This podcast is part two of a two-part series on encouraging parents with Joel Beeke. One of the most challenging matters of parenting is discipline. What does the Bible say about discipline? What value is it? What Biblical principles can be applied to this question?

Well, thank you for joining us on the Church and Family Life podcast. Church and Family Life exists to proclaim the sufficiency of Scripture, and we're here to continue a conversation that we started with Joe Bicki in the last podcast on matters of raising children. We want to be an encouragement to parents particularly to maybe remind of a few things. Maybe you already know them. Maybe you need to get back to them, maybe you don't know them at all.

But we've been dealing with this subject personally in our lives and in our ministries for many, many years. But what's so clear in Scripture is that children are a treasure. They're such a treasure that God calls parents to give tremendous attention to them, to tell them the stories of the greatness of God, to bring them up, to nourish, to cherish them, and to discipline them. So in this conversation we want to talk about discipline. How do you discipline your children?

And We know that discipline is good. The Lord tells us, don't despise the discipline of the Lord. Discipline is a good thing. And so, how is it good? Let's talk about that.

Maybe we'll just start off with that. How, why is discipline good? Well because human nature is bad. We need correction. And that's why Susanna Wesley, who wrote some memorable things about disciplining children, by the way.

And she had what? 17 or 18 of them. Said that it's important to not break in terms of crushing, but to break in terms of conquering the will of children when they're young, so that they understand that discipline is something that will mature them and grow them and make them fit to live in every area of life. If we don't discipline children, and we do like the old summer hill teaching where you just kind of let them be on their own because they've got a good nature, they will turn out to be spoiled brats every single time. So discipline is essential just given the depravity of a child.

And then discipline, as you just pointed out, I think you were implying this at least, Discipline is critical for maturity in Christ. And he disciplines every son whom he receives. We're never gonna be mature, God-glorifying Christians without being disciplined by God and by others. You know it might have been in your book Joel or somewhere I remember reading or hearing someone liken the discipline of the Lord to a sapling of a tree and when a tree is young you can direct the growth the direction of the growth of that tree, but you have to do it early. If you don't do it early, you won't be able to do it because the tree will grow and it will be unbendable.

But a child is bendable. And I think that's why Solomon talks about disciplining your son while there's time, because there's a time when time runs out and that tree is fixed. So you have these early years that are given to you to shape the conscience, to shape the behavior, the way they talk, the way they think, the way they act toward their siblings, the way they conduct themselves in your house, in the house of God. They are supple saplings when they're young. And of course, Susanna Wesley talked about conquering the will.

Lots of the older writers use that same kind of language, if I remember correctly. Yeah. So you've both been pulling language from Hebrews chapter 12. Let me just read a couple of verses there to extend it a bit. Hebrews chapter 12, beginning in verse 5, And you have forgotten the exhortation which speaks to you as to sons my son Do not despise the chastening of the Lord nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by him For whom the Lord loves he chastens and scourges every son whom he receives." So a couple of comments on that.

The first is, God is a Father, and God as a Father disciplines, and so we actually have a model for our earthly parental discipline. And so we should consider how God disciplines, and it's quoted here, the author of Hebrews quoting the Proverbs, you never want to think that you're wiser than God in your discipline. God is a Father, He disciplines in certain ways, so certain disciplines have fallen out of favor, but God as a Father uses those kinds of disciplines. Don't ever think that you're more wise than God and take them off your list of disciplines just because they've fallen out of favor with the world. In discipline, we're constantly bending the sampling back.

And I think this happens through tender communication. You don't just yell at your children to stop it, it's better to go to your children and bend that sapling back, you know, with personal conversation. If they are fighting with their siblings, if they're interrupting, they're contradicting, if they're rolling their eyes, if, you know, there are various outward behaviors that show rebellion. But parents can't just let those things go, but they've got to deal with them personally and compassionally. But it's the process of bending that sapling back, because it will grow in the direction of its passions.

And I think the point you're making is very consistent with the language of discipline in the Bible. If you actually look at the words used in both the Old and the New Testament, what you find is a really broad term. So our minds, when we hear discipline, hyperlink to spanking, but that's actually not consistent with the biblical language about it. It's a broad term that includes physical discipline, but also includes instruction, correction, teaching, And so it's really the whole package out of which spanking or physical discipline is only one small slice of the pie. Now, I would actually like to make the point that the that more than 50 percent of true discipline is preventive discipline, not corrective discipline.

Corrective discipline, when the kids are very young, it's like every day you've got to say no or you've got to say, I mean, So I know some mothers would get angry with me if I say preventive discipline is more important in some ways than corrective or more common. But I do think that providing clear rules, for example, is a very important preventive discipline. So let's say you say, Johnny, you can't go to the store with me until your room is clean. Johnny goes up to his room. He has 20 things laying on the floor and maybe five things out of place.

And he picks up the five things that are in place, puts them away, says, my room is clean. Mom comes up and says, your room is not clean. You can't go with me until Johnny gets angry and starts crying. He doesn't realize that things in the floor need to be picked up. Now she says, Johnny, go to your room, pick up everything off the floor.

And there's several things around the room that are out of place. Put those away. I'll come up and check your room. You can go to the store. That's clear direction.

So that's one important way that can help you from having to implement a lot of corrective discipline. If you if you have more preventive discipline. And the other thing I want to mention is, is walking with integrity yourself, so that they see your walk of life actually is a means of preventive discipline because the kids get impressions from your godliness and loving part of that walk of life is loving your children and showing them love when they do obey. A lot of preventive discipline is affirming them when they do what is right and what is kind and what is loving. You know, you mentioned this thing about spanking, and you so did you.

Our minds can just default to spanking or the use of the rod, which maybe we can talk about that later. But I remember Jason, probably 25 years ago, there was an older couple in our church, and that older couple said something that really, well, it helped us, it defined a lot of what we did from that time on. And this older couple said that they only spanked for the three Ds. They didn't spank for everything, but they spanked for the three D's disobedience, dishonesty, and disrespect. Yeah.

And dishonor, disrespect. Those were the things that they spanked for. And they didn't want to be spanking their children all the time. But they focused on the things that were just very clear, sinful behaviors. So we kind of did that, right?

For 25 years we did that. It was great, unforgettable counsel. It's been so long since either one of us have seen them, but we both remember that. I mean, I quote that a lot to parents because it was so helpful to Janet and I as we were raising children. Let me introduce one proverb.

It's Proverbs 13, 24. He who spares his rod hates his son, but he who loves him disciplines him promptly. So the world has gotten hold of that and changed it to spare the rod, spoil the child, but actually, what the Bible says that they've changed is much more dire than that, spare the rod, hate the child. But actually, if you love him, you discipline him promptly. The Bible's so much wiser than the world.

It's more than just you'll spoil your child, make sure not to spoil your child. It is an expression of, discipline is an expression of love done in the right spirit. Yeah, it's interesting when the Puritans talk about, you know, physically disciplining their children, they always make this point that it's very important to do it to the appropriate degree, the degree of offense committed against the law of God. So should the discipline be administered. And they say, when you spank your, say your six year old for disobedience, you've got to remember two things.

On the one hand, you've got to remember that you too are a sinner. And that will keep you from being tempted to spank too hard. And the second thing you got to remember is that God has been merciful to you in all his discipline of you. He's never disciplined you or me once according to the actual degree that we deserve it Because we're just perpetual sinners. We deserve hell.

We deserve death. So God is merciful and you are a sinner yourself. And so when you spank, you don't spank your children mercilessly, but you spank according to a God-given purpose and in accord with a God-given or God sanctioned degree So I want to I want to throw out two scenarios kind of on two ends of the spectrum and the first is you know the the mom that has six little children and she thinks she's spanking all day long and she feels really bad about it. She doesn't know, she thinks it's right, she thinks, you know, she needs to deal with it and she's got kids that probably need it. And so you have that on the one end of the scale.

Just hold that there for a minute. And then you have the young man, he's 12, 13, 14, 15 years old, and he starts dishonoring his mother. And he's feeling his oats. He's so wise, he knows everything. So you have these sort of two hotbed problem areas.

So let's talk about the first one. How should that mother deal with discipline when she's got six little ones who are actually sinning? They're either disobedient or they're dishonest or they're dishonoring, you know, and they probably deserve a spanking. They're sinning in biblical ways. Yeah.

It might be true that she has six little ones in one way, but in another way, that's actually not perfectly accurate. She has stair steps. In other words, she has the oldest and then the next oldest and down, and they're probably two years apart. They're a year and a half to two years apart if you're considering them all little ones. Here's an observation that we learned in our home and have seen in other homes.

It's so important to win the victory through consistent, loving discipline with the first child. Because once you have that established with the first child, you actually have a word picture, you have a display of how good and sweet life can be if you just honor mom, honor dad, obey. They see, wait a minute, I'm in this endless cycle of disobedience and discipline, but I have an older sister here who actually has learned to discipline herself and it goes well with her. It's sweet for her. Yeah, that's a really good idea.

Another idea I think that can be helpful here that we learned at least and it took us a while to learn this but not every child responds to discipline in the same way so you know what it's like one child we had one child that I could spank almost as hard as I possibly could. And that child would say, doesn't hurt, doesn't hurt. Stubborn will, right? Another child, if I just touch, just a little tap, oh, be wailing and weeping, and it would be so overwhelmed. And so what you need to do to avoid the problem of spanking all the time is you need to you need to look at the individual personalities of your children and say, according to the offense committed, what is the appropriate degree of discipline?

And then what is the appropriate discipline to use? So one child worked very well for us to quietly take the child by the hand, walk the child into the child's bedroom, set the child there and say, you're going to stay here now and think about what you've done. And when you are ready to repent, you come out and see us. And usually within five to 10 minutes that child would come out very repentant, but it was painful to be alone in the room for that child. More painful than a spanking.

Another child we had, spanking worked really well, really well. After I spanked, I would pray with the child. By the way, always pray after you discipline with a child as much as you can. I would walk out the room, take in the child's hand, and there was closure. The spanking worked.

So, you know, part of the reason God gives us children that are so different from each other, I'm convinced, is to make us entirely dependent on him for grace to raise each one because they're not all from the same cookie cutter. They have all different personalities. We need to discipline them in some measure according to their own personality. Amen. So let's shift to this other end of the spectrum.

You have this, you know, teenage boy who's feeling his oats and dishonoring his mother. How do you, How would you counsel parents to deal with a situation like that? So I could say in the dome home Dishonoring mom is a nuclear event It's it's a it's a cardinal sin that must never be committed and I always sort of acted on that principle. So my 12, 13-year-old, 14-year-old son knew that long before he turned 12, 13, and 14. And I think that's important for fathers to make Not the unpardonable sin, but a really serious sin, dishonoring of mom.

In a sense, worse than dishonoring me. I think my reactions against dishonoring of Janet were worse than dishonoring of me because it was so important she was spending the hours with them. It was so important that that she had their honor. I agree 100% with what you just said, Jason. And this is a no-go.

No-go area. But my kids, you know, if they dishonored their mother, they were in big trouble. And of course you're not, at least that's what I feel anyway, you're not spanking your child at 12 anymore. But you're again using means, maybe it means that child, that child just feels a lot of pain. If he's grounded for two nights or grounded for a week, I would ground that child for a week for dishonoring the mother and actually ask that child to write a letter to its mother, repenting of the sin, asking for forgiveness.

You take that hugely, hugely seriously. But it's, you know, it's interesting that dishonor is in that list of three things. And dishonor is something God abhors. All improper dishonoring, God despises. So this is a serious, serious moral offense.

Yeah, amen. Let me introduce another proverb. This one is Proverbs 22, 15. Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child. The rod of correction will drive it far from him.

So a couple of things here. It's wrong to translate foolishness as silliness. It's not silliness. It really has to do with moral deficiency. So moral deficiency is bound up in the heart of every child that comes into planet Earth.

It's a corrupt, twisted nature that we've gotten from our forefathers going back to Adam. Every child who comes into the world has that, and it expresses itself in different ways, but it's a reality in every child. And the rod of correction is a way to confront that and to stop the advance of that. If you don't do that, you're actually imperiling your child's future. This nature that we're born with isn't good and needs to be confronted, and we've been talking about changing the direction of the sapling.

That's exactly what we're talking about here. Amen. Well, God gives many, many directions for how to change the direction, His moral commands. I think all the one and others in the Bible, parents should teach their children to operate by. And there's just so much that parents have to teach.

It's such a precious thing to have a child in your home, an eternal soul, and the opportunity to bend the sapling in the direction of heaven is the greatest honor, the greatest responsibility a human being can have. Yeah. So brothers, thank you so much for joining us. Can I just get a final word in here? Oh, You guys are terrible.

Yes, you may. No, if you give it to Jill, you have to give one to me too. I gave one to you last time. I know another one. This is a new session.

Okay, here we go. You get one. Go ahead. In my book, A Parenting by God's Promises, I have a chapter here on corrective discipline and I simply say this, this is just bullet points. You administer punishment always in God's name, in God's place.

You always must administer it in love. Don't ever lose self-control yourself even when your tone is earnest. You administer it with prayer. You're always at the end of the discipline. You pray for peace, for repentance, and so on.

You administer it with faith, believing that as you follow God's word, he will honor it. You administer it encouraging repentance by your tone of voice and even asking the child to pray for forgiveness in your presence. You administer it as a means of training and nurturing for long-term growth. You administer it with teaching, teaching them what is the proper way, always showing them how they should have responded, role play it, and you administer it. I talked about that already to an appropriate degree.

You administer punishment with consistency. Don't make sure you don't favor one child over another. And you administer it looking for blessing upon it and pray on your own as well as with your child that God would bless your feeble efforts. Fantastic, that's great. What a great summary.

In 2013 there was a History of America conference, and I want to quote Paul Jaylee, who's a historian and a scholar. He said this, the Pilgrim Church was a holy commonwealth. They trained their children by voice obedience in a soft voice on the first command. Parents were put in stocks if a child disobeyed in public." So two quick comments on that. The first is, if you did that today, you would have to mass produce stocks.

And the second is this, this is really possible, and It really is possible to parent by voice obedience in a soft voice on the first command if you take the Proverbs seriously and parent consistently and God blesses your efforts. So it's a really good target. Voice command, soft voice, first command. Love it. That's great.

That's great. Well, thank you for joining us on the Church and Family Life Podcast. And thank you, Joel. Really appreciate your time. I wish we had another couple hours to do this because we would take it.

But I hope it's been an encouragement. I hope it's maybe been a reminder to you to bring your children up in the sweetest ways that can be brought up and that is in the ways of the Lord. I hope you can join us next time at the Church and Family Life podcast. Thanks for listening to the Church and Family Life podcast. We have thousands of resources on our website, announcements of conferences coming up.

Hope you can join us. Go to churchandfamilylife.com. See you next Monday for our next broadcast of the Church and Family Life podcast.