Words From the Fire: Hearing the Voice of God in the 10 Commandments by R. Albert Mohler

Author:R. Albert Mohler [Mohler, R. Albert]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Religion, Biblical Commentary, Old Testament, Biblical Studies, Christian Life, Personal Growth
ISBN: 9780802454881
Google: Nw4EmQEACAAJ
Amazon: 1596447532
Barnesnoble: 1596447532
Goodreads: 6327611
Publisher: Moody Publishers
Published: 2009-08-14T22:00:00+00:00

THE PARENT AS MAGISTRATE

But father and mother are not only schoolmasters; they are magistrates, the dispensers of discipline to their children. Discipline is not very popular in contemporary parenting. However, those of us raised in Christian homes know that our parents could together be described as judge, jury, and executioner. It is an inescapable parental responsibility to discipline the child, a fact revealed in Scripture. A rebellious, disobedient, disorderly, untaught, unruly child is a terrible curse upon a family.

Again, to our shame, this is not taught as much as it should be in our churches. The influence of our therapeutic age teaches parents to be extremely careful not to impose their will upon the child. Our psychologized society believes children basically would be healthy but for parents. The scriptural worldview is very different-our little darling is born in sin. He may look innocent, and she is no doubt cute, but that child is a sinner whose heart is planning treason.

Our psychologized age also says that parents should not seek external conformity in our children, preferring internal self-actualization as the goal. Thinking back on my own childhood, my parents were not greatly concerned with my "internal self-actualization." The Christian parent understands that external conformity is the very least that is to be expected. Informed by Scripture, Christian parents understand that the internal alignment of the soul is instructed by the external conformity of the body. The parent knows the struggle. You wish you could get into the heart. You wish you could reach down into the deep, inner caverns of the soul. And yet, perhaps the most you can do is to force bodily obedience. That is at least a start.

The Scripture teaches that the father who loves his son disciplines his son. In Proverbs 23:10, Israel is warned not to go into "the fields of the fatherless." And immediately thereafter, we read, "Do not withhold discipline from a child; if you strike him with a rod, he will not die. If you strike him with the rod, you will save his soul from Sheol" (verses 13-14).

In this generation of undisciplined children, many people consider corporal punishment to be some kind of throwback to an oppressive age. In Scripture, corporal punishment is the responsibility of the Christian parent, to teach with the rod. As a biblical principle, the physical pain of justice meted out by the parental magistrate standing in the place of God is a teacher that reaches the soul. Children must learn cause and effect. They must be taught even bodily the difference between obedience and disobedience. The pain of corporal punishment makes progressively clear to young children that there is a law, a judge, and there is justice. Cause and effect. Disobedience and obedience.

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