their whole world comes about it.

So each child is different. But a lot of it is just trying to keep our children alive. Right? Like the very first thing that's non-negotiable for us as parents, Becca and I, as we're raising our kids, the non-negotiable is, come here.

That is the command. Because we need to be able at any moment, any time, say to our children, come here, and they have to obey promptly without question, without delay. Why? Because their life could be in danger.

And there's just too many stories of little hellions who never got the love that they needed, never were disciplined. The people who had them did not really show them the love that they needed to discipline them.

And they never learned, come here. And children, you know, die in the streets and wander off in the woods and don't obey. And they go and hide and they get lost. And it's just disastrous over and over again.

And your heart breaks for everybody involved. But it comes back to that simple command, come here. And if they don't come, well, we're gonna smack you. Also, you know, following up from that is stay there.

Which is, again, it comes down, it can come down to a life and death kind of thing. Come here and stay there. I remember, you know, one of the stay there is to stay in bed. That's really hard, especially when they get mobile.

I remember, you know, several nights in a row, you know, after work, after seminary, coming home, I'm dog tired, but my role for a good hour every evening was sitting in a chair in the hallway, right next to the door to discipline my son as he was disobeying over and over and over and over, you know, and then, of course, and I wasn't very proficient.

I wasn't very skilled. I wasn't really, I didn't really know how to discipline my son effectively. I was being prompt, but I wasn't being very effective. I was trying to be obedient, but I wasn't very skilled.

Right, and I had to learn through that crucible, that difficult time, how to reach my son in a way that would be effective to turning him towards the right way. And I had to modify a few things that I was doing.

I'm not in a power contest with my child. No. Right? You've already won, I think. Yeah, right, so if I'm in a power contest with my child, that means it's like, I'm gonna keep doing what I'm doing exactly how I'm doing it, and then you're gonna bend, or you're gonna break.

That's bad parenting, right? If I'm applying my parental righteous authority in the situation, you need to be obedient, you need the right thing, and I keep on failing and failing and failing and failing, eventually, at some point, it's gonna be like, hmm, maybe I need to put some English on this.

Maybe I need to become a little bit more skilled in what I'm doing. But that doesn't mean I'm going to change the fact that they need to obey, because, hey, their life is at stake.

And I love them. Right. Well, we can move on to our second parter, which is adjacent to the subject of discipline. It's from Ephesians 6 .4. It says, what does it mean to bring up children in the training and admonition of the Lord?

Michael, you wanna start us off? This is kind of very much like a proverb, in that it has two parts. Ephesians 6 .4 begins, and you fathers do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord.

So, who do we want our children to follow? Right. We want them to follow the Lord. We want them to fear God. They may begin by fearing man. They may begin by fearing, oh, what will mom and dad do and say.

But what ultimately we'll want to teach them is the fear of the Lord. To think of him first, to think of him most. A really great way to provoke our children to wrath is to make their world all about us, right?

Making it about, your behavior is about how it reflects on me. If you don't behave right, then I look bad. So fear me.

Yeah, exactly, exactly. Or the family name, letting the family name down type thing. Yeah, exactly.

The family name kind of thing. Again, or in the context of a mother, making it all about controlling and trying to keep them completely safe within a particular sphere. That'll provoke a child to wrath.

Making it all about, don't cross mom, don't cross dad. You know, dad's worried about reputation. Mom's worried about safety. Both of them are trying to control, control, control. This is a great way to provoke your kids to wrath.

At the very beginning, obviously you're going to say, no, don't lick the electrical outlet. That's bad. You know, and it's going to be very much a control factor. But at a certain point, you know, you're going to be teaching them and instructing them and admonishing them, and you're going to take on that role of coach, okay?

Because you want to begin to, like, you know, Solomon with his son in Proverbs, he's in the coach mode. He's not in control mode. He's in coach mode. Think about what you're doing. Think about the end of this.

Think about what this looks like. You know, he's coaching them up big time. He's not in control mode anymore. Staying in control mode over, you know, late middle school, junior high, high schoolers, and trying to control, control, control, great way to

Good luck. Because you're trying to make their world about you. But again, you're trying to train them up in admonition of the Lord. You want them to love the Lord, fear the Lord, fear God, and you want to coach them up towards that.

And eventually, you're just going to be a counselor, right? They still need to honor father and mother. You're still going to be there available as counselor. You're not going to be, you know, calling them up and coaching up every single move they make.

You're just going to be available to them. I mean, and we need to know how to make those transitions so that we're not provoking our children to wrath.

And at what time to make those transitions, right?

Which is going to be different for each kid because some kids get it faster, mature faster, different things like that. The main thing is, you know, this is about wanting our children to be wise. Well, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.

We want our children to know what the world's about, what they're here for, what they're about. Well, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. We want our children to be protected from getting into evil things and being trapped and ensnared by sin, right?

Well, the fear of the Lord is to depart from evil, right? We want our kids to have a blessed, full, robust life. Well, the fear of the Lord is life and health. I mean, this is what it's all about, is stewarding and teaching and admonishing our kids not to fear us, not to think of us first and us most as flattering as that is.

I don't want that. I want them to think of the Lord first,.

Think of the Lord most. Would you call that like handing them a set of presuppositions? Because if that's their main, that's what they view everything through, the lens that they view everything through, would that be the set of biblical presuppositions that you're trying to get across to them?

Yeah, absolutely.

Again, there should be a really strong, healthy family dynamic, you know, but we're not the mafia where everything's about the father. Right. Right, this is about the Lord.

And I liked how you used direction earlier, Andrew, when we were talking about correction, because that's exactly what's being given here, right? It's the direction taken away from father and mother and putting it directly on the Lord.

His rod and staff comforts us, right?

Yeah, yes, oh yeah, absolutely.

So it seems like there's some stages between early childhood and later childhood. We talked about when they're younger, we're trying to keep them alive. And I think of Proverbs 23, and it mentions the rod here also.

It's interesting, it says, this is Proverbs 23, starting in verse 12. Apply your heart to instruction and your ear to the words of knowledge. Do not withhold discipline from a child if you strike him with a rod, he will not die.

If you strike him with a rod, you will save his soul from Sheol. So in the early years, you're trying to keep them alive. And here he says, he will not die if you use the rod. Keep them out, yeah, exactly.

So you're saving his life, but then it goes on and it says that do not withhold the discipline. If you strike them, you'll save his soul from hell. And these precepts, as they grow older, these presuppositions that we're giving them, as they see life and they see the consequences of sin and the pain, the destruction, the separation it causes in people's lives around them, and we're instructing them the whole time and we're taking every opportunity to say this is what we're trying to get at.

It's not about the spanking. That's a small sting, a reminder of the sting of death. But now you're old enough that you can see the consequences apart from just the spanking to keep you alive. You can see what it does and that's not what we would have for you.

We would have you trust in Christ and repent and go a better way.

Yeah, I mean, think of it this way. If we make us the centerpiece of our children, our main goal is for our children to think of us first and think of us most. It can happen in two ways. One, I wanna have a full fearful control in everything that they do, right?

They're never gonna step out of line because they're afraid of me, right? And that just making me the center of their world. Well, then I'm going to use the corporal punishment probably in a lot of wrong ways, right?

And even if I stop spanking, then my chosen rod of discipline, whatever it is, is going to be primarily about myself. So I'm going to be overbearing and just trying to control. So that's out. Again, on the other side of it, if I want my children's world to be all about me, maybe I don't discipline them at all because I want them to be, you know.

My buddy. Yeah, my buddy. They're gonna love me, everything. I'm never gonna correct them because I just want them to think well of me at all times and all places. And then I don't discipline them either way, right?

You see, we have a huge problem. This is where we are delivered as parents. It's not, you know, by the fear and the admonition of the Lord. And then we can think of corporal punishment in its proper perspective.

We wanna keep them out of Sheol, out of the grave. We don't wanna see them have an early death because we never disciplined them. You know, not always, but many times when we have young people dying in foolish things, right?

Not too long after I moved here, there was a situation where a young man had picked up a girl on the back of his speedster, you know, road bike. And he was flying through a neighborhood like at 80 miles an hour.

And there was this delivery truck that was backing out of a driveway. Well, he plowed right into the side of it, killed himself, killed his girlfriend. I mean, it's a disaster. But you think about that young man's life.

Okay, what went wrong, right? Yeah, in this case, we could safely say, you know, and the guy had this long list of terrible choices that he was making, all the things that Solomon said to his son, don't run with these people.

He was those people. And you're like, well, you know, where did he end up? He ended up in the grave, right? He died, he ended up in the grave, he went to Sheol, right? He died, why? Who loved him, right?

Who was supposed to love him and discipline him, chasing him, show him the way of the Lord, so on. It's heartbreaking. We talk about this in our household sometimes. Have I become your enemy now that I've told you the truth?

No, I love you. That's why we're doing all this. And I don't want you to, the goal, I don't want my children to think, well, what would dad do? What does dad have to say about this? If my presupposition is, what does Christ say for me?

That's what I want for them, right? I'm trying to impart that same desire. What does the master have to say about this? There are times that saying truthful things hurts for the moment, but it's correction.

Yeah, and just before this text, we get an admonition toward children specifically. It's not like you have a instruction for fathers and mothers and have fun staying in rebellion, kids. No, there was actually some sort of instruction just before that as well.

So we're not left as children from their perspective. They're not left without instruction in the word either, because all of this speaks to them and they need to know that just as much. And that's our job as fathers, right?

Our correction is pointing back to this every single time.

You talk about, Michael, often how the scriptures are to be read out loud. This will be a great moment to, if your child doesn't already have a Bible, to hand them yours and have them,.

Oh, this is addressed to me. Go ahead and read it out loud, you know? Yeah, well, I think that probably wraps up our conversation on discipline and training and admonition to our Lord and Savior. But since we didn't get to recommend, we'll go ahead and recommend now, Michael.

Recommended Books on Preaching, Biblical Counseling, and Creation Research

Okay, yeah, book recommendations. I was just thinking the other day as I was looking around my office at the various books, and this may be very narrow, but the books I would recommend on preaching also have to do with how to interpret the scriptures, how to apply the scriptures.

And of course, that should be applicable to all believers at some level. So I would say that one of the books that has played a huge part in my life, in my ministry, is Him We Proclaim by Dennis Johnson that deals with the apostolic hermeneutic.

How do the apostles interpret the scriptures? How do they interpret the Old Testament? How do they preach the scriptures from the Old Testament? What examples do we have, and how are we to take that same approach when we read the Bible and understand the Bible and apply the Bible?

So Him We Proclaim by Dennis Johnson, that's my recommendation.

All right, Chris? So this past week, I've had several conversations with different people about psychology and that kind of system, and I've been thinking about getting certified in biblical counseling.

It's been something, I've gone to a couple of different conferences and gathered resources, and I benefited from it in my life, biblical counseling. So there's a book that I use when people give me kind of psychological diagnosis or terminologies.

It's called The Christian's Guide to Psychological Terms, and it's by Marshall and Mary Asher. And what they do is they took the DSM, which is kind of their Bible, on different diagnosis and terms, and they lay out, this is how the secular worldview diagnoses it.

You have to have these symptoms or everything, and it puts right next to, this is what the Bible has to say about it. This is the Bible's diagnosis on these different things. I found that extremely helpful in not just fighting with a person.

They can give me their diagnosis, and I don't have to quibble about the term, but I can say, well, what is at the heart of the issue? You say you have all these symptoms, but what does God say? This is a heart issue, I mean, psychology.

It's the study of the soul. So it's not like a scientific, like I can figure all this out. It has to do with the soul, and that's the pastor's role. So what does the Bible say about those things? So that was one resource that helped me.

Andrew? I recently watched a video by Nathaniel Jensen. He was collaborating with Answers in Genesis. He has done a lot of research in the human genome, and human genetics, and DNA, and the name of his book that I'm gonna recommend is Traced, Human DNA's Big Surprise.

I'm not gonna ruin the surprise, but would you believe me if I said that scientists say it takes a long, long, long, long, long time for variations in our genetics to happen? And that might be because they have a presupposition about how long humanity's been around in the age of the earth.

Well, this book and the research, specifically the research, this book is written after his decades of research on the matter, shines the light of Christ upon that. All right. We have to go read for the surprise.

I think you know where I'm going with this. All right, all right, all right.

All right, well, my recommendation's just a general spurgeon recommendation. I've been going through some of the Psalms and picking up the Treasury of David, you know, just as a Kickstarter in thought and meditation on the Psalms.

But we enjoy morning and evening in our household. We haven't got to pick it up in a while, but we're gonna start trying to go back through that for some of the family worship stuff after we get through with what we're going through now.

But anything general spurgeon, and I really enjoyed, he had a, there's a pamphlet or a pamphlet, it's like a real small novella-sized booklet of his. And it was just his sermons on prayer. And it was one of my favorite things by him that I've ever read.

But go read some spurgeon out there. We'll start with, what are we thankful for, Michael?

Thankfulness for Answered Prayers and a Wife's Faithful Service

I'm thankful for answered prayers. We've been, speaking of parenting, I was having a parenting moment today where I just had to go to the Lord in prayer. I, you know, a lot of good things happened today.

We've been working on getting Ben into a trade school to become an electrician. And they wanted to come down, take some placement testing and things like that, because we're not involved in any systems anywhere.

So we've been, you know, turning in the paperwork and going through the processes. And he went down today and he took his test and had his interviews, you know, and everything went really, really, really well.

And it was just, it was very encouraging. But it was one of those moments where, you know, as I dropped him off and I had to go run some errands, and I'm like, I'm way more nervous than he is. And he's nervous, but I'm like way more nervous.

And it was just a moment was like, yeah, I can't just leave it like this. I need to go to prayer and ask the Lord to, and it was a peace in that, but just thankful for the way that the Lord has blessed.

When we follow the instructions, the leadership of Christ through his word, in this very vital thing of parenting, you know, we do so all the time in weakness and we realize, man, I'm falling short. And then you come to these critical testing moments where, you know, is it going to work?

Is it going to count? How effective is this going to prove to be? And then you see it and you're like, and you just have to thank the Lord. So that's what I'm thankful for today.

Amen. Chris. I am extremely thankful for my wife. This Christmas season has been one of our more trying ones. There's been a couple of deaths, related friends and extended acquaintances. And then we've had people in our home trying to help them out because they've had difficulties.

It's just been extremely busy. And she has been extremely selfless and giving just resources and time-wise. And I'm very grateful for all the work that she does with the children and managing things and taking care of things when I'm not able to, if I'm not in the home and all of that.

She's just been great. And I'm very grateful that God has given her to me. Amen, Andrew.

I am grateful to God that he has dealt with me as a son, not illegitimate, but one inside his household.

Amen to that. I am extremely thankful that he gave me a father, an earthly father, who disciplined me. Unwittingly, he disciplined me less than I needed it because I got away with a lot of stuff. He probably wouldn't imagine that because he probably felt like he was worn out all the time, swinging that paddle.

But I definitely needed it more. But the Lord saved me in spite of my ability to avoid my father's discipline. But it was kind and it was truthful and it was not always maybe weighted how it perfectly should have been, but it was weighted in love every single time.

And I'm so thankful for that.

And that wraps it up for today. We are very thankful for our listeners and hope you will join us again as we meet to answer common questions and objections with Have You Not Read?