August 12, 2022 Show with Bruce A. Ray on “Withhold Not Correction”

Live from the historic parsonage of the 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown

Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron. This is a radio platform in which pastors,

Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

Proverbs chapter 27 verse 17 tells us, Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

Matthew Henry said that in this passage, we are cautioned to take heed with whom we converse and directed to have a view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions, and now here's your host,

Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon,

Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet

Earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com.

This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Friday on this 12th day of August 2022, and I am so excited to have a guest on today for the very first time who

I have wanted to interview for quite a long time, and I'm just so thrilled that the

Lord has providentially opened up that opportunity to have him on the program today.

His name will likely not be unfamiliar to Reformed Baptists especially who are listening, and Reformed people in general, actually.

His name is Bruce A. Ray, and he is an author, pastor emeritus of King's Cross Church, which was formerly known as Juanita Community Church in Kirkland, Washington, where he served as pastor since 1976.

Bruce is a fire police EMS chaplain, a certified field traumatologist, a member of the

International Conference of Police Chaplains, the Federation of Fire Chaplains, the

Washington State Critical Incident Stress Management Network, the International Critical Incident Stress Foundation, and the

American Association of Suicidology. He is also on the executive board of FIRE, which is the

Fellowship of Independent Reformed Evangelicals, and on the advisory board for Northwest University's Buntane School of Nursing.

I hope I pronounced that correctly. You did. Great. We are going to be addressing a classic work by Bruce on parenting titled

Withhold Not Correction. We're also going to be discussing the upcoming 2022

Northwest FIRE Regional Fellowship in Prineville, Oregon, and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you for the very first time ever to Iron Triple Zion Radio, Bruce Ray.

Thank you, Chris. I'm very glad to be with you today. Well, tell our listeners about King's Cross Church in Kirkland, Washington.

King's Cross Church, formerly known as Juanita Community Church, was a church plant of the

American Sunday School Union back in the early 1900s, early 1920s, and it was a kind of typical evangelical church in the 1950s.

The leaders in the church were reading Reformed authors.

They were involved in a Christian school movement. They brought that into the church, and the church made a transformation into a

Reformed Baptist church. I came here in 1976. The church is about 115 members now.

We have close to 200 in the congregation, and we have three elders.

We have eight deacons, and we are all very busy.

The Lord's been good to us. We're seeing lots of visitors. We actually grew during the

COVID era, and our finances grew during the COVID times as well.

We anticipated that we would lose some, but we didn't. We are currently searching for a new full -time pastor.

I had retired from full -time work. I've been pastor of the church since 1976, as you noted.

I've also been serving with a local police and fire department for 32 years as chaplain, and the combination was pretty brutal.

It was kind of overwhelming, so I stepped back from the full -time role in 2015 at the church.

We brought in a new pastor, Daniel Corey, who just recently took a position with Brian Borgman over in Nevada.

Yeah, who we recently had on the program. That's right. The church called me and another retired pastor in our congregation,

Baruch Maoz, from Israel. Yes, I've had the pleasure of interviewing Baruch as well on his book,

Judaism is Not Jewish. I've also had the privilege to see him preach in person at the church where I was saved back in the 80s in Amityville, Long Island, New York.

So, Baruch is no stranger to me. We're glad to have him. Both of us have kind of stepped up out of that semi -retirement mold, and we have been filling the pulpit and providing leadership while the church is searching for another full -time pastor.

Great. Very busy. Well, if anybody wants more information on Kings Cross Church in Kirkland, Washington, go to kingscrosskirk, kind of an interesting play on words, because Kirk in Scottish means church, and it's also short for Kirkland.

Kingscrosskirk .org, kingscrosskirk .org, and God willing, we will be repeating that later on in the program, that information.

Also, why don't you let us know about FIRE, the Fellowship of Independent Reformed Evangelicals, an organization to which you belong.

FIRE, as we've already stated, is a fellowship of churches. It started in 1920, or 1920, 2000, as a formal organization, so it's been in existence for about 22 years.

We have, I think, about 115 churches in 13 countries, and we encourage one another.

We join together for missions projects and things of that nature. We have an international conference each spring, and we have regional conferences around the country, and in India, and other places, usually in the fall.

And I know that one of the main mottos of FIRE is that phrase, and you can correct me if I'm wrong,

I think it may be a quote from Augustine, my memory is not as sharp as it used to be, but, "...in

essentials unity, in non -essentials liberty, in all things charity." That's correct. And from what

I understand about FIRE, they obviously want to maintain theological faithfulness to the scriptures, and have a strong harmony over doctrine, but it is a broader spectrum than the other organizations that have been known to be occupied by Reformed Baptists that might be more tight in their requirements.

Not that that's an insult, or a derogatory phrase I'm using, I'm just saying that there are times when you want your organizations to be more detailed as to exactly who should belong, and you have other opportunities where you want the spectrum to be broader, to include more men that are not exactly every jot and tittle to what each and every church in that group believes.

So if you want to take off where I left there. We want to be welcoming to pastors and churches that are in the process of reforming, and as they find their way into Reformed theology, we want to be there to welcome them, encourage them, help them to grow, come alongside and minister to them.

And, if I'm not mistaken, the churches in FIRE, or the pastors in FIRE, are

Baptistic in regard to the ordinances. That's correct. And Chris, if I may just say a little more.

Sure. FIRE has been a very unique fellowship of churches.

I think that's the testimony of many people in FIRE, and even people outside of FIRE who have come to our conferences, have detected a very different kind of spirit there.

And what I mean by that is simply that at our conferences, while preaching is a high priority, and we have great preaching from some very godly men, the high point of the conference each year has been the church reports and the time that we spend in praying for one another.

And it's been a fellowship of churches where, so often in denominational settings, pastors are boasting or trying to exalt themselves or their churches, and they don't want to talk about hard times, they just want to talk about all of the accomplishments and blessings.

FIRE is a safe place where pastors can come and really share from the heart, this is what's happening in my life, this is what's happening in my church.

And then brothers will come alongside and pray and uphold one another.

It's been very encouraging. Amen. If anybody wants more information about the

Fellowship of Independent Reformed Evangelicals known as FIRE, go to firefellowship .org,

firefellowship .org. Now let us know something about this upcoming event, the 2022

Northwest FIRE Regional Fellowship in Prineville, Oregon, which is being held specifically at the church where my friend

Christopher Cookston is pastor there in Prineville, Prineville Community Church. So let us know about this event, where you will be on the roster to speak.

Okay. The conference will be October 5th through 7th, as you said, in Prineville, Oregon.

And the theme of the conference is the Pastoral Theology of First Thessalonians.

Pastor Brian Borgman and I will be the speakers. Brian will handle chapters 1, 3, and 5.

I have chapters 2 and 4. I like to say that I will have a very even -handed approach because I've got chapters 2 and 4.

And Brian's presentations may be a little odd since he has 1, 3, and 5. Okay.

If anybody wants more details on that event, go to events .entrustedword .org

forward slash 2022 Northwest FIRE Regional Fellowship.

That's events .entrustedword .org forward slash 2022

Northwest FIRE Regional Fellowship. And if anybody did not write down that URL, feel free to email me at chrisarns and I will get you that information.

We have a tradition here on Iron Sherpa and Zion Radio, Bruce, whenever we have a first -time guest, we have that guest give a summary of their salvation testimony, including the kind of religious atmosphere, if any, they were raised in and the kind of providential circumstances our

Sovereign Lord raised up in their lives that drew them to Himself and saved them.

And I would love to hear your story. All right. Be happy to share that with you. I was born outside of Boston, Massachusetts, into a family that was really not, it was not a

Christian family. My mom was a nominal Roman Catholic. My dad was a nominal

Baptist. And they kind of canceled each other out. So we didn't really go anywhere. Occasionally, my brother and I would be sent to the

Sunday school at the local Baptist church. Sometimes we had to walk there on our own.

Sometimes we made it and sometimes we didn't. But I had that typical,

I'm an American, so of course I'm a Christian. And if you'd asked me, do you believe in the

Bible? I would have said, oh, yes. Could you name the books of the Bible? No.

If you'd asked me, do you believe in the Ten Commandments? I would have said, yes. Can you name them? And again,

I would have been at a loss. I might have come up with two or three, but no,

I wouldn't have been able to name all ten. When I entered high school,

I was dating a girl who was a churchgoer. She was going to a church that I recognized later, quite liberal in its theology.

I'm glad that I did not end up there. But in order to please her and her family, because they were very regular in attending church,

I thought I should try attending church. And there was a, the mainline churches were about two or three miles from where I lived and I didn't drive yet.

So I had to find someplace close enough that I could walk to it. And in God's providence, a little

Reformed Episcopal church had been built just a few blocks from my home.

Your listeners may not be familiar with the Reformed Episcopal church. They were a break -off from the mainstream

Protestant Episcopal church in the late 1800s, around 1870, 1872.

When they saw the liberal drift in that denomination, they pulled out.

In fact, it was also because of the Romish intrusion of the Oxford movement.

Right, right. And so I began attending there.

And again, in God's providence, the liturgy was very biblical.

The preaching was Christ -centered. And the liturgy, in particular, there is a prayer in the

Book of Common Prayer called the Prayer of General Confession. And there's a line in the prayer from Isaiah 53 that, all we like sheep have gone astray.

We've turned each one to his own way. And there's one

Sunday morning in particular where that line just hit me like a ton of bricks.

I stopped talking. I stopped praying. And I realized, that's me.

I was not into drugs or alcohol or any of the, obviously, wretched things that teens can get into.

But I lived my life without giving any thought to God, without any reference or any concern for what

God might want or how I would think or speak or act.

And so I was convicted of my sinfulness, not just of my individual sins, but in that moment,

I was convicted of my sinfulness. The preaching faithfully directed me to Christ as the only

Savior. And the Lord drew me through the ministry of that church to himself.

My parents were not entirely pleased. In fact, they were really, I don't think, pleased at all.

They had the mindset that a little religion is fine. But I was alive in Christ.

And I wanted to be there whenever the church doors were open. So I was going to Sunday school.

I was going Sunday morning. I was going Sunday evening. I was going to prayer meeting. I was going to youth group.

Anything that the church offered, I wanted to be there. They thought that was extreme.

And so we came to some conflict over that. And my parents actually forbade me to attend that church.

And I remember sitting down with my parents and I told them, I don't know that you'll understand this, but right now, more than any other time in my life,

I want to be obedient to you. But on this issue, I can't.

And I had in mind the text that we must obey God rather than men.

Praise God. Well, when was it that you believed

God was giving you, extending to you the call into pastoral ministry?

And what were the providential circumstances that made you convinced of that? The pastor preached a sermon in which he called attention to the need for men to go into the ministry and missions.

And I went to him after the service and talked with him briefly. I told him, understand, you know, when

I attended Sunday school, I knew nothing about the Bible. I didn't even know there was a table of contents in the front.

And so the pastor said, turn to the book of Hebrews. I reasoned, Hebrews, they were the

Jews in the Old Testament, right? So I would kind of browse through the Old Testament, trying to find the book of Hebrews.

I had no clue. But under the teaching of the church, I was growing. And I went to the pastor and I told the pastor,

I was still in high school, about 10th or 11th grade. I told the pastor,

I don't know how the Lord could possibly use me. But I am willing to be used.

What do I do? And he told me, well, you look for something to do in the church.

Find a place of service. And if you are called to the ministry, truly called, the church will recognize that and they will tell you.

And so I looked around to see what I could do. I noticed that the pastor, after every service, went around and picked up all the bulletins that had been left in the pews.

And I thought, that's something I can do. And so that was my first church job. I went around picking up the bulletins so that he didn't have to.

And from there, I began, I went into teaching some Sunday school. By the time

I was graduating from high school, we had moved to California. I was in a conservative

Baptist church. And in my senior year of high school, they gave me the opportunity to preach.

Occasionally on a Sunday evening. I think I was a whole 15 minutes. I thought I had a full sermon.

And then I knew, I was convinced that this is what the

Lord wanted me to do. So that meant when I graduated from high school, I wanted an education in the scriptures.

My parents wanted me to lose this foolishness. And they insisted that I go to the university for at least a year.

And so I thought that went through and felt like that's not in the same category as before when

I told them I couldn't obey. On this score, I thought that I could. And so I went to UCLA for a year.

And at UCLA, what I learned was that I really didn't know the Bible at all.

And so instead of looking for a Christian liberal arts college, I looked for a more intensive program.

The Reformed Episcopal Seminary in Philadelphia had a program for what they called special students.

So if you didn't have your undergraduate degree, you could apply as a special student.

And as long as you could do the work, you could stay in. But if you fell behind or were failing, then you'd have to leave the program.

So I applied on that basis. And the idea was that after that, then you can go back, get your undergraduate degree, and then they upgrade the diploma.

And so that's what I did. I went to Reformed Episcopal Seminary. And that's where, through the influence of the professors there and the influence,

I met students there from Al Martin's church, Trinity Baptist in Montville, New Jersey.

And through them, I met Al Martin, and I met Walt Chantry. I got to know

Wayne Mack. When my wife and I got married after my first year of seminary, we returned to Pennsylvania and began attending

Wayne Mack's church. So that's kind of how I came to solidify my understanding and appreciation for and commitment to Reformed theology in general.

and the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith in particular.

Praise God. Well, you also have, in addition to being a pastor, you have other very fascinating and honorable elements of your life and calling.

You are a police, fire, and EMS chaplain as I announced during my introduction of you, a certified field traumatologist, and you are a member of the

International Critical Incident Stress Foundation and the American Association of Suicidology.

So why don't you tell us about how the Lord made it clear that you wanted to enter into those areas of life.

That was never in my vision of what

I would be doing. But in 1990, the police department came to me and asked me if I would be willing to consider serving as a police chaplain.

They had two chaplains at the time and they wanted a third.

A friend of mine was one of the chaplains. He was an Orthodox Presbyterian pastor. And so I told the department

I would consider it. And I brought it back to my elders expecting them to say no.

And to my surprise, they said yes. They said we think that the training that you received could be beneficial and that you could be a blessing to the community.

And so with their permission, we came to look at chaplaincy as an outreach ministry of our church into the community.

And it did a number of things for me. It forced me, because as a chaplain

I'm called out to all kinds of scenes. I deal with most things having to do with death.

So I'm called out. I'm on call 24 -7. I'm called out to suicides and homicides and overdoses and accidental deaths, traumatic deaths, traffic accidents, usually where death or major injury has occurred.

All of those kinds of things. I've also worked with victims of rape, victims of assault.

I've dealt with missing persons. I've also been involved with the hostage negotiators not doing the negotiating, but helping to provide, to get information to give to the negotiators with armed barricaded subjects.

And I work with the homeless in the city. So it's given me a wide range of things and it kind of forced me out of my office into the field.

For me that was very beneficial. In a pastoral career you kind of get to a place where your connections with people in the world are rather narrow.

And you're spending all of your time and energy with the church with counseling people in the church but you're not having much opportunity to find out what's really happening.

And so this was healthy because it pushed me out into the world and I had opportunity to meet with people that would never darken the doors of my church or in some cases of any church.

And I was able to come to them and minister to them often at the worst day of their life in the enormous loss that they've experienced in times of tragedy and crisis.

The department, I was very concerned when I took on the role of chaplain that the department would restrict my speech.

And I suppose in some context that does happen but with my department our relationship is such that the only thing they've ever told me is be careful.

We walk a church state line and if somebody wants to complain about the chaplaincy program they can do it.

So be mindful and be respectful but as long as I have the permission of the people

I'm talking to I can go as far as they're willing to go. If all they want to do is find out we have had a death in the family what are the next steps?

I can help them with that. But very often they want somebody to pray they're willing to hear scripture and in some cases

I've seen people that have wandered away from the faith who have come back into the faith and I've seen other people who have been converted through the fruitfulness of this opportunity.

Sometimes I don't have the opportunity to deal with spiritual issues so much on the scene itself but I'm sowing the seed and a couple days later

I'll get a call back from people who expressed no interest in spiritual things at the time who are now dealing with wanting to have a service and they want somebody to preside or to officiate we'll bring that to pass and when that happens

I can sit down with the family and tell them this is what I normally do we'll have prayer, we'll have scripture reading

I'll bring a short message based on the scripture that I've read, etc. and we'll build the funeral service or the memorial service with those elements in view.

So it has been a fruitful time. Early on the other two chaplains left

I was the sole chaplain for the department for about 15 years and then we added another chaplain a third, a fourth and a fifth and last year two of them retired and we have three chaplains right now but in the course of doing that I've also developed

I started meeting with one chaplain on Friday mornings for mutual encouragement and that's grown to a group of chaplains from North King County and South Snohomish County police and fire chaplains that we meet every

Friday morning and spend an hour or two in informal training and informal debriefing of one another from the calls that we've had.

Well, I know that you've written on the Sabbath and I know you've written on the subject that we are addressing today, parenting have you considered writing a book about this absolutely fascinating portion of your life?

Well, one thing that has happened through that ministry is that I have been to something over a thousand deaths and I've been to more than a hundred suicides,

I'm not sure how many but I kept turning out for suicides and that led me to study more and more about suicide so I've actually written two books on suicide in the series published by Shepherd Press The Help or The Lifeline series

One book is entitled Help My Friend Is Suicidal and that's a book that deals with suicide prevention and suicide intervention and it deals with some of the myths that surround suicide that are untrue and the second book is

Help Someone I Love Died by Suicide and that book is written for what we call suicide survivors the people, the family and friends who are left behind when somebody takes their life.

Those are both written to be kind of pocket sized 64 pages in length can fit in a shirt pocket to be given out discreetly to be carried easily and our police department has them and gives them out and fire departments and they've given them out as well chaplains are using them it's been a useful tool there's not a lot written from a biblical perspective on suicide.

My perspective on counseling is biblical counseling K Adams and others and so I've applied that in this along with information

I've picked up from other sources Well I certainly want to have you come back on the program to discuss the subject of suicide as well as other things so let's keep the communication going after this program is over and by God's providence and grace get that established so we can have you back on soon and frequently.

I'm already extremely impressed by you brother and we have to go to our first station break right now if anybody has a question for Bruce Ray on withhold not correction and parenting in general our email address is chrisarnson at gmail dot com as always give us your first name at least your city and state and your country of residence you may remain anonymous if your question is a personal and private one and I can understand why this subject might evoke questions from people who are having very private situations in their own homes with raising their children or their grandchildren and you would not want to identify yourself because of problems that have occurred due to your disciplining them and all kinds of reasons why you'd want to remain anonymous and I can understand that but if it's just a general question a question about what the bible teaches on this issue etc please give us your first name at least city and state and country of residence we'll be right back with Bruce Ray right after these messages

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We're now back with Bruce Ray, and we are discussing his book

Withhold Not Correction, and if you have a question send it to ChrisArnzen at gmail .com.

Obviously the title is taken from Proverbs 23 .13,

Withhold Not Correction from the Child, with other books that have been available for decades on Christian parenting, why is it that you felt the need, or at least a very strong desire, to add this work to what is already available on the shelves and libraries of Christians all over the

United States and the world for that matter? In, I think it was 1970,

Jay Adams published Company to Counsel, in terms of pastoral counseling and an understanding of what's commonly called psychology.

That book was revolutionary in my life, and I realized that the scriptures, what

God calls us to do is to apply the scriptures to every area of our lives, not just a set of doctrines, but very much to how we practice.

I had served with Wayne Mack at Faith Reform Baptist Church in Media, Pennsylvania.

That church sent me to Wilmington, Delaware to establish a church.

We gathered a small congregation, mostly of young parents, and I was, at the time, a young parent, and found myself at a loss in terms of knowing really what does it mean for me to parent, to be a father, and for my wife to be a mother in a biblical model.

The books that were available, Christian books that were available, were essentially

Clyde Naramore and James Dobson. One was Rogerian.

The other one, in the introduction to his book, says essentially I looked at how

I trained my dog and realized that worked for my kids. Check it out.

By the way, my mother, when I was growing up, was constantly, when she was calling me, was accidentally calling the dog's name,

Tammy, I mean, Chris. Well, that was less than satisfactory.

We struggled because neither one of those authors,

I felt, had begun with the Scriptures. They had begun in other places, and they both used

Scripture, but their methodology was not formed from Scripture.

And so the little congregation there in Delaware, we took a summer, and I preached a series of messages on biblical parental discipline.

That proved to be very helpful to the people in our congregation, and I was asked to preach it in other places, and then an offer was made to publish it.

The original version came out in 1973. In 1973,

I had two kids that were quite young, and I was about 25 or 26.

And so I wrote Withhold Not Correction. It was published by a startup publisher who, it did well, but his business did not do well, and so it fell out of print.

And he had, when his business went under, he passed the title on to a major Christian publisher, and that publisher sat on it and never got it into print.

And I finally talked to the editor -in -chief and asked, what's the deal? You've had this book, and you've been sitting on it for a while.

In the meantime, Charlie Craig from Presbyterian and Reformed had been in touch with me and wanted to know what had happened to my book, and it kind of disappeared.

He was interested in publishing it, and I told him, well, it's in the hands of a different publisher.

So finally, the publisher who held the book came back, and the editor told me that, well, they would like me to edit the book and bring it more into conformity with Clyde Naramore and James Dobson, and I laughed at them.

I said, absolutely not. The reason that I wrote this book is because I'm seeking to take a distinctly biblical perspective and approach to the whole area.

And so I told him, no, I'm not going to do that. I got back in touch with Charlie Craig at PNR, and Charlie said to me, we'll publish it the way that you write it.

And I thought, that's great, that's wonderful. So I took the time to write more.

I expanded the book. So the version that's out there now is actually from 1978, when

I completed the expansion. And it's been in print with PNR ever since.

That's, what, 44 years. PNR tells me that it is a steady seller.

It's never had the popularity of Dobson or Naramore, but it's been a steady seller, and I get lots of reports from parents.

And now I have kids who tell me they grew up under that book, and they use it with their kids.

And so it's been interesting to see it still in print after all these years. Well, praise God. And we're going to be getting far more into detail about this book and about parenting and about disciplining children from a biblical perspective, the only perspective that a

Christian should obey and utilize. And we're going to be doing that right after our midway break.

This is the longer -than -normal break, folks. So please be patient. Every day in the middle of the show, we have a longer break because Grace Life Radio, 90 .1

FM in Lake City, Florida, requires of us a longer break because the FCC requires of them to localize geographically this show and all of their programming to Lake City, Florida with their own public service announcements and other local things.

So we will be airing our globally heard commercials while they do that. And please respond to those ads as often as you can, please, because we depend upon our advertisers to exist.

Even if you just thank them for sponsoring the show, that should go a long way. And also, of course, send in your questions to Bruce Way, to ChrisArnson at gmail .com.

ChrisArnson at gmail .com. Don't go away. We'll be right back after these messages. Attention all men in ministry leadership.

You're all invited to my friend Chris Arnson's Iron Sharpens Iron Radio Free Pastor's Luncheon Thursday, September 22nd, 11am to 2pm at Church of the

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It's such a blessing to hear from Iron Sharpens Iron Radio listeners from all over the world.

Here's Joe Reilly, a listener in Ireland who wants you to know about a guest on the show he really loves hearing interviewed,

Dr. Joe Moorcraft. I'm Joe Reilly, a faithful Iron Sharpens Iron Radio listener here in Atai in County Kildare, Ireland.

Going back to 2005, one of my very favorite guests on Iron Sharpens Iron is

Dr. Joe Moorcraft. If you've been blessed by Iron Sharpens Iron Radio Dr. Moorcraft and Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia are largely to thank since they are one of the program's largest financial supporters.

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If you visit, have them Joe Reilly, an Iron Sharpens Iron radio listener and a tie in County Kildare, Ireland sent you.

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So no matter where you live on the planet Earth, if you do not have a biblically faithful church home and you're not aware of one near you, send me an email to chrisarnson at gmail .com,

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Bruce Ray, on his book, Withhold Not Correction, chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com.

And it's interesting, Bruce, I had lunch today with a pastor who is formerly from the state of Washington, and he told me years ago that the state came very close to imposing a law prohibiting all kinds of corporal punishment even for your own children in your own household.

I don't know if you were aware of that, but you mentioned earlier today that you have to obey

God over man, and this includes this situation, doesn't it? It does indeed, and I want to comment on that in just a moment, but before I do,

Chris, I just wanted to take a moment to express again appreciation for the ministry of Dr.

J. Adams. I mentioned earlier that he published his

Competence Council in 1970, and that affected me. I was living in Pennsylvania and Delaware and was able to take in the early 70s some seminars with Dr.

Adams, and he encouraged me to write, and he actually wrote the foreword to Withhold Not Correction, by which

I was very blessed to have him do that. Praise God, I've had the privilege, while Dr.

Adams was still with us, I had the privilege of interviewing him back in the old days of Iron Trip and Zion Radio, when it was broadcasting out of WNYG Radio in Babylon, Long Island, and he wrote a wonderful little blurb for the show that I still uphold as one of my most treasured commendations.

But going back to the situation at hand, what specifically are we commanded to do or given liberty to do when it comes to parenting that involves disciplining children?

There are even different theories amongst conservative Christians on exactly how to employ physical discipline.

So if you could give us some of the ways in which you believe

God is instructing us, we must do this in order to obey him and also in order to raise children faithfully, according to the

God -breathed words of Scripture. The use of physical correction in the

Scriptures is a tool for training. It's not intended as, while we often use the word punishment, it is not punitive in purpose.

It is corrective in purpose, and I think it's very important to understand that.

Spanking or physical correction is mandated in Scripture.

It's not merely that it's a tool available to us. We're told that the rod and reproof are twin tools in bringing up our children.

There's quite a bit in Scripture about the rod and its application, but the rod is not a tool for hurting.

You can look at two parents who may be spanking their children, and they may have very different motivations.

It may at first glance appear to be the same, or at least very similar, but one is spanking out of frustration, anger, just trying to hurt the child because the child has been disobedient, whereas biblical correction is very cautious, very measured, and intended to be instructive.

Well, perhaps it would even be a good idea to give a word of warning or at least counsel on what not to do or how not to correct children, not only physically, but in all other ways that people correct their children and discipline them verbally, giving them restrictions on certain things they enjoy, and all those other ways that parents typically correct their children.

Okay. Yeah, parents try to employ other methods which, in my judgment, are not always effective.

Restrict children. I find that Christian parents, often young parents, will often look at how they were disciplined by their parents, and they either will follow in that path, or if they felt that their parents did a poor job, they will react against that and go in a completely different direction.

And when we worked together as a congregation in trying to understand what the

Bible teaches, we set all of that aside, and so let's begin with the Scripture. And that's where we saw what the

Scripture calls us to do. Methods such as sending someone to their room, isolation, time out.

I know those are popular methods. We never employed them, and we never employed them because that was one of the things that my parents did.

And when they sent me to my room, I was in control. In fact,

I don't know if you remember, not that I approve of everything George Carlin said in his stand -up comedy routines, because he could obviously be blasphemous and vulgar, but he was, believe it or not, clean on many occasions, and he had a whole skit, a whole routine about the ridiculous nature of punishing a child by sending them to their rooms, because he was saying in his routine, that's where all my stuff is, that's where all my cool stuff is all in my room, you know?

That's true. I remember one Thanksgiving, where it was a large family gathering, and my parents wanted me to sit next to somebody that I didn't want to sit next to.

And so I put up a fuss, and they tried to bring me under control, but I wouldn't be consoled by it, and so they sent me to my room.

And I said, fine. I went off to my room, and they said, you're going to get hungry.

And I said, no, I won't. And I could outlast them, but in that particular occasion, my grandmother sneaked a turkey into me on Thanksgiving.

She came into the room, brought me stuff. I lost nothing. I was invincible. I had my turkey, and I was in my room, and I wasn't with the person

I didn't want to be with. And it was always that way. I learned to be patient.

I learned to be stubborn. I could hold out longer than my parents could. When they spanked me, they didn't have a biblical model in view.

I don't say that they were abusive, but I had a hard bottom, and I could stand it without giving them the satisfaction of seeing me wince or cry.

And so we need to realize that the purpose is not to beat somebody into submission.

The purpose is to call attention to the seriousness of what they've done and offer training, the rod and reproof.

So with our kids, we kind of developed a pattern in which when there was an infraction, when one of the children disobeyed, we'd pull them aside and sit down and talk.

What did you do? And they'll describe the behavior that, you know, they know what they're being talked to about.

They know what they did that's wrong. And they will tell you, this is what I did. And then I would ask them, what does

God say about this? Because ultimately, it's God's authority that's in view. My children are being disciplined not so much because they disobeyed me, but because they disobeyed

God, who gave me authority over my children. So I always tried to relate it to who

God is, and reminded them that I too am under God's authority expressed in His Word.

And if I don't carry out my responsibility as a dad, then my

Father, my Heavenly Father, is going to discipline me for not doing what

I'm called to do. So what does God say about this? Let's get it into the right arena and under the right authority.

Then I would ask them, was what you did right or wrong, according to the

Scriptures? We need to get this clear. We're trying to teach discernment. And they pretty much knew what the

Scripture said, and they pretty much knew what they did that was wrong. I would ask them then, what happens when you disobey?

And their answer would be along the lines of, I get corrected. I need to be corrected.

And then what must I do as a parent under God's authority? And they understand that I need to spank them.

I need to apply the rod, and in a measured way, in a calm way, not flailing out of anger or frustration or embarrassment, but measured and proportionate.

And then we finish up what ought you to do in the future? Because this is supposed to be correction.

You did something wrong. In this circumstance, what was the right thing to do?

And what will you do in the future? And they would come back and respond to that.

And they would ask forgiveness for their disobedience. And I would freely forgive them, and we would end every discipline session with a hug and a firm embrace.

And I think that's kind of the pattern that we developed, and I think that was very useful, and I think it was very appropriate in terms of the

Scriptures. We have an anonymous listener who wants to know, we all know about the classic biblical passage of sparing the rod and spoiling the child, but what is exactly meant by rod?

What is appropriate today? Obviously, no one who loves their children wants to bring about any kind of real physical harm.

It's supposed to hurt a bit, but not leave a permanent bruise or something like that.

What do you recommend we actually implement in this using of the so -called rod?

Well, the rule today, the patterns have changed.

I remember when they began to change, and it used to be that you could discipline your kids in public, and then it got to the place where any kind of discipline was looked upon as alleged to be abusive.

Scripture does use the term rod, and a rod is what it says.

It's a switch. It might be a stick. It might be a ruler. It might be a ping -pong paddle, an implement that you use.

We found that when we spanked our children with the hand, that the pressure was spread out over five fat fingers, and diapers or pants or so forth, that you had to use more force.

When we used an implement, when we used a rod, we didn't need to use the force.

It was more just in the wrist. It was smart. It stung, but it did not hurt or injure our children.

In our day, legally, corporal punishment from a legal perspective is permitted.

I remember going out on a call with one of our officers to an allegation of abusive behavior.

We rolled into the house and talked to a child who called in 911, a boy.

We went into the house and separated mom and the child and talked to them each separately and got their stories.

The boy was alleging child abuse because mom was requiring him to wash the dishes.

He told her that he's not going to do it, and if you push it,

I'm going to call 911. She said, go ahead. He did.

We responded. The officer was very patient. There were two officers.

One heard the boy's story. The other one heard the mom's story.

It was essentially the same story. He'd been told he's got chores, and one of his chores is to wash the dishes.

He just didn't want to do it. The officer I was on a ride -along and the officer

I was riding with, after hearing both accounts put together, sat down with mom and the boy and said to the boy,

I want you to understand that corporal punishment is still legal in this state.

I would advise you very strongly to wash the dishes.

Do what your mom says. He went so far as to tell the kid that if you're concerned about your mom spanking you for not doing it and you call me back,

I will be very unhappy with you. So get the dishes done.

Praise God. That was wonderful. It really was.

We never heard from him again. But kids will try to turn the tables.

As they learn some of these things about how people look at parents who discipline their children, they will try to use that against the parents.

Oh yeah. My nephew, who is now an adult, but one of my nephews, back in the early 90s

I guess it would have been, I can still vividly remember when my sister tried to discipline him in any way.

He would threaten her, I'm calling the Department of Social Services. It's amazing how quickly the kids learn these leftist tricks that go on.

It truly is. The open hand, in Withholding Not Correction, I advocate we use a ruler in our household.

All it took was a flick of the wrist and you felt the narrow strip. It stung, but it didn't in a significant way.

We kept that ruler in a particular place in the kitchen and it's still there.

When our kids are now, our oldest is 52 and our youngest is 36, they still will come over and pull out the ruler and say,

I remember this. They were trained by it. But in the book

I also state that if you don't have another instrument that you use like that, the open hand is the handiest, the tool that's closest.

The open hand, clearly specified, you won't get in trouble legally using an open hand if it's applied properly.

That is with moderation to an appropriate part of the body. You don't use your open hand to slap across the face or something like that.

That's not discipline. And Anonymous, if you privately email me your full name and mailing address,

I've got a nice surprise for you. You have won a free copy of the book we are discussing today by my guest

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So thank you so much for the excellent question. CVBBS is a wonderful book service.

They have a wonderful selection of trustworthy titles and they are efficient in getting them out to you.

I highly commend them. Amen. I agree with you 100 % and I am thrilled that they are sponsors of this program.

We have Susan Margaret in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, and she asks, is it ever correct or proper to provide corporal punishment to your children in public, especially in this day and age, when witnesses may even exaggerate or outright lie as to the measure with which you applied your hand to the rear end of a child, and it may get you in trouble even if you are within the bounds of the law just because a witness is giving a false report?

That's a very good question. My counsel on that is that back in the time that withholding correction was written, corporal punishment was much more prevalent.

When your child acted up in public, you could discipline him or her in public and people would actually be appreciative.

Some people would say if you're acting up in a grocery store, they'd say I'm glad that you took care of that because I was sure tempted to.

But today, you're right. Whether you practice moderation and you go through a procedure that is clearly not abusive but is corrective in nature, training in nature discipline means to be under the discipline or the authority of another for teaching that I would never discipline in public.

I would take it to a private place. If you're in store and you need to discipline,

I would go out of the store, go to my car and deal with it there or go someplace else and deal with it there.

However, there are also other ways you can kind of call attention to it. We learned that sitting in church, if the kids began acting, we could kind of flick of the fingers on the thigh or the side of the leg.

We'd kind of get their attention and give them a look and they shape up.

So if you can develop some of that device is much less obvious as to what you're doing and call attention to the child that they are starting to get out of hand and shape up now.

We also, when our kids were little, we wanted to get their attention.

Actually, when they were crawling, we wanted to get their attention. We taught them to respond to a snap of the fingers.

If they heard the snap, they would stop what they were doing and turn and look to us for instructions.

So if they're crawling off someplace, we didn't want them to go. Instead of having to yell at them, where are you going?

Get back here. We could just snap our finger and they would look to us and we could signal with our hand, come back this way.

They got it. That's also something if our kids even today hear a snap of the finger, they'll turn and look to see what's happening.

Well, thank you, Susan Margaret. And guess what? If you give us your full mailing address in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, you will also receive a free copy of the book we are discussing with Hold Nut Correction, thanks to PNR Publishing and also thanks to CVBBS .com.

We'll be shipping it out. We also have Cindy in Findlay, Ohio.

And I have to enlarge Cindy's email or the font on her question because it's microscopic if you bear with me.

And while I'm doing this, I'll repeat our email address, ChrisArnson at gmail .com. ChrisArnson at gmail .com.

Give us your first name at least, city and state, and country of residence. Cindy says, I often tell my grown children that a spanking is an immediate attitude adjustment and reinforce that they are to spank because of the child's disobedience rather than the parent's anger.

I care for four to seven of them while parents are working and have had a difficult time with one four -year -old.

She's made of steel, both her bottom and her hard head.

My sister said spankings weren't working. I spanked with my hand since she was little.

I said, no, we don't give up. We double down. I can testify that when

I began spanking with a substantial paddle, which was actually a cutting board, it took only a few minutes and I saw much improvement.

I know most parents are afraid to physically discipline because they fear punishment from governmental authorities, but I care too much and am willing to risk repercussions.

I would like to encourage parents to spank out of love. It sometimes is merciful to a child who is having difficulty restraining himself.

Looking forward to your book. I will purchase several for family members. God bless you for your firm stand.

So it's really not a question she had. It was just her own input there and if you could respond to what she said.

I would love to because I think she's on target and it is what parents need to understand is what tends to happen is that they spank and it doesn't seem to work.

They get frustrated. So they spank harder and it still doesn't work. So they get frustrated and they spank even harder and what parents need to understand is that it's not the severity of the spanking that can that what begins as a training session can end up really being abusive, but it's not the severity of the spanking.

It's the consistency that matters. It's the consistency that brings about the change in behavior.

If the child knows that every time they do this, this is going to be what happens, then over time they will stop that.

But it can be really wearying. It can wear on the parents because you feel like you're always doing this.

There's an incident I related in the book where our oldest daughter,

I've got five kids by the way, all grown and married now and seven grandchildren.

But we had an incident with our oldest daughter where we went into the bank where we normally did our banking and the teller was happy to see us and offered our daughter a lollipop and she took the lollipop and she didn't say anything.

So we said, what do you say? Expecting her to say thank you.

She didn't. So we gave the lollipop back and we took her outside and talked to her, spanked her for disobedience.

We went back in and the teller gave her a lollipop again. Same routine.

What do you say? Well, that went on for I think three or four times.

And we finally realized this is not getting anywhere. We gave the lollipop back.

We took our daughter outside and we said, that's it for now.

You're not getting the lollipop. You didn't get the lollipop because you did not say thank you. But over the next three days, we put her into situations where thank you was the appropriate response.

And she dug in her heels and would not say it. And we consistently spanked her, not in anger, not with increasing severity, but with really practiced moderation.

And on the third day, she said, thank you. And we all broke into smiles.

And she was so excited that she had obeyed that she called the wife of one of the elders in the church and said,

Aunt Nancy, I said, thank you. And everybody rejoiced. But it's that consistent.

Now, we're going to go to a final break right now, which will be a lot more brief than the other breaks. But we do have another anonymous listener who says, is it ever appropriate to use physical discipline to your grandchild if your children, the parents of that child, forbid you from doing so?

Is this a case where you obey God and not man? Or is it too close to home to use that biblical truth with your own children?

And if you could answer that when we return. Our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

If you have a question, send it in immediately because we're rapidly running out of time. Don't go away. We'll be right back. James White of Alpha and Omega Ministries here excited to announce that my longtime friend

Chris Arnson of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio and I are heading to Washington, D .C.

for the G3 Ministries Regional Conference on the theme, Just Thinking About the Bible.

The conference will be held Thursday, September 15th through Saturday, September 17th. I'll be speaking along with Stephen Lawson, Josh Weiss, founder of G3 Ministries, and Daryl Bernard Harrison and Virgil Walker, co -hosts of the

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I'm Dr. Joseph Piper, President Emeritus and Professor of Systematic and Applied Theology at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary.

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We are back now, and brother, if you could, answer that very good question that we had before the station break in regard to should parents ever employ corporal punishment on their grandchildren if the parents of the grandchildren, the children of the ones in question, forbid them to use corporal punishment.

That's a complicated question because you have an additional layer of authority there, and what

I mean by that is grandparenting is not the same as parenting. In grandparenting, we need to remember that our grandchildren are under the authority of their parents, and we need to support the authority of their parents and not challenge the authority of their parents.

So if you're having a problem of the grandchildren at your house not obeying, take time to talk with the parents of the children and explain to them that if they can't control them, then this is how you should do it.

These are the steps that you should take, and encourage them, give them a copy of Withhold Not Correction, or there are other books out there now, too, that take a biblical perspective,

Shepherding a Child's Heart by Ted Tripp and others that are quite good. Oh yeah, I have not only interviewed

Ted on that, but I've arranged conferences in the past with him, and they were very heavily attended.

It seems to be a very important subject to a lot of people. It is, it is. The Tripp brothers attended, when they were in seminary, attended the church where Wayne Mack and I were, and occasionally came down to our church in Delaware as well.

So Ted Tripp's book is kind of an expansion, and kind of enlarges the field of the work that I did.

So I see him as building upon Withhold Not Correction.

But the trick here, in the question as it's posed, is if you simply act and discipline your grandchildren contrary to the wishes of their parents, you will alienate the parents, your own child, and possibly lose access to your grandchildren.

And so you want to work through the authority of the parents to the best ability that you can. If it's intolerable, if they will not comply, if they will not respond to what you're trying to say, then you may need to take the position, when they're in my house, it's my rules.

And either you control them or I will. Well, we are out of time, and that anonymous listener needs to send me his or her information, mailing address, so that CVBBS can ship out a copy of your book to him or her.

And I want to make sure our listeners have all of the information that they need for follow -up with you, and to get a hold of the book, and so on.

Well, first of all, the book, make sure that you get the book from CVBBS .com,

since they sponsor this program, and just tell them the book is Withhold Not Correction, published by PNR Publishing.

And they will be more than happy to get that book to you at a very, very good price.

And please make sure you mention Iron Troupe and Zion Radio to them.

Also, if you want to find out more about Kings Cross Church in Kirkland, Washington, the website is kingscrosskirk .org,

kingscrosskirk .org. And if you want to attend the 2022

Northwest Fire Regional Fellowship in Prineville, Oregon, go to events .entrustedword

.org forward slash 2022 Northwest Fire Regional Fellowship.

And I, of course, will email you those details if that's too long for you to remember. I want to thank you so much,

Bruce, for doing such an extraordinary job today. I want to have you back on the program frequently. I want to thank everybody who listened.

I hope you all have a safe and happy and joyful and Christ -honoring weekend and Lord's Day.

And I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater Savior than you are a sinner.