One thing that turned me
away from spanking and punitive parenting was the realization
that nowhere in the New Testament are we told to treat our
children differently than we would any other Christian or
non-Christian. While parents are obviously in a position of
authority over our children, no where are we told to use unusual
methods in exercising this parental authority. The two main
"parenting verses" in the New Testament are Ephesians
6:4 and Colossians 3:21. Both of them are in a list of other
relationships, with no indication that there's a fundamental
change in the relationship between parents and children and that
between parents and anyone else.
For instance, Colossians 3:12-17 gives us a whole list of
characteristics that' should be true of the Christian; things
like "tender mercies" and forgiving and letting the
peace of God rule your heart and "bearing with one
another." Few Christians would argue that these verses
endorse the idea of Christians striking one another in discipline
- except when it comes to children. How is striking a disobedient
child "bearing with" him? It seems clear to me that we
must challenge our children with scripture when they go wrong and
direct them toward the right, but I can see no justification for
forcing them to obey. any more than we would force an elderly
Alzheimer's patient to obey. We may have to remove our children
from certain situations or prevent them from doing something
harmful, but that is a far cry from forcing them to act as we
wish through spankings.
In Ezzo's essay, "Today's Child, Tomorrow's Man" he
scoffs at parents who "cry grace, grace, give me more
grace" and complains that "We so seldom hear today,
righteousness, righteousness, help me make them more
righteous." Perhaps we seldom hear that because the New
Testament gives no indication that parents have the ability to
"make" their children more righteous through the
methods Ezzo advises in his books. On the contrary, the Bible
teaches that true righteousness is a gift of God, and not
something we can "make" our children do (Rom. 5:17;
Phil. 1:11, 3:9; 1 John 2:29; etc.). Ezzo argues that Christian
parents fail because "The child is trained to the letter of
the law and not the principles of the law" and that the
solution is to teach "the ethics of Christ" so the
children understand the laws they must obey. But it is not
through teaching "the ethics of Christ" that we bring
our children to Christ - it is through faith, and "Faith
comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God." (Romans
10:17)
As 2 Timothy 3:15-17 says: "And that from a child thou hast
known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto
salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All scripture
is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine,
for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:
That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all
good works." Paul does not praise Timothy's upbringing
because those raising Timothy made frequent use of the rod or
otherwise insisted he obey the law - Paul rejoices that Timothy
knows the scriptures. Speaking as a former spanker, in the long
run it is far, far more effective to teach our children the
scriptures and to let God work on their hearts than it is to use
the rod to try to force their little bodies into submission.
1 Timothy 2:4&5 tell us that a Christian leader should be
"one who rules his own house well, having his children in
submission with all reverence, (for if a man does not know how to
rule his own house, how will he take care of the church of
God?)." But if the Christian "rules his own house"
by striking the children, and he is not allowed to strike his
fellow Christians, then the "witness" of his
well-behaved children is false. Why would God tell us to look to
how a father treats his children to see how he will lead within
the church if God intended Fathers to use a completely different
system of discipline with their children than they would with
church members? To me, this passage clearly implies that we
should treat our children as we would treat another Christian we
were in authority over.
For some time it was argued that a husband should beat his wife
to keep her in line, and there were Bible passages used in
support of this. But numerous authors now point out that there is
nothing in the Bible telling husbands to force their wives to
obey - on the contrary, the wife is directly told to submit. The
word translated "submission" in 1 Timothy 3:4 in
regards to the children's relationship to their parents is the
same word Paul uses in Galatians 2:5, where he says he would
*not* submit. There's no reason to assume that Paul feels the
father should *force* submission in 1 Timothy 3:4 when elsewhere
he uses the same word to discuss something he refused to do.
I feel that a lot of Christians have created this weird break in
their mind where they've put children under the "law"
while adults are under grace. Of course some Christians have
everyone under the law, and think nothing of arguing in favor of
beating and bullying adults. But most of the punitive parents
I've known are very gracious and show other adults (and even the
children of other parents) considerable grace - but when it comes
to their own children, it's law. It's really strange. Jeff
VanVonderen's "Tired of Trying to Measure Up" has a
list of "unspoken rules" common to families that aren't
grace-based, and reading that really got me to thinking about how
a lot of Christians treat children profoundly differently than
they would an adult, and not in a good way.
I have not run across many discussions of Grace Based Discipline
(or what I would call New Testament parenting), but I have seen
many debates on Ezzo and on spanking, and going on those
experiences I suspect the main reason GBD is condemned within
Christendom is that it argues against the idea that parents have
a responsibility to force their children into submission. I do
not think most people would admit how strongly they feel the
parents must rule over the kids - the days when Christian authors
cheerfully speak of "breaking a child's will" are
pretty much gone - but that's the impression I get. I also think
for a lot of people their knowledge of Grace Based Discipline is
more assumed than real - they don't know much about what GBD
really is, and are rejecting a straw man they've been told is
GBD. A child who is undisciplined is not being parented with GBD.
by Sheryl Tribble