There’s a big difference between punishment and discipline. Punishment gives a negative consequence, but discipline means “to teach.” Punishment is negative; discipline is positive. Punishment focuses on past misdeeds. Discipline focuses on future good deeds. Punishment is often motivated by anger. Discipline is motivated by love. Punishment focuses on justice to balance the scales. Discipline focuses on teaching, to prepare for next time (Scott Turansky and Joanne Miller).
Home Improvement, The Parenting Book You Can Read to Your Kids, National Center for Biblical Parenting, 76 Hopatcong Drive, Lawrenceville, NJ 08648, www.biblicalparenting.org, 1-800.771.8334, email [email protected].
Pharisaical discipline often happens with the child inconveniences or embarrasses the parent. It’s then inconsistent and enacted as retribution in a form of revenge. That’s not discipline, but punishment. Christian parenting rather sees disobedience as an affront to the lordship of Christ and thus a danger for the child. Discipline then is an opportunity to correct a child, have them associate pain with sin and bring him or her closer to Christ for grace. Discipline when done this way is not a form of revenge, but rather a form of love.
Sermon, Christ in the Parent – Part 2, Psalm 78:4-8, July 28, 2019. Sermon, Christ in the Parent – Part 2, Psalm 78:4-8, July 28, 2019.
Many parents have a punitive mindset. They see discipline as the child paying for his sins. Rather than correction having the positive goal of restoration, it has the negative goal of payment. It is like the convict paying his debt to society by doing time in prison. This is not a biblical concept of discipline.
Shepherding a Child’s Heart, Shepherd Press, 1995, p. 133-134. Used by Permission. Get this book!
