When it comes to children, what is biblical discipline?

 by Dr. Donald T. Owsley

That word can be confusing

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.

Like many English words, discipline can have several meanings. Context tells us what type of discipline we’re talking about. Yet, when it comes to understanding the discipline of children in the Bible, it seems we are often confused or get it wrong. How so?

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 another instrument to discipline or punish their child. For centuries, that’s been a prooftext to support the cultural practice of beating children. Believing discipline as something punitive is common and very popular with traditional parenting. 

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’s supposed to prove the verse is talking about punishing young children with a beating. No. It doesn’t. Since I’ve written much about the son and rod in Proverbs at www.Relavate.org, we won’t chase that rabbit here. You can read why Proverbs is not mainly 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. 

To get there, let’s take a journey through several languages that informed our current definitions. 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 descepline from 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, then we have discipline-instruct and discipline-punish.

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. But a few centuries later the good term took on the idea of punishment.  

In the Old Testament, there is a Hebrew word mûsâr, which is often translated discipline. Depending on the Old Testament context, the Hebrew could 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 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.

It would be fine if that is what the original 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.

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 there is hypōpiazō (1 Cor. 9:27). The root for that word means “to hit under the eye” or pummel. Depending on the context, it conveys the sense of subdue, keep under, and 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 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 there as physical punishment as some translate it. But the word in this case is paideia (a tutor who instructs and chastens). 

The point of this is two-fold. First, we need to understand that translators use discipline for various original words in the Old Testament and New Testament. For example, words like teach, train, chastise, or punish are translated as discipline. 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 inflicted by God or someone authorized by him to pay a fine or penalty for a capital offense.  Sometimes, that Hebrew term is rendered in English as chastisement, confiscation, retaliation, or vengeance. On occasion, English translators use punish for discipline. 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 children! What’s more, nowhere in the Bible is there a call to punish children.

So, What is Biblical discipline?

When we look at the big picture in the Bible, discipline carries a rich, fully orbed, multi-dimensional idea with very little punitive connotations. In the Old Testament, the way God disciplines his “child” Israel, is by training through his words. It is about coaching through his Word that involves instructing, admonishing, correcting, reproving, and modeling. Deuteronomy 6 and Proverbs tells God’s people how they are to raise up their children – by training in and through God’s Word. 

Some might object and say, “No, Proverbs is about the discipline of children where parents are commanded to spank their kids.” This is a popular misconception in most Christian circles. Without going into detail about Proverbs, which I’ve done in several blog posts at www.Relavate.org, I will point out three things: the child or son is a teenager, the vast majority of Proverbs is instruction, and out of the approximately 915 verses, the rod is referenced only seven times. Many contemporary scholars make the case that "corporal punishment" does not technically apply in Proverbs. 

Contributing author and professor of Old Testament at Columbia Theological Seminary, Dr. William P. Brown, writes in The Child in the Bible,

The son's profile in Proverbs is not that of willful disobedience or intractable defiance, although the sages fully acknowledged that children can be disrespectful, lazy, and selfish. Rather, the child is primarily educable. Discipline and instruction (one and the same thing, as we will see) were deemed the most important investment in the family's well-being. It was a matter of life and death (Kindle Location 979-981).

He goes on to say,

Discipline in Proverbs, and elsewhere in biblical tradition, conveys the basic meaning of correction aimed at the avoidance of moral fault and the acquisition of moral insight. Simply put, discipline is a means to an end; its purpose is to foster moral integrity. Integrity in Proverbs is a wide-ranging concept that includes honesty and truthfulness (e.g., 12:17, 19; 14:25; 24:26), self-control (e.g., 12:16; 14:29; 29:11), and productivity (as opposed to laziness, e.g., 6:6-9; 12:24, 27; 31:27), as well as generosity (e.g.) 11:25; 21:26; 22:9), piety (1:7; 2:5; 37; 8:13; 15:33; 31:30), and independence (6:1-3; 31:10-30) (KL 983-986).

 Then he asserts what other scholars have pointed out, 

Also significant is what the sages do not say about discipline. Lacking in any of the sayings is the language of punishment. Use of the rod upon the child is neither penalty nor punishment. Hence, "corporal punishment" does not technically apply in Proverbs. Physical discipline is meant to edify, not punish. Retaliation, even retribution, does not figure in the act of discipline. ‘Rod and reproof yield wisdom’ (29:15a) (KL 1014).

And explaining Proverbs 19:18, he writes, “The proverb makes clear that discipline has nothing to do with destruction. Whenever malice enters into the act, discipline becomes abusive” (KL 1015-1016). 

So, here’s the main point – when we come to the matter of the discipline of children, the Bible’s thrust is about whole-souled, positive measures to train children through words, mainly God’s Word, in order to be skilled in life, and not about punitive measures to adjust bad behaviors. Discipling our children in the Lord is all about tending relational gardens where children can flourish in life. Hence, the point of discipline is so our children will win in life.

To be continued…

This post is an excerpt from my upcoming book, Cultivating Kids (Insights from the Bible on how to tend relational gardens where children flourish).