Tuesday, November 14

READ: Proverbs 3:1-12

¹¹ Do not despise the Lord’s instruction, my son,
and do not loathe his discipline;
¹² for the Lord disciplines the one he loves,
just as a father disciplines the son in whom he delights.
Proverbs 3:11–12 (CSB)

I am wholeheartedly against corporal punishment. I know I’m going to ruffle a few feathers saying this but I think parents who spank their kids at best lack a certain creativity. At worst, they are looking for a quick fix for challenging behaviour.

To be certain, I was spanked as a kid. I don’t fault my parents either – if ever there was a case to be made for spanking, I was it. (Who burns Q-tips in their room, and then lies about it when their dad comes in and can practically see the smoke hanging in the air?)

Lots of kids in my generation were spanked, more in the generation above, I suspect. Whenever I suggest that parents should use other methods of behaviour modification with their kids someone will invariably say, “Well I was spanked as a kid and I turned out just fine.”

Maybe.

But what if you could have turned out better?

Look, the whole issue is that we have a whacky way of reading scripture. For example, that whole idea of spanking being “biblical” is based on Proverbs 13:24 which says, The one who will not use the rod hates his son, but the one who loves him disciplines him diligently. (I’ll probably launch into another tirade when we get to chapter 13.)

But we don’t believe this anyway. Common sense tells us that striking a child with a rod isn’t love and therefore isn’t discipline. I mean, Deuteronomy 21:18 takes it a step further and permits parents to stone their child if the discipline doesn’t work.

(Get a bigger rod next time?)

Who knows. Maybe Solomon really did think a beating would go a long way to help a kid out, and maybe he extrapolated that God likes to beat His kids as a gift, but I don’t think that was the spirit of the law.

No, discipline doesn’t mean “beating into shape” it simply means “training.”

Read that way, Proverbs 3:11-12 sounds like this,

¹¹ Do not despise the Lord’s instruction, my son,
and do not loathe his training regimen;
¹² for the Lord trains the one he loves,
just as a father trains the son in whom he delights.

Well that doesn’t sound quite as bad, does it?

Now, to be sure, a lot of training sucks. I know, I ran 12 kilometres once. When I trained to be a lifeguard I had to tread water, fully clothed, for 20 minutes while a group of my fellow trainees and I passed a 20-pound brick around the circle. 43-year-old me will pass, thank you very much.

When I trained as an artist my art teacher, Gail Kehler, had me do a water-colour chart that literally made me want to vomit just to ruin the paper and hopefully save me the tediousness of the exercise.

Of course, training has elements of pain. But Gail wasn’t whacking my hands with a paint palette to motivate me and then telling me to smile while I learned my lesson.

So while the training might be tedious, self-sacrificial, physically taxing, or something that takes a lot of time and effort, God isn’t just looking to hurt us on our way to holiness.

Also, we don’t need to spiritualize the pain in our life by saying, “Well God disciplines the ones He loves.”

Gross. That’s not the God I know. He just wants us to be better and will show us the way to get there.