The Rod of Correction

The Rod of Correction

Story of me in the parking lot with my mom. Cops coming.

This week we will talk about discipline focusing on physical punishment

Is it ok

Is it biblical

Should everyone do it?

I do believe spanking is ok. But I need to make a strong caveat

if we’re talking about physical violence, like slamming and striking. That’s child abuse, and we fear for the one who will give an account before God someday for such heinous acts.  We hate such behavior; we denounce such behavior; and we charge you before God NEVER to do such things.  Please do not associate this sort of behavior with faithful Christianity and biblical parenting.

This morning we will attempt to define a biblical—and therefore good—form of corrective discipline.

Recall that so far in the course, we’ve worked hard to impress on ourselves the importance of the heart.

We strive to image God in our parenting, and God cares about the heart.

If we work only to conform behavior, we miss what matters most to God—the attitude of the heart.  And consequently, we risk confusing the Gospel. 

So we engage in formative discipline and training

we lead our families in worship

we engage in many different forms of communication to reach our children’s hearts.

Our goal in ages 1-5, is to teach our children to be people under authority

in ages 6-12, to teach them godly character.  And in so doing, our aim is to reach their hearts and lead them to Christ—their true authority—and the Holy Spirit who can give them whole new characters.

But as we saw last week, none of this is to suggest that God doesn’t care about behavior, or that we shouldn’t address our children’s behavior

biblical corrective discipline, squarely addresses behavior—while still serving our goal of training the heart.

proper context for addressing behavior—

we have loving parents, seeking to image God, who are most concerned about their children’s hearts. 

We focus on ourselves first – Be a Christian

This context is hugely important.  Taking God’s instruction for conforming behavior out of this context is an easy way to fall into crass manipulation or selfish, anger-filled abuse.

To help us think more biblically, then, we’re going to consider three key notions and then a few common questions.

I. The nature of our children shows their need for the rod and the wisdom it imparts.

To understand God’s plan, we need to hear what God says about the nature of our children.

If children are born ethically and morally good or even neutral (as the world contends), then they do not need correction; they need direction.  They do not need discipline; they need instruction.

But is their most basic problem a lack of information?  Are all the problems gone once they get enough education? Of course not!

Children are not born morally and ethically good or neutral.  The bible teaches that the heart is “deceitful and desperately wicked” (Jeremiah 17:9).

The child’s problem is not primarily an information deficit. 

His problem is that he is a sinner. 

The “rod” as it is called in scripture, functions in this context.  It is addressed to meet needs within the child. 

These needs cannot be met by mere talk. 

Proverbs 22:15 “15 Folly is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline drives it far from him.”

(What do you do with that? Redefine? Reject it? Ignore it?)

When this passage speaks of “folly,” it is not talking about mere childishness. 

Children spill milk. 

They pull things apart without knowing things can come apart. 

They run over mommy’s toes without knowing how wide the tricycle really is. 

We don’t discipline for childishness or even immaturity. (Adeline last night with the milk). Instruction over discipline.

Instead, Proverbs relates folly or foolishness to the person who has no fear of God.  He will not hear reproof.  The fool will not submit to authority.  He mocks God and lacks wisdom (the fear of the Lord). 

“The fool has said in his heart, ‘there is no God’” (Psalm 14:1). 

The fool lives out of the immediacy of his lusts, cravings, expectations, hope and fears. 

Realize:  It is a question of authority.  Will the child live under the authority of God and therefore under the authority of his parents, or under his own authority – driven by his wants and passions?

Learn self control or I will be self control for you

For those of you who do not have children, trust this statement to be true:  children, in their natural state, have hearts of folly. 

They resist correction.

Allow this attitude to take root and grow through the teen years and you will have a child-like person in an adult-sized body that will submit to no one, no rule, no authority – certainly not God apart from his saving intervention and new instruction from scripture.

II. The rod is a key tool for driving out foolishness

Biblically speaking, God has ordained the rod of discipline for this condition. 

Biblical discipline drives foolishness from the heart of a child.

Now consider this:  Proverbs 23:13-14 

Proverbs 23:13–14 ESV

13 Do not withhold discipline from a child; if you strike him with a rod, he will not die. 14 If you strike him with the rod, you will save his soul from Sheol.

Your child’s soul is in danger of death—spiritual death. 

Your task is to rescue your children from death. 

Faithful, timely and controlled use of the corrective discipline is a God-ordained tool of rescue.

This rescue will not happen with mere education and it will not occur naturally if you simply wait it out.

Parents often ask:  Don’t all kids eventually learn to obey?  No, says our experience and so says Proverbs, “The rod of correction imparts wisdom, but a child left to himself disgraces his mother.  Discipline your son, and he will give you peace; he will bring delight to your soul.”  (Prov. 29:15, 17)

Now, it is vitally important that we remember that context matters. 

Use of the rod is NOT a matter of a fed-up parent venting his wrath upon a small, helpless child.

That is not how we image God in our child’s lives!  It is HIS to avenge; HE will repay.

Rather, the use of the rod signifies a faithful parent humbly recognizing his child’s dangerous state and lovingly employing a God-given remedy.

The issue is NOT a parental insistence on being obeyed – that would be closer to authoritarianism. 

Dont make obedience a Idol

The issue is the child’s need to be rescued from death – the death that results from rebellion left unchallenged in the heart. 

But how does the rod rescue? 

Proverbs 29:15 says, “The rod of correction imparts wisdom, but a child left to himself disgraces his mother.”  It imparts wisdom. 

The child who is not submitting to parental authority is acting foolishly. 

He is rejecting the jurisdiction of God. 

He desires to live his life for the immediate gratification of his wants and desires.

He is choosing his own rule over God’s and scripture makes it clear that this leads to death.  It is the height of foolishness.

The rod of correction brings wisdom to the child by:

(1) providing an immediate tactile demonstration of the foolishness of rebellion

(2) imparting to the child a proper fear of punishment. 

Properly administered biblical discipline with the rod thus teaches the child that rebellion yields only trouble and humbles the heart of a child, bringing him back under parental instruction. 

Hebrews 12:11 puts it this way:  “No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful.  Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.” 

There is wisdom here; but, let’s define, “the rod” a little more concretely.

The rod is a parent, in faith toward God and faithfulness toward his or her children, undertaking the responsibility of careful, timely, measured, and controlled use of physical punishment to underscore the importance of obeying God, thus rescuing the child from continuing in his foolishness until death. Let’s go through that definition one step at a time.

A Parental Exercise

The Bible does NOT grant permission to all adults to engage in the use of the rod.  In Scripture, it is always found in the context of a parent-child relationship because biblical discipline is always in the context of love.

An Act of Faith

God has mandated the use of the rod.  The parent obeys, not because he perfectly understands how it works, or because they are perfectly at peace with the biblical requirement, but because God has commanded it. 

Its use is an expression of confidence in God’s wisdom and the trustworthiness of his counsel.

An Act of Faithfulness

This is an expression of love and commitment to your child recognizing that in discipline there is hope, and refusing to be a willing party to your child’s spiritual death.

A Responsibility

It is not the parent determining to punish.  It is the parent determining to obey. 

The parent is God’s representative undertaking on God’s behalf what God has called him to do. 

Our children do not ultimately belong to us; they are a gift and a charge from the Lord and He loves them more than we ever will. They are His to love, nurture, teach and correct according to His will.

A Measured Use of Physical Punishment

The rod is the careful, timely, measured and controlled use of physical punishment.

It is never a venting of parental anger.

It is not what the parent does out of frustration.

The parent knows the proper measure of severity for this particular child at this particular time.

A Rescue Mission

The child who needs discipline with the rod has become distanced from his parents through disobedience. 

The application of the rod is designed to rescue the child from continuing in his foolishness and to restore peace between the parent and child and thus to the home. 

Ephesians 6:1-2 says that obeying parents is the first of the commandments with a promise—namely, that it will go well with the child who obeys, and he will enjoy long life.  But a child who disobeys has removed himself from the biblical “circle of safety,” and has placed himself in grave danger.  

By God’s grace, the rod of correction returns the child to the inside the circle.  It is a rescue mission. 

People say they love their children too much to spank them.  Not so.  The Bible says, “he who spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is careful to discipline him”  (Prov. 13:24). 

III.    When and How do I use the rod?    

When

When you have given a directive that your child has heard and understood, and is within his capacity to obey, and he has not obeyed without challenge, without excuse or without delay, then the use of the rod is in play.

Keep in mind that “without challenge” means “without fussiness or complaining.”

We must discipline for bad attitudes.

God commands children not only to obey, but to honor, their parents.  And a child that is talking back, whining, complaining, glaring, rolling his eyes, hitting or kicking is not honoring his parents. 

How

In your handout a little more specififc than I will do now

Take your child to a place where you can speak together in privacy.  Do not humiliate this little one.  Show respect instead.

Tell him specifically what he has done or failed to do.  Never spank for “general purposes.” 

Secure an acknowledgement from the child of what he has done. 

This is a hopeful process! 

You have addressed behavior

The children are learning they must not disobey.

They feel safe knowing there are firm boundaries

The home is a place of order. 

Children think they want to be in charge, but if they get their wish they are miserable—everyone is miserable. 

Not only that, you have just taken a difficult, vexing event—disobedience—and led your child to the cross of Christ.  A father in our church asked his 10 year old what he thought it was important for parents to know about spanking.  He said:

I think it’s really important that you tell us that there’s good news, because without it we’d be without redemption.  You would be enforcing the law, with no hope  . . . without the Savior.

I can’t improve on that!  With biblical corrective discipline, we enforce the law as God prescribes with the rod and then lead them to the Savior.

IV.    Frequently asked questions

1. When is my child old enough?  When your child is old enough to consciously resist your directives, he is old enough to be disciplined. Discipline does evolve with age (hands squeeze, flick, bottoms, etc.)

2. When is a child too old?  There is no obvious answer.  Clearly, the use of the rod should be falling as the child gets older.  The rod is most effective in dealing with young children and should begin to dwindle, and our practice has been to begin to disappear around double digits (age 10). 

3. Can I use time-out instead of spanking?  Don’t substitute time-out for spanking.  First it is NOT God-ordained.  Second, it seems to prolong the problem.  Use time out when you see your child tempted to sin (e.g., I see you are thinking about leaving the yard and stepping outside the gate; so let’s stop and think about this before you disobey daddy).  It may, however, be good to have a cooling off period immediately before or after using the rod.

4. What if my child says, “But I didn’t hear you?”  Avoid calling your child a liar if there is any doubt in your mind; there will be plenty of times in the future where you have no doubt.  But you must also train your children to hear their parents’ voice above the crowd’s.  They can do it.  Tedd Tripp notes that he began spanking for a recurrent hearing problem, and the problem cleared up immediately. 

6. What if I’m too mad?  Get your spouse involved or take a time-out yourself and get under control.  Don’t pollute the process with your unrighteous anger.  If you want to deliver the spanking, you’re not ready to do so.  In fact, it’s better NOT to spank than to spank in sin… But, it is also incumbent on you to root out this anger and engage it biblically, lest you become an unworthy servant.

7. What if we’re not at home?  If the child is older, they’ll remember why they’re being disciplined when they reach home.  If they are younger, you may have to overlook an infraction when you’re out.  But this shouldn’t be a big problem since most of your training time is while at home.  Don’t risk a charge of child abuse for publicly disciplining your child. 

8. I’m trying to get out the door to make a doctor’s appointment or be on time for church and my child disobeys me, do I discipline and show up late?  Sometimes.  There have been plenty of times I verbally address a child for an act of disobedience, rather than taking the time to go through all the steps.  Timeliness (for instance, if you have a particular responsibility) may be the priority over that particular incident.  At other times, or if the foul is particularly flagrant, I may change my mind. 

Conclusion

We began with proper warnings about misuse of the rod.  I want to close by reminding us of Hebrews 12:11:  “No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful.  Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.”  Brothers and sisters, let’s seek this harvest of righteousness in our own lives as God disciplines us—trusting in His good, fatherly purposes.  And let’s not deprive our children of this harvest by sparing the rod.