There are three biblically anchored methods of good parenting. They are love, communication and discipline. We named some unbiblical and ineffective methods of parenting. Biblical principles of parenting are the ones that we should seek to know and follow. There are no absolutes or guarantees in marriage or parenting. But, if we do not follow biblical principles in these areas, we are sure to fail. Sometimes our children mature and turn out all right despite our poor efforts at raising them.

The world of ideas is continually in a state of flux and change. One decade this method is being promoted as the right thing to do. Another decade, it is something else. Back in the 50s when I was being raised, communication was not being promoted as it is today. Communication is the cure-all today. It is the buss-word, the "in-thing" to do. Fathers did not talk a lot back in the 50s and 60s. They spanked first and asked what you did later! Today, we talk our children to death and never spank them. We need some solid principles from Scripture to follow that never change. We should not be guided by non-Christian thinking about marriage and the family.

"If you focus exclusively on either the rod or communication, you will be like a ship with all the cargo loaded on one side. You won’t sail very well. Communication and the rod are not stand-alone methods. They are designed to work together. . . Some parents have a greater facility for either communication or the rod. The person who is comfortable with the rod can fall into the distortion of being authoritarian. A parent for whom communication is natural and easy may tend toward permissiveness. Authoritarian parents tend to lack kindness. Permissive parents tend to lack firmness. Strive toward greater balance. In all things, practice love."

One of the major reasons for the conflict between the world’s concepts of marriage and parenting is over the nature of man. The liberal concepts of education and life are based upon false assumptions about man. The educators who are now guiding public thinking believe that discipline will harm the child. He should be left alone to develop his own personality and life. Man is basically "a pretty good ole chap." There is no such thing as sin. The well-known lawyer, Clarence Darrow, from the famed Scopes Trial, 1925, Dayton, TN, believed that all prisoners should be released from their prisons and allowed to go home. He said that they were not responsible for what they had done. Humans are improving as they evolve, but we still have some quirks and rough places that need smoothed out. Darrow said that man should not be punished for wrongdoing, no more so than an automobile that breaks down. You just fix the problem and go on. There is a concentrated effort now in Virginia to remove the death penalty. It is not based upon a greater compassion for people than those who favor it are. It is based upon a false view of man.

Children, according to Scripture, are not born morally and ethically neutral. They are not born "innocent." They are born with an inclination for sin. If you do nothing to a field, weeds will grow there. A good crop of corn, cotton or beans will not grow on their own. Useless things will take over the property. Just so with a child. Left alone, serious problems will take over the child’s heart.

"The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it." (Jer. 17:9.) "O, Lord, I know that the way of man is not in himself. It is not in man that walks to direct his pathway. O Lord, correct me, but with judgement, not in thine anger lest thou bring me to nothing." (Jer. 10:23-24.) "Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old, he will not depart from it." (Prov. 22:6.) A few verses later: "Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod will drive it far from him." (22:15.)

There has always been a strong debate over the state of infants spiritually. Are children born in sin and in a state of innocence? That is different from a discussion of their nature. We should not confuse the two. In the Cayman Islands, a family and I were discussing the nature of little children. This family had three boys and three girls of various ages. One was a young girl of three or four years of age. I remarked that such young children were not responsible yet morally and spiritually for their behavior and were not counted as sinners before God. The older sister replied to me, If you think that my little sister does not sin, then you just do not know her!

The nature of man is toward selfishness and gratification of the flesh now. It is oriented toward self and the physical. We must learn self-denial and service to others. That does not come naturally. Foolishness in the Bible, especially in Proverbs, is used to describe the person who has no fear of God. The fool is one who will not heed reproof. He will not submit to the authority of God or parents. The fool’s life is run by his desires and wants. He is self-centered and immature. The fool wants to live out of the immediacy of his lusts, cravings, expectations, hopes and fears. That is the biblical fool in contrast to the wise person who fears God, submits to authority, and dies to selfish and worldly desires.

This is what a child is prone to or inclined to do. Foolishness is bound up in the heart of every child. Do not be misled by the sweet baby smile and those cute cheeks. Beneath that ruffled hair and bright shining eyes is trouble if left alone without proper training.

"The rod and reproof give wisdom, but a child left to himself brings his mother to shame." (Prov. 29:15.)

Foolishness is removed by its use. The rod functions in the context of the condition of man’s heart. Foolishness exists there and must be removed. In our discussion of the multi-faceted nature of communication, we noted that there are many forms of communication. It includes teaching, entreaty, encouragement, correction and rebuke. What happens when you have done all the above forms of communication---encouraged, warned, taught, corrected and rebuked---and the child rejects your warnings and correction? What is the next step after rebuke? If the child persists to challenge the authority of the parents, should we just give up the fight and let them go their way? Surely not. Parents must bring the child under control and obedience to the authority of God (which includes the authority God gave parents). The natural step that follows rebuke is discipline, the use of the rod. Nothing else will do. Mere talk will not remove foolishness from the heart of a child. Nothing else will bring a child into submission.

It imparts wisdom. "The rod and reproof give wisdom." (Prov. 29:15.) Wisdom is the positive side; foolishness is the negative condition. The rod removes foolishness (as defined above) and gives wisdom. Wisdom in Scripture refers to the condition of one who fears God, who accepts his authority, and who has learned the good of a disciplined life.

The rod rescues a child. The rod functions as a vital part of a rescue mission. Every child needs to be saved from destruction---self-destruction, being devoured by the world, and being lost eternally. Many children grow up and cause much harm to their families, society and to themselves. I am convinced that there is nothing more dangerous than a person out of control. A run-away train is a dangerous thing. It can cause injury, death and the destruction of much property. A plane out of control of pilots can kill everyone on board. But even as dangerous and harmful as trains, planes and cars out of control are, they cannot begin to match the harm caused by one person living out of control.

Solomon wrote that "one sinner destroys much good." (Eccl. 9:18.) Look at the harm that a Castro has done to several generations of people who have lived under his control. Think of the devastation of the cruel tyranny of Joseph Stalin who killed 18 million of his own people. The religious leader and fanatic, Jim Jones, destroyed the lives of many people leading them to their own deaths by drinking cool-aid laced with cyanide poison. As the Hebrew writer noted, Time will not allow me to tell you about Nero, Domitian, Diocletian, Hitler, Osama ben Laden, Sadam Hussein, Jim Jones, Slobodan Milosevic and others. We will never hear the names of millions of others who have lived lives out of control. They are wife-beaters, child molesters, robbers, murderers, and liars. They harm society and the lives of many around them. God will judge them. An eternity of punishment awaits all who rebel against God. This is where the rod serves well. It drives away foolishness, gives wisdom, and rescues a child from destruction (even if it is not as dramatic as those named above).

It gives life and produces peaceable fruits of righteousness. "Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence; shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits and live? For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure, but he for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness. Now no chastening for the present seems to be joyous, but grievous. Nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby." (Hebrews 12:9-11.) For the moment the exercise of discipline is not pleasant, but afterwards it produces good fruit.

I love my children too much. We noted in our study of love that this is a false concept of love. Who benefits from not spanking children? The parent or the child? It does not profit the child. For the moment, it profits the parent by relieving the grievousness of disciplining children. This argument could also be applied to giving children vaccines. I love my children too much to make them take vaccines. I love my children too much to sign for them to have surgery. That is not love.

I want my children to love me. Many parents are afraid that their children will not love them. Parents are too concerned about being pals with their children than they are gaining their respect. It is better to be respected than to enjoy a child’s approval. Rather than discipline yielding angry, sullen children, it yields children who are at peace with you. It produces happy children in whom you delight. If children corrected early in life, their wills brought under control, physical discipline will not be necessary often or for long. Gain control of children early.

It does not work. First, we should note that the Bible teaches the use of the rod whether we think it works or not. God thinks that it does. What does not work is the way in which it is often done. There should be a consistent pattern that the children know will happen. The rod should not be used in anger to satisfy the parents. The child should not be physically harmed, hurt or abused. A parent should not strike a child with a fist. Correctly done, discipline works.

I turned out okay. Some argue that their parents did not spank them and they turned out okay. That is possible if other methods less than spanking were exercised. Some children are more compliant and obedient than others. Some children test all the rules and press the boundaries imposed by parents. But, as a parent, if you refuse to follow God’s will concerning chastening your children, it is questionable whether you turned out okay!

A mother who raised seventeen vigorous and healthy children wrote the following. Sussannah Wesley lived in the eighteenth century and was the mother of John and Charles Wesley, well-known evangelist and song- writer. Near the end of her life, John Wesley asked her to express in writing her philosophy of parenting to him. She wrote:

"In order to form the minds of children, the first thing to be done is to conquer the will, and bring them into an obedient temper. To inform the understanding is a work of time and must with children proceed by slow degrees as they are able to bear it; but the subjecting of the will is a thing which must be done at once, and the sooner the better!

"For by neglecting timely correction, they will contract a stubborness and obstinacy which is hardly ever after conquered, and never without using such severity as would be painful to me as to the children. In the esteem of the world, those who withhold timely correction would pass for kind and indulgent parents, whom I call cruel parents, who permit their children to get habits which they know must afterward be broken. Nay, some are so stupidly fond as in sport to teach their children to do things which in the after while, they must severely beat them for doing.

"Whenever a child is corrected, it must be conquered; and this will be no hard matter to do, if it be not grown headstrong by too much indulgence. And, if the will of the child is totally subdued, and if it be brought to revere and stand in awe of the parents, then a great many childish follies and inadvertencies may be passed by. Some should be overlooked and taken no notice of, and others mildly reproved. But no willful transgressions ought ever to be forgiven children, without chastisement, more or less as the nature and circumstances of the offense shall require.

"I cannot dismiss the subject. As self-will is the root of all sin and misery, so whatever cherishes this in children insures their after wretchedness and faithlessness. Whatever checks and mortifies, promotes their future happiness and piety. This is still more evident if we further consider that Christianity is nothing less than doing the will of God, and not our own; that the one grand impediment to our temporal and eternal happiness being this self-will. No indulgence of it can be trivial, no denial unprofitable." (Parenting Isn’t For Cowards, James Dobson, 89-90.)