Discipline is not punishment.
Contrary to what traditional parenting and many people believe the Bible says, discipline and punishment are not the same. Why not?
In the Bible, discipline does not mean punishment
When you hear someone say “discipline,” what comes to mind? Is it rigorous training, such as for a sport? Exercising self-control? Or punishing a child?
Google’s definition is, “the practice of training people to obey rules or a code of behavior, using punishment to correct disobedience.”
Miriam Webster’s dictionary says discipline is,
control gained by enforcing obedience or order
orderly or prescribed conduct or pattern of behavior
to train or develop by instruction and exercise especially in self-control
to punish or penalize for the sake of enforcing obedience and perfecting moral character
training that corrects, molds, or perfects the mental faculties or moral character
In the English language, discipline has several meanings
Like many English words, discipline can have several meanings. Context often tells us what type of discipline we’re talking about. Yet, when it comes to understanding the discipline of children in the Bible, we can become confused or get it wrong. Most of the time, discipline is understood as physical punishment. But that is rarely the case and never the case with young children. What do I mean?
Take for example Proverbs 13:24, “He who spares his rod hates his son, but he who loves him disciplines him promptly” (NKJV). The common understanding of that verse is that if parents love their kids, they must not withhold using a stick, belt, whip, or other instruments to discipline or punish their child. For centuries, that’s been a prooftext to support the cultural practice of beating children.
Understanding discipline as something punitive is common and very popular with traditional parenting.
In the Old Testament, discipline means something other than punish
But there’s a problem. In the ancient Hebrew of Proverbs, discipline means to instruct, correct, chastise, or rebuke. It does not mean punish or beat. I know, there’s that other word rod that is supposed to prove those verses is talking about punishing young children with a beating. Since I’ve written much about the son and rod in Proverbs here and here, we won’t chase that rabbit here. You can read why Proverbs is not for parenting here and why it is not a how-to book for parents nor a parenting manual. Right now, we’re talking about what discipline means in the Bible and how it applies to children.
Take a journey through languages to see how we got here
To get there, let’s take a journey through several languages that informed our current definitions. Going back a bit further, around the late 300s when the Hebrew Old Testament and Greek New Testament were translated into the Latin of the Roman Empire, they used disciplina for words that meant to teach or instruct. A few centuries later the good term took on the idea of punishment.
Our English word is derived from the Old Middle English (1150-1500) word descepline that was introduced into the English around 1066 by the Normans (French). They got their word desceplinefrom the ancient Latin of Rome. The Latin root discere (to learn) is the basis for the Latin disciplina(to teach, train, or instruct) or discipulus (student learner). Between 500 and 1000 AD, disciplina morphed into the military expression for harsh mental and physical training. So, by then we have discipline-instruct and discipline-punish.
The Old Testament word translated as discipline
In the Old Testament, there is a Hebrew word mûsâr, which is often translated discipline. Depending on the Old Testament context, the Hebrew could and rarely does mean physical chastisement but it more often conveys the idea of correction, instruction, or reproof. To translate that word as discipline-instruction is correct. Yet the problem is many of us read discipline and think punishment. That’s what we do with verses such as Proverbs 13:24 and naturally assume the proverb is telling parents to punish their child using some stick. And punishing a child with some instrument like a rod means to spank and therefore parents are commanded by God to physically punish kids. That’s what tradition says but not the Bible.
It would be fine if that is what the original language meant or if the Bible taught parents to spank. But it doesn’t. For further study on this, see Samuel Martin’s Thy Rod and Thy Staff, They Comfort Me and William J. Webb’s Corporal Punishment in the Bible.
The problem with English translations of the ancient Koine Greek
We see the same challenge with English translations of the Greek New Testament. For example, 1 Corinthians 9:27 says, “But I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified” (NKJV). Discipline here is hypōpiazō. The root for that word means “to hit under the eye” or pummel. Depending on the context, it conveys the sense of subduing, to keep under, or wear out.
It could also mean to hit like a boxer, to cause bruises, or to beat. As a metaphor, it could express wearing someone out by constant appeal or to be rough with someone. Interpreting that Greek word as discipline isn’t inaccurate since that is the common idea we have of discipline today. However, it becomes a problem when we go to Hebrews 12 and read discipline as physical punishment. That’s how some translations have it. The word in Hebrews 12 is paideia (a tutor who instructs and corrects).
Granted, Hebrews 12:6 says, “For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives” (ESV). Here, chastise conveys a beating. Depending on the context, it could be literal or figurative. The context associates the trials endured by believers in Christ with harsh beatings. However, as Samuel Martin points out in Thy Rod and Thy Staff, They Comfort Me (book 2), to make the reference of God scourging his children a proof text for beating your own children is a stretch. It misses the point of Hebrews 12.
Two things to take away from this
The point of my post is two-fold. First, we need to understand that translators use our English word discipline for various original words in the Old Testament and New Testament. Yet those words could mean instruction (like they do in Proverbs) or sometimes punishment (like some versions have it in Leviticus, Deuteronomy, and other books).
What does punish mean?
Second, we must not assume the English word discipline in the Bible always or mostly means to punish. Why? To punish in the Old Testament is a matter of justice that was imposed by God or someone authorized by him on an offender for them to pay a fine or penalty for any capital offense. Sometimes, that particular Hebrew term is translated into English as chastisement, confiscation, retaliation, or vengeance.
On occasion, English translators use punish for discipline. However, keep in mind that discipline-punishment in the Old Testament never applies to training young children. And in the New Testament, while discipline is used in Ephesians 6:4 and some interpret it as physical chastisement, the term discipline-punish is nowhere else associated with young children!
So, be careful when you come across discipline in the Bible. The majority of the time it means to train, educate, disciple, and rarely ever connotes physical punishment. What’s more, to repeat myself, nowhere in the Bible is there a call to punish children. Not even in Proverbs.
