Discipline and Spanking in Parenting

DISCIPLINE & SPANKING in Parenting
Geoffrey R. Kirkland
Christ Fellowship Bible Church

Every godly parent loves his child and ultimately wants what’s best for him and for his eternal well-being. Parents long for their children to trust in Christ alone for salvation! God’s Word provides the only sufficient, eternal, authoritative, divine guidelines for parenting our children. That is to say, other resources can prove to be helpful and inspiring but God’s Word is authoritative, God-breathed, and wholly sufficient for all matters pertaining to life and godliness, including parenting. So, what does Scripture have to say about discipline and spanking?

The Apostle Paul says that parents must “bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord” (Eph 6.4). God also says in the Old Testament that “foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child;  The rod of discipline will remove it far from him” (Prov 22.15). Furthermore, God most clearly commands us as parents “do not hold back discipline from the child,  Although you strike him with the rod, he will not die. You shall strike him with the rod and rescue his soul from Sheol” (Prov 23.13-14). God says that “the rod and reproof give wisdom, but a child who gets his own way brings shame to his mother” (Prov 29.15). Then God instructs parents: “Correct your son, and he will give you comfort; He will delight your soul” (Prov 29.17). Why all this? Because our children need to be guided to understand that sinful decisions that their heart makes have consequences. Remember, the heart of the nonbeliever rages against the Lord (Prov 19.3). And so parents live by faith when we discipline our children because God says that the rod of discipline will remove that folly far from him (as the parent provides gentle, loving, biblical reproof as well seeking to get at the heart).

So your child has sinned. Your precious little one has disobeyed God, defied you, transgressed God’s Word, and you’ve now taken your child into the discipline room. Then what? What do you do? What do you say? How do you discipline & point to Christ? How can you be firm with truth & tender with compassion?

This is a brief template that seeks to provide practical wisdom in assisting parents in the discipline and instruction of small children.

1. Gather the facts. —  Ask questions of the child (as much as you’re able with the younger ones) such as: "what happened?" or “tell me what’s going on.” This way you seek to understand the situation (even if you saw it) and you’re allowing them to speak and give their account of the event.

2. Reach the heart. — Then, whatever happened to them, you ask "how did you respond?” or “how did that make you feel?”  “what did you choose to do in that moment when it happened?” Then you can ask: “Why?” All of these questions intentionally target the heart. We want to reach the heart.

3. Expose the sin. — At this point, regardless of what’s happened, it’s vital to specify the sin. Perhaps the child manifested a heart of selfishness, a desire for control, an outburst of anger, not considering others as more important than themselves, etc. The goal is to clearly expose the sin.

4. Prove it biblically. — Ideally, we as Christian parents should have an open a Bible and show the child where in the Scriptures they have sinned against God. This is crucial so the child knows he didn’t ultimately sin against mom or dad but first and foremost against God. This is where godly parents need to constantly study the Word and hide it in our hearts so that we can bring biblical truth to the child’s heart regularly & specifically.

5. Give the discipline. — The sin has been committed. The facts have been gathered. The heart has been exposed (as much as possible). The sin has been clearly stated and biblically proven. The child is guilty and has disobeyed God. Now the parent must use the rod. The goal is to bring enough pain for the child to see the error in what he’s done but, of course, the discipline is not to bring harm or bruising to the child. Using the rod must be done in a private location and it must be firm. Whether it’s one swat or two or three on the rear-end (an area that’s not exposed and easily covered up), the parent must choose to obey God and use the rod when the child has sinned. Parents must choose to obey God rather than follow culture on spanking. Culture calls it “harming/abusing the child.” God calls it: “saving your child’s soul from death!” Choose to follow God! Use the rod.

6. Express tender love. — Immediately when the discipline has occurred and the child is saddened by the pain, hold the child, hug the child, affectionately place the child on your lap, and verbally tell them: "I love you!” This tender love and physical and verbal reassurance is important.

7. Give the gospel. — Now is the glorious opportunity to say: “do you know why I did this? You've sinned. And our God is holy. You're a sinner, just like daddy (or, mommy)…” The Law has exposed the sin. The child has received a discipline for the offense. Now bring the balm of the gospel and the hope of Christ. The glorious benefit of this consists in parents having many opportunities (even daily, at times!) to present the gospel to their children who have sinned. Yes, our God hates sin and sees our sinful hearts! But God sent His Son to take the “eternal discipline” that we deserve. Compel your children to trust in Jesus! Sinners are saved by faith — childlike faith — in Jesus as Lord & Savior! Show them Christ’s glory, worth, work, and hope! Never underestimate the power of a faithful father who disciplines when he’s home and able and a faithful mother who disciplines in the home and how many gospel occasions this presents with the child. O may God use Christian homes to save children at young ages for His glory and renown.

8. Pray with them. — When all has been done and said, don’t forget to pray for them and with them. Still keeping the child on your lap and embracing him in your arms, pray for God to save them. Then, move on tenderly, lovingly, caringly, affectionately, and prayerfully.

For young children in the home that must learn that there are painful consequences to sinful choices, God’s prescribed method of discipline is employing the rod. We as parents must never use the rod out of anger, frustration, or in a manner of lashing out at the children for a foolish choice they made. Rather, parents must all learn from God who disciplines those whom he loves and he scourges every son that he receives (Heb 12.5-6). Indeed, godly parents discipline for a short time as seems best and long for the time when it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it (Heb 12.11). Out of love, parental love, God-like love, as you love your children, discipline them and declare the gospel to them. Or, as Paul puts it: bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord (Eph 6.4).

More resources found at the parenting link.

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The Ultimate Model of Parenting.

The ULTIMATE MODEL of Parenting.
Geoffrey R. Kirkland
Christ Fellowship Bible Church

Sometimes parents may ponder to themselves: “can anyone else relate to me in this situation?” Or, “has anyone else ever gone through this?” Parenting can seem lonely. When children disobey, when young children act defiantly, when teenager revolt, parents may think that they’ve done it all wrong and that no one could relate to the despair that has risen in their soul. But I want to encourage every parent with a simple reality from Scripture. The ultimate parent is God. Remember what God said in Isaiah 1:2 - “Listen, O heavens and hear, O earth; for the Lord speaks, ‘Sons I have reared and brought up, but they have revolted against me.’” Indeed, later Isaiah says: “Israel has abandoned the Lord, they have despised the Holy One of Israel, they have turned away from Him” (Isa 1:4). Have you, dear parents, ever felt like this? Be encouraged: God can relate to you in every situation in life -- even the discouraging, lonely, and confusing parenting moments that enter into your life.

God is the PERFECT model. Of course, God is perfect...He is God! And He calls Israel, “My Son” (Hosea 11:1 and Isa 1:2). Let us remember that our God takes on the title of “Father” (Eph 3:14-15) and loves for His children to call Him “Abba” Father (Gal 4:6). God is the perfect model of a parent. He is the Father. He has children. And He had sons, and as Isaiah tells us, they were wayward and rebellious. Let us look to God as our model and observe how He parents.

God is a SYMPATHIZING parent. As involved as God is in the lives of His creatures, we see that He is a God of emotion and that He is a God who cares. And God refers to Israel as “sons that he has reared and brought up” (Isa 1:2). But these sons have revolted against Him. Indeed, they have acted corruptly, abandoned Him, and utterly despised God. Could you imagine? Maybe you’ve been there, or maybe you’re going through it. Sons rising up and revolting against their parents and abandoning and utterly despising them! So God can relate. So God was one who was grieved by this. So much so that God invited them to come back to him, to return to him, and to be forgiven (Isa 1:18). O how God wanted to reconcile with them! He was grieved and hurt by their sin.

God has WAYWARD children. Israel was greatly rebellious. Indeed, they were full of evil deeds (Isa 1:16). They offered heartless sacrifices and were prone to just going through the religious motions of offering sacrifices (Isa 1:11). They trampled God’s courts (Isa 1:12) and prayed with uplifted hands as though God ignored their sin but would hear their petitions (Isa 1:15). So bad had Israel become that she didn’t even know how to blush over sin anymore. O yes, God can relate to you if you have children that have strayed. But wait, Did God do something wrong? Of course not! How faithful and tender and patient He was! Yet He had wayward children.

God UNCONDITIONALLY LOVES  His own. Never, ever, does God abandon His people, Israel. God tells them that the fixed order of the moon and stars and sun would have to pass away before God would give up Israel as His people (Jer 31.35-37). Of course God is faithful to His promises and HIs covenants! Consider the elect of God! While we were His enemies, Christ died for us (Rom 5.8). He loves us unconditionally. He remains faithful -- even when we are faithless (2 Tim 2.13). How does God treat His elect children (=believers) when we sin against Him? He is faithful to love, diligent to discipline, constant in compassion, long-suffering in patience, and ready to forgive. O what a most merciful and gloriously gracious God we worship and serve! How faithful He is with us -- even when we sin in those moments of stubbornness and being wayward. May we learn from our Father and love our children in the same way.

God LAVISHES LOVE and PROMISE-FILLED HOPE to His children. As the perfect model, God shows us that we can constantly communicate and remind the children of wonderful promises that come to all of His children -- He will still love us (Rom 8.35-39) and He will never leave or forsake us (Heb 13.5). How does God treat you as His child? He lavishes constant love upon you as you study Him, know Him, and seek to plumb the depths of His unfathomable love (Eph 3:14-19). He is always available to communicate with you through His Word and provide hope -- faithful, sure hope -- to you as His child through faith alone (2 Cor 1:20). May we learn from God, our perfect model, as we seek to be faithful in parenting our children as God Himself loves His own.

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The Goals of Parenting

The Goals of Parenting
Geoffrey R. Kirkland
Christ Fellowship Bible Church

Without goals, it’s only a matter of time before one wanders without a sense of direction and purpose. Without clear, decisive, straightforward goals, no ultimate mark will be hit and ultimately one will be meandering aimlessly, without direction, and at a loss as to the reason why he does what he does. We must remember our goals. And not only must we remember our goals, but we must ensure that we have the right ones. When talking to Christian parents, a common goal for the children is that they become Christians. As important at this is and as noble as this is, this is not the ultimate goal of parenting. For if conversion is the goal, and if a child does not come to Christ, then the parent has failed in parenting. And that’s not the biblical understanding of Christian living -- or parenting. In this write-up, I want to delineate a few goals of parenting and, in so doing, I also want to underscore the priority of the first item that is listed below.

The first and preeminent goal of parenting must be faithfulness. It is required of God’s stewards that one be found ‘trustworthy’ (1 Cor 4.1-2). Children of God receive a warm and glorious welcome into the kingdom when they hear: “Well done, good and faithful servant” (Matt 25.21, 23). God demands faithfulness of His people -- the kind of faithfulness that emulates His own faithfulness. Success, according to the Bible, is not results or numbers. Success in the Bible is gauged by faithfulness. How faithful is the parent to pray for the children? How faithful is the parent to selflessly love the children and daily point them to their eternal refuge in Christ? How faithful is the parent to get at the heart in the discipline room and during the occasions of instruction and discipleship? How faithful is the parent to lead in family worship and bring Christ and His gospel to bear in the hearts of the children? How faithful is the parent to repent of sin, ask for forgiveness, and model Christlikeness to the children? Parents must remember that the ultimate and chief goal of parenting is faithfulness. Be faithful to what God has called you to do and leave the results to God.
   
Secondly, the goal of parenting includes evangelization. Of course, every Christian parent longs for his children to come to know Christ in a saving way. Every parent longs for, prays for, and strives for this. And rightly so! But faithfulness to God does not guarantee the conversion of the child. But in being faithful to God and in being obedient to His Word, a Christian parent will evangelize the children daily. Indeed, he will utilize opportunities to formally teach about God (family worship, devotions, etc.) and informally teach about God (on a road trip, a funeral, watching a sunset, seeing an amazing creature, etc.). Parents must relentlessly, patiently, prayerfully, tenderly, and urgently evangelize the children by pointing out their sinful hearts, the character of God, the penalty for sin, the punishment of hell, the love and life of Christ, the substitution that procured salvation, the need for repentance and faith, and the hope of eternal life for all who believe. Parents must lovingly invite the children to come to this God in Christ and to love Him, serve Him, obey Him, and trust in Him!

Third, parenting must have the goal of preparation. This includes preparation for judgment day. There is a day soon coming when everyone will stand before Jesus Christ, the Judge of heaven and earth. And our job as parents is to prepare, by God’s enabling grace and power, our children to stand before the Almighty and just judgment of God! Furthermore, we want to devote ourselves to prepare them for life.  We want them to know what integrity is and what it looks like. We want them to be hard workers. We must teach and instruct them to be busy, workers with their hands, devoted to God, truthful in all things, and living with an eye toward eternity. Additionally, we parent to teach our children to prepare for marriage. We parent our boys to be men who lead, who are humble servants, selfless in their daily sacrifice, and genuinely loving as Christ loves. We teach our girls to be gentle, helpers, submissive, and to joyfully embrace the calling to follow and complete a man that God may bring into their lives. Finally, we want to  prepare our children for when they themselves are parents. But ultimately, of course, our primary focus is on their preparation to meet God -- which most certainly will come.

Next, the goals of parenting must entail a multi-generational influence. We don’t parent only for now. We parent for the future. We must remember the long-term perspective of parenting. Let’s not have a narrow, myopic focus of parenting but remember that our children will one day be parents and they will be parenting their children, and then their children will have children that they will parent, and so forth. We must remember that we want to teach the generations to come -- yes, even the generations yet to be born -- to trust in the Lord and place their hope in God (see Psalm 78:1-8).

Finally, the goal of parenting includes demonstration. That refers to the demonstration of the gospel visibly and relationally. The way that God as Father treats us as His children has a very direct correlation to how we as parents must treat our children. And in so far as we faithfully understand how God treats us, we want to faithfully emulate His conduct with our children so as to rightly show selfless love and humble sacrifice in the gospel. How do we demonstrate God’s selfless, sacrificial, humble love toward our children when they sin?  How do we lavish forgiveness upon them that emulates God’s enormous forgiveness of us?  How do we communicate clearly, often, tenderly, and with comforting promises like God does to us in the pages of Scripture? How do we unilaterally initiate occasions to love our children even when they do not love in return?  This is how God has loved us in Christ? Let us seek to remember the ultimate goal of being faithful to God and to His Word as we strive, working by His power, to follow Him, obey His Word, and see God’s Spirit regenerate our children by His sovereign grace.

More can be found at Pastor Geoff's site here.

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The Power of Parenting

The POWER of parenting
Geoffrey R. Kirkland
Christ Fellowship Bible Church

Every parent could honestly say that often the cry of our hearts is “Help, Lord!” Indeed, we as parents desperately need God’s strength for the daunting — and humanly impossible — task of shepherding precious souls to Christ. No greater calling exists for a Christian with children than to honor God by bringing up the children in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. Frequently it is the case that parents have run low of energy, feel burnt out of doing yet another discipline, and they wonder if this particular ‘season of life’ will ever come to an end. Where do we as parents turn in moments of hardship and weakness? Where do we go when we need strength and grace?

God tells us that “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness” (2 Cor 10.9). So in this text, God tells believers that in times of weakness God’s power is made perfect. The weaker we are as parents, the stronger God’s power works in and through us.

Elsewhere, the Apostle Paul provided the philosophy of ministry as he stated that his duty was to proclaim Christ (the unfathomable glories of this Savior!) by admonishing every man and teaching every man with all wisdom so that he may present every man complete in Christ (Col 1.28). Yet, he goes on to state that he labors (that is, exerting tremendous energy and diligent effort), striving according to God’s power which mightily works within him (Col 1.29). In a sense, this is every parent’s philosophy of ministry as we seek to be ‘undershepherds’ in our homes caring for the little sheep that God provides under our care for a certain period of years. How do we proclaim Christ? How do we admonish and instruct and teach and labor and fulfill these lofty (and, again, humanly impossible!) goals? Not with mere human effort but according to God’s almighty power which so powerfully works within us.

Our God can do the impossible. Furthermore, God is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or even think, according to the power that works within us (Eph 3.20). That text means that our God is able, powerful and working in such a way that He can do more than we could pray for and more than we could ever imagine because He mightily is working in us. Paul lives to know Christ and he also wants to know the power of His resurrection (Phil 3.10). And we should learn to pray like this so that we would know what is the surpassing greatness of God’s power toward us who believe (Eph 1.19).

These verses repeatedly underscore the most wondrous reality that in our overwhelming weakness and inability, God remains overwhelmingly strong and able to do what we could never do. Our God is strong, mighty, sovereign, providential, and saving. He works through weak earthen vessels (2 Cor 4.7). Do you feel weak? Do you feel inadequate? Do you feel defeated and in despair? Do not lose heart! God still has the victory and is strong in your weakness! He supplies the daily strength that we need for parenting. The greatest prayer and the most humbling cry that we as parents can repeatedly utter is: “Help, Lord! I can’t do this! I desperately need you!” God will work and act — for His glory working in and through you. Trust Him. Receive His power! The same Jehovah who sat as King at the flood is the same One who gives strength to His people (Ps 29.10-11). Rely on Him. Rest in Him. Request to Him. Receive His power!


More from the eBook on "parenting" can be found at Pastor Geoff's website.

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