Thesis 35
We must discipline our children in accordance with the Bible rather than psychology.
Our tendency is to believe that the devil creates false worldviews for the purpose of fooling unbelievers. But the devil doesn’t score any points on unbelievers. To blind the blind isn’t anything to write home about. Instead the devil creates false worldviews for the sake of seducing those who ought to know better. Darwinism wasn’t invented to mislead the gullible like Darwin. Neither, however, was it created principally to get Christians to believe it. Instead the goal is for Christians to lose confidence in what the Bible has to say. Even when evangelicals reject Darwinism, we still tend to see scientists in lab coats as the really smart ones, while we Christians just fell off the turnip truck.
This is not a problem for believers, however, only in the hard sciences. We confess with our lips that the Bible equips us for every good work, but we still tend to believe that it is scholars with important letters after their names that really know things. The Apostle Paul may be the expert on theology, but the panel of experts hired by the editorial team down at Ladies Better Home Bluebook surely must have the wisdom we need for raising well adjusted children. When the Bible bumps up against these experts, we find ourselves, even as too many of us do about creation, accommodating the Bible to the latest experts. We make the Bible give ground and make room for the experts.
We are told, for instance, by the experts that corporal punishment of children will only teach children to solve their problems through violence. On the other hand, the Bible says with the utmost clarity, “Folly is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline drives it far from him” (Proverbs 22:15). Our calling, as always, is to repent and believe. We are to believe the promises of God, and not the folly of this world.
We are told by the experts that our children need to find their own identity, that the important thing for the parent is to lay before their children as many choices as possible, that they might live authentic lives. On the other hand, the Bible says with the utmost clarity, “Fathers do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord” (Ephesians 6:4). Our calling, as always, is to repent and believe. We are to believe the promises of God, and not the folly of this world.
We will cease to be intimidated by the wisdom of the world when we learn to believe what God has told us. He has made foolish the wisdom of the world. The “foolishness” of God is wiser than men and the weakness of God is stronger than men. We ought everywhere to believe and obey God rather than men. We must do so first as we raise up our children for His kingdom and or His glory.