Raising Your Children
Selected Scriptures
We've just completed a marvelous study of the family and marriage as indicated to us in Ephesians chapters 5 and 6. And we thought it might be special in the days that we have filling out our schedule to spend some time discussing a little further aspects of wisdom in raising a child. And we really want to look at the Old Testament. One of the great features of the Old Testament is the whole process of rearing children, the emphasis on the principles of wisdom that were used there. And some of the scholars of Old Testament times have given to us insight into the principles that were used in raising their children in the Old Testament.
Fred Barshaw is with us today and we're going to discuss some of these principles and see how they apply to our lives today. Fred, it's good to have you with us.
FRED: Thanks, John, it's good to be here again.
JOHN: Fred, let me just begin by saying I have a list and you have a list of these principles and maybe we could just start at the beginning and talk about the principles that we found in the Old Testament that were used by the Jewish people to rear their children. Just a note before we do that, they were committed to building a righteous generation, to raising up a godly seed. And this as a goal demanded these kind of principles. And so, let's begin at the beginning. What was the first one that you have on the list?
FRED: Well I think in light of Proverbs 20:22 where it says, "Do not say I will repay you evil but wait for the Lord," the Jews had a rule of conduct in raising their children which was basically this, to eliminate all thoughts and behaviors which speak of viciousness or vengeance because it was out of harmony with what God's will was for them.
JOHN: In other words, no spirit of retaliation.
FRED: Right, teaching your children to accept what happens without becoming embittered, vengeful, seeking to injure the person who did something to you. I think it even goes beyond that. You know, when Christ was speaking on turning the other cheek and going the second mile, the idea was not purely vengeance but it was to not let the situation control you but that you control the situation. And vengeance has a way of taking over and allowing the environment or the other person to control your emotions and your attitudes and your behavior rather than you controlling it the way God would have you to be in control.
JOHN: In a sense, I guess, part of that, and we'll probably get in to that later, would be sort of a lesson in humility because it is usually pride that seeks vengeance or viciousness.
FRED: Absolutely. In fact, I think it falls in direct line with much of the teaching that you've been giving to us here at Grace, John, in that humility is really the avenue for almost all Christian behavior and godliness.
JOHN: So to begin with then in raising our children we want to eliminate all thoughts and behaviors which could be vicious or vengeful.
FRED: Right.
JOHN: What about a second principle?
FRED: Well a second one and it sort of goes along with this and simply extends the first one, to reject feelings of anger and bitterness, not only toward wrong done to oneself but wrong done to one's parents or family. You know, it's sometimes easy to handle the wrong that's done to us but then when it sort of slops over on to our family, then we can get very angry and vicious over those things. And the Jewish perspective was if you're going to go part way you need to go all the way on handling this vengeance aspect.
JOHN: Yeah, it's kind of like...it's kind of like the Little- League father who has a fight with the coach because he doesn't let his son play.
FRED: Right.
JOHN: In other words, he gets angry and bitter in defending another member of his family.
FRED: That's right.
JOHN: All of us, I think, are prone to anger and anger when it is extended becomes bitterness and bitterness just literally can destroy a person.
FRED: Well it's like a toxin or a poison in his system. It not only confines itself to the object of the anger or bitterness but it seems to spread and control all our attitudes and behaviors in regard to other aspects of our lives.
JOHN: You know, in these first two principles about vengeance and anger and bitterness, again we come back to the fact that the reason people feel this way is because they feel their rights have been abused, or somebody has taken away something that they deserve, or their worth has been tread upon. And that all stems from a wrong attitude, a basic attitude that says "I have rights and I deserve this and you can't do that to me," sort of thing which is really pride. And we're right back to that concept of humility. As we learn to be humble and as we learn the spirit of meekness that our Lord talked about, we realize that we deserve nothing anyway. In fact, if we got what we deserved we would get condemnation from God.
FRED: That's right.
JOHN: And so, when you get very defensive and self-justifying and angry and vengeful, you're simply betraying the fact that you have an over-estimation of yourself.
FRED: Yeah, there's a real good court sort of metaphorical picture of this. I might start off the metaphorical picture with saying that God expects us to be thermostats and not thermometers. And what we mean by that is just comparing the two, the thermometer is totally under the control of its outside environment. It simply reacts. It's a reacting instrument to whatever it is outside. If it's hot, then it reacts in a hot way. If it's cold, it reacts in a cold way. Whereas a thermostat is not a reactor, it controls, it's an actor. If it gets too warm, it cuts in with the cool air. If it gets too cold, it cuts in with the warm air. So it controls its environment. And I think what God desires of every Christian, and, of course, the faithful Old Testament Jew also, was that instead of being a thermometer in their life they were to be thermostats. They were to control life and all around them. And to become angry or vengeful is simply to give the control of your life over to the situation or the people around you rather than you being in control.
JOHN: You know, that is a great thought in view of the father's role in the family. The father should be the thermostat. He should control that. You know, you can think of the illustration of a kid who comes home from school and the teacher has irritated him or done something, maybe he felt he was graded unfairly or he was reprimanded unfairly and so he's...the kid is angry. At that point the father, if he is a thermometer by what you're saying, is going to get angry too. I mean, his temperature is going to go right up to the environment that his son is creating but if he's a thermostat, then he's going to apply to that situation the wisdom that's going to cool it down. That's a tremendous concept in relationship to the role of a father who really is to be a thermostat in the family. Whatever it is that seems to be getting too hot or too cold, he has to bring into perfect balance.
FRED: Absolutely, he has to be the model for being a thermostat in life. You know, Proverbs 15:1, of course, is a prime example of being a thermostat, "A gentle or soft answer turneth away wrath." Whereas the harsh word is simply allowing the situation to control you rather than you controlling the situation. The understanding is that vengeance also always carries with it a built-in destruction factor. It's going to destroy your character to one degree or another. So whoever seeks to carry out vengeance is going to allow a part of his own character and personality be gnawed away and destroyed in that facet of his reacting.
JOHN: And I think too that doctors have even shown that a person who carries around vengeance and bitterness and anger has a sort of a constant self-destruct mode because physically it reacts against the normal flow of life in the body. You know, there are all of those factors of blood flow and saliva and the nervous system and all of that is restricted and constricted by anger which tenses up and causes physical and medical problems as well.
Well, we better go on to a third principle and I notice it here. The third one is that the Jewish people in wisely raising their children were consistent in punishing all real intentional wrong doing. What do you really see in that?
FRED: Well, when we talk about real intentional wrong doing we're talking about in the child's mind he's determined to rebel against the standards that have been established, the boundaries of acceptable behavior. He's willing to trespass those boundaries which are established by the parents. And Scripture indicates that the parent is obliged to punish all rebellious, all intentional wrong doing on the part of the child. Of course, the child who errs out of ignorance or immaturity needs to be dealt with accordingly. In other words, with understanding and understanding that he didn't understand where he was supposed to go and how he was to react and therefore it must be a gentle teaching kind of situation. But the youngster who disobeys just out of pure rebellion needs to be disciplined. And much of Proverbs is addressed to that. You know, you have Proverbs 19:18, "Discipline your son while there is still hope," that is that's he's young enough. It says, "Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child, the rod of discipline will remove it far from him." "He who spares the rod hates his son."
JOHN: Yeah.
FRED: And you need to in light of this particular principle to always discipline for the youngster who steps over the boundary intentionally.
JOHN: Fred, let me ask this question, too. Why is a child so determined to rebel?
FRED: Well, I think, the Christian answer, of course, is that it's a built-in part of his being. We are born with the desire to rebel, the seed of rebellion.
JOHN: Yeah, and I think that's so important. Modern psychology does not recognize that and that's why they don't talk at all about discipline or corporal punishment or anything like that because the wrong assumption is that this child is a free human being who can choose right and wrong and you've got to give him his head and let him develop the way he wants to go. But the real issue biblically is that you have to break the back of his sinfulness, in a sense, and if you don't correct him he will be literally be out of sync with God's plan for a joyous life as long as he lives. And in the midst of his freedom there will be absolute misery because he's never learned how to control his sinful impulses and therefore to please God and to know the joy that God can give.
FRED: That's right. You know, I know this will take a little time but I just want to recite an incident when I was a school principal that illustrates this principle so well. I remember I had a teacher in the third grade who had received a youngster that I knew was eventually going to give her a lot of problems. And sure enough, after the second week of school he appeared in my office, her with her hand upon him saying, "He was a total disruptive element in her classroom." And I turned to the youngster and I said, "Archie, is this true? Are you disrupting the classroom?" And he says, "Yeah, but you won't do anything about it." And I said, "Well gee, that's interesting, Archie, what do you mean I won't do anything about it." He says, "Well you can't touch me." He says, "Nobody touches me, my mother and my father have never touched me and no one else is going to touch me either and that includes you."
And I said, "Well gee, that's an interesting statement, Archie. Why don't you come on in to my office and sit down." So he came in and sat down and I said, "I want to call your mother and just ask her about this, Archie."
And so, I called the mother and I said, "Mrs. So-and-so," I said, "Archie has been doing this and this and this and I want to give you a choice." I said, "I'm either going to send him home for two weeks or I'm going to spank him, which would you prefer?" And she said, "No one has ever touched our child," and she says, "You aren't going to touch him either." I said, "Fine, would you come down and pick him up? You can keep him home for two weeks." And she says, "Well, can't we talk about this a little bit?" Obviously she didn't want Archie at home either. And I said, "Sure, let's talk about it." But I said, "Those are the only two options you have." And then she said, "Well, when you spank a child how do you do it?" And I said, "Well, he just bends over after he understands what the offense is and I give him a couple of swats with a paddle." And she said, "Well, do you hit him hard?" And I said, "Oh yeah, it's no good unless I hit him hard." And she says, "But we've never touched him." And I said, "Well, you have the other choice, you can come and get him for two weeks."
So by then she was crying and she said, "Well, can I call his father?" And I said sure. Well, meanwhile poor ole Archie is sitting there and his eyes are getting larger and larger cause he knows things aren't going exactly as he had thought they would. So in any case, she called me back in about five minutes and she said, "We've decided that you should spank Archie." And I said, "Good, I'll had the phone to Archie, will you tell him that?" And so I handed the phone to Archie and, boy, of course, at this point he just turned completely white, you know, he thought this was terrible.
So anyhow, I have to say this, within Archie, within that rebellious child was also a good kid. And he took those swats and I really hit him hard, he hopped all over that office cause it really crackled. But he took all three of them. And I said, "Now, Archie, you understand why we did this." "Oh yes, sir." And all of a sudden he became a model youngster and I sent him back to the classroom. And I said, "Now, Archie, if the teacher sends you back, what's going to happen?" "Well, you're going to spank me." I said, "Yeah, that's right, Archie." And we shook hands and he understood. And I sort of did a little thing with the kids that sort of helped, I'd write the thing on a chalk board sometimes and then after they got their swats I'd erase it. And I'd say, "Now, as far as I'm concerned it's all over, Archie."
So anyhow, he went back, I didn't hear from him the rest of the day. But at three o'clock at dismissal time I saw this big Cadillac come streaking up to the curb and screech to a stop and out came his mother. I recognized her and I saw her race past the office and pretty soon she came back again, I guess she was going to see if Archie was still alive, you know. So in any case she came back by the office and as they passed by, I was standing out in the front office and Archie stopped and he said, "Hi, Dr. Barshaw, how you doing?" I said, "Great, Archie, how you doing?" And he says, "Fine, I had a great afternoon," you know. And this mother had this tremendously puzzled look on her face and so she sent Archie on out to the car and she came in and she said, "Well did you spank him?" And I said, "Well certainly I spanked him, I told you I was going to spank him." "But he doesn't hate you." I said, "Well why should he hate me? He has now received recompense for what he knew was wrong and he feels satisfied," and I explained about the erasing the little chalk board. And as far as he's concerned it's clean.
You know, it reminds me of Proverbs 29:15 and 17, it says, "The r