Discipline vs punishment vs education (godly parenting)

Discipline has got a bad press.  It has become synonymous with punishment and punishment has become synonymous with abuse which society condemns.  It is no surprise that society has swung to the opposite end of the spectrum and is overly permissive, giving their children whatever they want thinking this is loving.  Christians have rightly seen the error of permissiveness but often just counter this by talking about discipline in terms of "firm but fair" punishments.

But no matter how fair the punishment is it's still missing the point as it assumes that discipline is about punishment!

Discipline comes from the Latin word discipulus which meant pupil, from which we got discipina which meant instruction and then the word disciple - a follower, a learner:

In fact it wasn't until the thirteenth century that the word became associated with punishment and it was due to a perverted understanding of being a disciple - that the body was bad and so must be punished by scourging.

Principally parents are called to disciple their children in the same way that Jesus discipled the twelve and Paul discipled Timothy and others in the churches he established.

However, once we get this idea the next mistake we make is to confuse discipling primarily with instruction and knowledge.  That if we tell our children what to do, if we give them the right information then they will make the right choices*.  After all the “expert” in the world's eyes is the one who has studied and got a PhD.

This idea is not Biblical it's Greek.  It comes from Plato's dualistic worldview that said the spiritual realm (which included the mind) was good, but the physical realm (which included the body) was bad.  This was one of the reasons why discipline ended up as self-flagellation because the 'bad' flesh had to be punished!

The Biblical/Hebraic worldview is holistic.  If you want to teach someone you show it.  Jesus didn't just give the disciples teaching and knowledge.  The disciples lived with him they saw, for example, how he healed and then Jesus sent them out to do the same.

This is why repeatedly Christ said “follow me” not “listen to me”.

This is why we as parents should not be saying “do what I tell you” or “do as I say (not what I do)”
but like Paul we should be saying “imitate me as I imitate Christ” (1 Cor 11:1 NKJV) and
“for in Christ Jesus I became your father through the gospel.  Therefore I urge you to imitate me” (1 Cor 4:15b-16).

During a prayer time when I was despairing about one of my children I felt God say “be the change you want to see”.  So like Jesus and like Paul I need to live my life openly in front of my children.  I need to model the life that I want them to emulate because God has designed us for discipleship - for copying others.

For example, I want them to learn how to depend on God so I need to show them my dependency on God.  This is why I don't use a satnav even though I am hopeless at directions.  It puts me in a position where the children see me calling out to God for help in finding the way.  It puts me in the place where I need others to help with map reading.  It puts in a place where I'm on the edge and have to depend on the Spirit to not get frustrated and call for help and if I mess up then my children will see me apologise to whomever is helping. A comfortable life will never come close to modelling this.


* How many times have parents read "Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it." (Prov 22:6) and thought this is principally about teaching them the bible and sending them to Sunday school.

Repetition is important (teach your children godly sexuality)

So here I am, I've given workshops to parents about how to teach godly sexuality to their children.  I live these principles in my own life.  I don't shy away from talking about sex and regularly have God-focussed conversations with my children about how our sexuality is good and holy.

It's all too easy after you've had one conversation with your children about sex to pat yourself on the back and congratulate yourself on a job well done.  But just because you had "the talk" doesn't mean they actually understood what you said.



This was brought home to me when one the mother of a friend of my youngest son said he had told her son that babies were made by the man peeing in the woman's china.

I was mortified.  I was also humbled and repented of my self-satisfaction.  I learnt an important lesson that day:

Repetition is important, repetition is important and did I mention repetition is important.

I mentioned in a previous post about how talking about sexuality with our children should be "the talks" and not "the talk".  Well this is another reason why. 

It's just like discipleship - understanding is something that happens gradually over a period of time it's never a one-time brain dump. 

Father may we never tire of sowing into our children's lives until they grow into a mature knowledge of you, your creation and your nature.

Calling out your child's true identity (godly parenting)

In a previous post on godly parenting we briefly mentioned prophetic calling out of our children.  I want to look at this topic in a little more detail here.

The classic example of this is the story of Gideon.  When the angel of the LORD appears to Gideon he speaks out his identity:

"The Lord is with you, mighty warrior" (Judg 6:12)

But hold on a second!  Where is Gideon when the angel of the LORD speaks to him?  He's hiding from the Midianites by threshing wheat in a winepress!  The angel calls him a mighty warrior when he is anything but.  Then the angel of the LORD (=Jesus) commands him to rescue His people but Gideon makes excuses:

"How can I save Israel?  My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my family." (Judg 6:15)

We can see that Gideon sees himself as small, weak, insignificant and doesn't see what God sees at all.  So God promises to be with him, but he needs a sign and brings an offering which is burnt up.

So Gideon now knows God, the creator of the universe, is with him and so everything's going to be OK, right? Wrong!  His first task: tear down his father's altar to Baal and Asherah pole

"But because he was afraid of his family and the men of the town, he did it at night rather than in the daytime" (Judg 6:27)

So still scared.  Next task: raise an army.  But this is where he asks for two more signs with the fleece (Judg 6:36-40).  OK, so personal visitation by Jesus and three signs.  Surely he's not scared now!  Wrong!  And God knows this which is why he says:

"If you are afraid to attack, go down to the camp with you servant Purah and listen to what they are saying.  Afterwards you will be encouraged to attack the camp" (Judg 7:10-11a)

He does and hears one of the Midianites speaking of a nightmare and the other explaining that it was about the sword of Gideon...God has given the Midiantes and the whole camp into his hands" (Judg 7:13-14).  Only then does Gideon step into his destiny that God knew all along: the mighty warrior.  He routs the Midianites and slaughters them in an act that is recorded forever.

God saw who Gideon truly was and spoke it over him - he affirmed and called out who he was going to be rather than who he currently was.  This is the Spirit of prophecy - calling forth things which are not yet to become true.

Prophetic calling out is not merely encouragement nor the power of positive thinking but speaking the truth of their identity. 

I've had well meaning Christians who confuse prophecy with encouragement and thinking by saying something encouraging and adding "God says" on the beginning will make it more than that.  For example, my wife has a degenerative condition that means she is becoming more and more disabled both physically and mentally.  A Christian brother gave me a word that "God says you're going to have the best Christmas ever."  It wasn't - it was one of the hardest ones as my wife's pain level was so high that she couldn't celebrate much and my stress level was high trying to care for her and organise Christmas.  This word left a bitter taste.  Why would God say something like that which wasn't true?  

Prophetic calling out is speaking the truth of our child's identity.  Since Jesus is the truth (Jn 14:6) and the Spirit of prophecy bears testimony to Jesus (Rev 19:10) - ie it speaks truth.  So prophecy will speak of the truth of our children's identity - it will require us as parents to get on our knees and ask for God to open our eyes to the truth about our children.

Just like when the army of Aram surrounded the city where Elisha was and his servant panicked.  Elisha prayed that his servant's eyes would be opened to the truth - and then he saw the army of God encamped around and outnumbering the enemy (1 Kings 6:17).  Once they saw this truth then how he approached the situation changed as they knew that victory would be theirs.

Once Jesus reveals our children's true identities we can then affirm and call out who they will become in Christ and keep our eyes on the prize, the author and perfecter of our faith (Heb 12:2) who will finish the good work he starts in our children (Phil 1:6).

An example is my eldest son Josiah William.  My wife and I prayed over the nine months about the right name: Josiah means "YHWH is my healer" and William means "protector".  Given that my wife and I were infertile and despite treatments had no children until the church prayed for us, Josiah was the right name for our second child.  But whilst we saw a glimpse of truth, God opened our eyes to even more.  God became our healer through Josiah in two other ways: The hospital was clinically negligent with the delivery of our first child and the trauma of that was still fresh in my wife's mind.  But God brought healing of that trauma through the fact that Josiah slept almost solidly for a week.  There was no crying, just a baby that you could put down in any position and have him sleep.  The second way was that God brought healing to our marriage through Josiah.  As I mentioned in a previous post my wife had clinical postnatal depression and was put in a psychiatric ward and I had a nervous breakdown.  Our marriage never really recovered and we were sleeping in separate beds for some time before my wife packed the car and our little girl and drove to the office to tell me she was leaving me.  I so grateful to God that He helped me make one of the best choices of my marriage - I said I would do what it takes to fix this - I would even go on a marriage course.  And we did and it was the beginning of the turnaround in our lives.  And Josiah's conception was week 5's homework.

God gave us a glimpse of who Josiah's identity was - it was natural that we would sow into this and call out the healer and protector that God had made him to be.  One day I found myself saying "You know Josiah, God has made your someone who will protect other people's lives - and I believe that one day you will save your brother's life".  And it came to pass that he did when he pulled his brother out of the way of a car that was going to hit him.  God through Jesus revealed the truth about Josiah and I have the privilege to speak that truth and see the Spirit make it reality.

This is so much easier said than done as it's all too easy to limit our view to the present actions of our children rather than the future man/woman that they will become.  That's why we need the Spirit to help us see who they truly are going to be in Christ.  God didn't lose patience with Gideon and say "For goodness sake!  How much more confirmation do you need that I am with you?"  Why?  Because He could see who Gideon was going to be and knew it would come about.

May the Father speak to you now as you think about your own children.  May He reveal their true identity to you and may you have the persistence to keep on blessing the Spirit's work in your children by calling out this identity no matter how outlandish it may seem.  In Jesus' precious name.  Amen.