Gospel-Centered Spanking

Introduction

I want you to be visionary parents. God designed children to stay on a trajectory that is started by their parents. I want you to envision the kind of man or the kind of woman that you respect and admire.  I want you to envision the kind of Christian that has contagious godliness and joy.  Raise your child to be that person.  With every fiber of your being, with every ounce of your energy, go after that vision for your child.  Don’t wait until they rebel to have a plan.  Set them on the right path today!  Turn them the right way today!  APPLICATION:  If you’re children continue down the path you’ve started them on, how close are they to Jesus?

Corruption of a Good Thing Doesn’t Make It a Bad Thing

I was tasked with talking to you all about the less than fun subject of discipline. It’s a critically important subject, but it’s a subject with a lot of baggage.

Children

My premise: Discipline, to include spanking, is a good and right and loving parental responsibility delegated to us by God himself.

: “It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? If you are left without discipline, in which we all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons.”

But, no doubt, many of you have issues with this because you have seen discipline corrupted, not by your heavenly Father, but your earthly parent or guardian. Abuse. Anger. Dan’s vent post.

Corruption of a good thing doesn’t make it a bad thing. We live in a world of corruption in which those things that God made beautiful exist in brokenness. Discipline is no exception.

Your Child is Foolish

Proverb 22:15a: “Folly is bound up in the heart of a child”

Your child is a sinner and a rebel in his heart.  Everybody always talks about how sweet and innocent and pure a child is, but if you’ve every had children you know that’s a lie!  That kid’s a rebel!  You want them to go to bed because it’s good for them, and they cry like you’re trying to send them to the electric chair.  You want them to eat their vegetables so the they’re healthy, and they want to negotiate with you like it’s the Cuban Missile Crisis!  Your children are not morally neutral.  They are born with deceptive and wicked hearts that are filled with rebellion and foolishness.  Today, everybody wants to believe that children just need more information, but they don’t even have the cognitive capacity to process more information.  Proverbs tells us straightforwardly that what our children need in the midst of their disobedience is not information; it’s discipline.  APPLICATION:  If your children are never taught the severity of what it means to sin against you, how can we expect them to understand the severity of their sin against God?  The Gospel is at stake here, brothers and sisters.

Parents Lovingly Remove Foolishness

Proverb 22:15b “but the rod of discipline drives it far from him.”

The Bible does not suggest corporal punishment as an option; rather, it is given to us as a command. Repeatedly. And, Proverbs speaks very strongly about it.

Proverb 13:24 says, “Whoever spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is diligent to discipline him.”

Proverb 13:24 says, “Whoever spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is diligent to discipline him.”

Discipline is an issue of love and hatred, wisdom and foolishness. It says bluntly, “If you love your child, you will spank him.  If you hate your child, you will let him go in his foolishness.”  In fact, to believe that discipline, including sometimes strong and hard discipline, is wrong is to believe that God is unholy.  It’s to question the goodness and trueness of the Gospel.  For says that God disciplines those He loves the way that a father disciplines his son

Children are the Same - Parents Have Changed

Discipline is an act of love when it’s done in a way that brings glory to the Gospel and seeks the good of the child. So, the idea here is not just get angry and vent your anger by spanking your kid. That’s not at all the picture. The idea here is to discipline your child in a way that is reflective of the way that God disciplines his children. It’s to discipline them in a way that points them to the Lord.

This is love! Children can still sit still. Children can still listen. Children can still follow instructions. Children are still capable of great things! They haven’t changed. We have! We’ve redefined love to mean easy, no hardship living. This isn’t love; it’s delusion.

The Gospel-centered Spanking

You need to think this process out clearly ahead of time so that it can become a reflex. You are a sinner too, and sinners don’t make good reflexive decisions in the moment.

The goal:  You don’t want to create a long term reminder of their sin; you want to create a short term sting to remind them of their sin.

When not to spank: Frustrating you is not a sin.  Rebelling against you is a sin.  We cannot spank out of frustration.  We do not spank to relieve tension.  We spank to stop rebellion.

When to spank: Blatant DisobedienceRefusing to do what you instructed them to do.Obey without delay.Whenever a child is old enough to blatantly disobey, they are old enough for discipline.

walking around - diapers - Upper thigh

5 or 6 months old - pop or squeeze hand

after that - let er’ rip.

How to Give a Gospel-centered Spanking

Send the child away until you have cooled down and are thinking clearly.  You cannot point them to God looking like the incredible hulk.  

Explain to them the reason they are being disciplined.  Remind them that sin always has consequences. (If it’s an older child, you might ask them to tell them why they are there.) 

Tell them that you love them enough to discipline them, though it breaks your heart. 

Spank the child.  If they do not respond, it was not hard enough.  

Receive their repentance, every single time.  Tell them that you forgive them and will always forgive them.  Require repentance.  You may need to ask: “What would like to say to me?”  Make them be specific.

Be reconciled to your child and ensure reconciliation with any other family members that were offended.  And, in the process, you have shared the Gospel with your child and demonstrated God’s loving hand.  

Your heart is inclined to sin.

Sin breaks your relationship with your earthly father and your heavenly Father.

Obedience is for your good and for God’s glory.

The Upside Down Triangle

You are always parenting a teenager, even at 2, 3, and 4. What you overlook now and do not discipline for now will not get better with time.  Explain that most follow the Triangle model of parenting.  The Parenting of Proverbs is the inverted Triangle model of parenting.  (Start tight and slowly loosen, as opposed to being loose and trying to clamp down at the end.). Remember things that you can tolerate at two will become difficult at 6, intolerable by 13. The more you spank young, the less you spank them as they get older.

Should I Spank My Teenager?

I think there does come an age in which this tool loses its effectiveness.  It’s important to remember that teenagers are a modern invention.  In Biblical times, there were only children and adults.  Many people dismiss spanking because they remember being spanked older, and it being ineffective.  

We should discipline our teenagers in ways that aim to shorten adolescence rather than lengthen it.  They should face painful, difficult consequences that will cause them to contemplate their future decision carefully. 

Reconciliation is just as important with a teenager!

Let’s Pray for Our Children