Disciplining Children God’s Way

A contentious issue facing many Christians today is how to discipline their children. The public education system in America and in other countries has failed to come up with disciplinary measures that work—and even many parents don’t exercise effective and biblical discipline.

The lead article on our website today covers the topic of disciplining our children in the way Scripture tells us to. While there is great disagreement on this topic in the secular world (and even in Christian circles), God’s Word offers the foundation for what discipline should look like in the Christian home. I’ve included a few paragraphs from the article:

Parents in American culture, like in Australia, do not discipline children God’s way. They are not teaching their children respect for authority, and that has left us with many problems. Just as the culture has abandoned the foundation of God’s Word for its worldview regarding such issues as marriage and the sanctity of life, so also it has abandoned the authority of Scripture in discipline of children.

Secular psychology rejects that children are sinners and instead teaches that children are basically “good.” This is a false premise and it will never lead to the exercise of biblical discipline of children. Children are no different than adults when it comes to sin, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23, emphasis added).

Many people, including some Christians, fail to realize that one God-given aspect of biblical discipline is corporal punishment—and God tells parents to use it in disciplining their children. Of course, there are some people who have abused children with force, and we at Answers in Genesis reject this misuse of corporal punishment.

It is important that Christian parents exercise biblical discipline, as the culture benefits from our disciplining God’s way. That’s why I recommend that you look into getting our Raising Godly Children in an Ungodly World pack.

Thanks for stopping by and thanks for praying,

Ken