Questions & Answers

Introduction and Overview of the Series

0:00 in the adult Sunday school class of the Trinity Baptist Church on April 28, 1991.

0:08 For 15 weeks, we have been considering together some major issues of family life under the rather odd title of how not to foul up the training of our children. And what I propose to do this morning is to give a very brief overview of what we've covered and then take up, first of all, the questions that were submitted in the rather strange-worded or strangely-lettered question box that was sitting down in the church office throughout the week. Some of you used that and submitted your questions, and I collected them on Friday and have given serious consideration to addressing them. Two of them are the kind of questions that will be better addressed privately with the individuals who submitted. And since you signed your name to them, I plan to speak to you and address the questions privately. But the others are of a general nature that I believe will be helpful, and if we have time, we'll entertain further questions as you sit and interact in the class this morning. Now, in opening up this subject, we've sought to establish that crucial to any approach to the subject of the Christian family and of the religious community is the whole matter of the climate that we establish in the home.

1:32 And I would put my circle on the board, had I a piece of chalk, which is not readily at hand, so if you can picture the circle, and we've established that the climate of the home is crucial. And with regard to the spiritual climate, as that climate is created and sustained by the Spirit of God working through parental efforts. and prayer, it should be a climate, spiritually, of reality, a climate in which hypocrisy and sham are abominated. No quicker way to make cynics out of your children than to have a home that is ostensibly a Christian home, where the name of Christ and the Bible are visible and audible, but where there is no spiritual reality and transparency, but where there is, hypocrisy, and sham. And then emotionally, if the training of our children is not to be fouled up, we must attain and maintain a climate marked by warmth, closeness, acceptance, and goodwill, as opposed to coldness, rejection, distance, and ill will. And that must be true of the husband-wife relationship fundamentally, and then it must be true of the parent-child relationship, and then

2:56 insofar as God enables us to do it, it must be maintained in the sibling or the child-to-child relationship. And it is only within the framework of that home that the biblical injunction to nurture our children can be realized. And therefore, yes, Larry? Oh, there's a whole box of it sitting in front of me.

3:20 Thank you, sir. What would I do without beacons who know what the score is? Thank you, brother. All right. Here I am looking down for a piece of chalk, and there's a whole box of it. There's a good illustration in that, and I won't use it right now, but it comes to my mind. All right. So here's our home, and here's our mom and our dad, and here are the children. And under God, we are determined that this relationship of warmth and closeness, and of love, and of love, and of love, and of love, and of love, and of love, and of love, and of love, and of love, and of love, and of love, and of love, and of love, codified by God, the bedridden children of this home, and our home, that is, the church name for which IsaacAnybrookVPN, and all these children belong to,onyuloiube perfection Front Jr.

3:55 , Closeness, acceptance, and goodwill will be evidence in this relationship, itchco vocal consonants and relationship and in the relationship existing between the siblings. And within that context, then, the distillation of the Bible teaching as to the means given to us as parents to nurture our children is set forth in Ephesians 6.4. We are not to provoke them to anger, but to nurture them in the matter of the family and the the chastening, the discipline, and the admonition of the Lord.

4:28 And we have spent a number of weeks looking at this first means given for the nurture of our children. God willing, next week we will begin to consider this second major means, that of admonition or verbal instruction and warning and reproof. But in summarizing this block of teaching, we want to give you opportunity for interaction with questions. Now, what have we seen in our study of the Word of God?

Summary of Physical Chastisement Principles

4:59 Well, we have seen that God himself is to be the pattern, the perfect model of parenting, and that all of our administration of correction should take its major directives from the mannerisms. The manner in which God disciplines and corrects his children. And under this general heading of the use of the rod, we've established from Scripture the absolute necessity of physical chastisement and the nurture of our children. Secondly, the God-like character of physical chastisement, the specific functions of physical chastisement.

5:37 And then we took up nine common failures in the physical chastisement of our children. The non-use of the rod. The delayed use. The abortive use.

5:48 The inconsistent use. The uncontrolled use. The isolated use. The excessive use.

5:55 The legalistic use. And the prayerless use. And one of the emphases that I have sought to give again and again is that no one can give you a detailed catalog of every situation in which you will know automatically what to do in the administration of corrective discipline. We must be armed with the general principles of the Word of God, with the specific texts that address themselves to the issues at hand, and then in dependence upon God, we must have God-given discernment and wisdom in order to know what to do.

6:39 Hebrews 5 says that full-grown men, that is, spiritually mature men and women, are those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern good and evil. Before you run to an older friend or more experienced parent or an elder, when you hit the wall in a disciplinary issue, first of all, go to God. Try to God. Go to your concordance.

7:06 Search the Scriptures. And only after that exercise, if you are still uncertain of what you ought to do, should you seek counsel from someone else. Don't rob yourself of the spiritual development that will come through the exercise of your own moral discernment. And just one further word now before we take up the questions.

Bunyan's Rules for Discipline and Timeless Principles

7:31 I'm rearranging and redecorating my study. And in rearranging all of my books, I came across one that I had forgotten I had. Christian Behavior for Husbands, Wives, Parents, Children, Masters, Servants, and Backsliders by John Bunyan.

7:50 And very interesting. I looked on the inside to see when I had purchased this book. And I had purchased it way back in 1964. And I had something cataloged.

8:01 Rules for the Discipline of Children, page 46. And very interesting. When I turn to this section toward the end of it, see if this sounds familiar. If thou art driven to the rod, then strike advisedly, in cool blood, that is, without the passion of uncontrolled anger, and soberly show your children, number one, their fault.

8:24 Convince their conscience that they did wrong. Two, how much it is against thy heart thus to deal with them, that you don't afflict willingly, like God. And that what you do, you do in conscience to God and love to their souls. That you must do it because God commands it.

8:42 And tell them, for, that if fair means would have done, none of this, severity should have been. This, I have proved it, will be a means to afflict their hearts as well as their bodies. It being the way that God deals with his own children, it is the most likely to accomplish its end. Follow all this with prayer to God for them and leave the issue with him.

9:09 Now, I didn't plagiarize. That was read way back in 64. Now, it may be that it was buried down there somewhere, but I didn't know it was in Bunyan, it was buried in my head. The only place I've seen Bunyan buried is in Bunhill Fields in London and at his graveside.

9:24 But these principles, you see, are not something new. They are not novel. They are the principles of the word of God. And those who study it seriously will see them.

Question 1: The Number of 'Whacks' in Discipline

9:35 All right. Now, coming to the questions which you raised. With this block of teaching, framing our thinking, and conditioning my responses, there are a number of questions that I would like to ask you. There are four questions which I felt would be appropriate for this general forum and would be helpful if addressed.

9:54 As I say, there are two others that I'll address privately. Number one, what guidelines can you give us for the number, this questioner put in parentheses or in quotation marks, inverted commas, whacks, W-H-A, how did they spell it? K or, yes, C-K-S. What number of whacks ought we to minister for?

10:14 What number of whacks ought we to minister for? What number of whacks ought we to minister for? What number of whacks ought we to minister for? We're not asking for a specific number, but rather, when would it be an abusive number?

10:23 It seems some parents give many strikes while others give few. Would 20 to 30 licks for an offense be abusive? Thanks. Well, that's what the questioner said.

10:37 Thanks. All right. Well, my answer is, going back to our principles, how many times should a child receive a stroke of the instrument of discipline, be it a spoon, a paddle, whatever your spanking instrument is, I answer, as many as are necessary to bring about the ends of the discipline. And what are the ends of the discipline? To bring the child to repentance for his misdemeanor, to bring his will to a place of sweet submission, and to bring sufficient pain as to make it worth his while to resolve at the point of discipline not to do it again. Now, how much is that in any given case? Well, that will depend on many variables. But make sure that the instrument is non-abusive, so that if 10, 15, or 20 strokes are needed, it's no danger of any physical abuse to the child. Therefore, you would not use a half-inch

11:52 or one-inch dowel on the child that would have sufficient weight to do tremendous damage, but something that is flat, that can send very sharp signals to the nerve endings of the buttocks without doing damage to the tissue. So make sure the instrument is non-abusive, and make sure in the language of Proverbs it is used diligently. I'll never forget the incident with one of my pastor friends who was quite firm with his boys, but when God gave him a little girl, he just became one big pool of butter. And he was telling me that he was disturbed that discipline didn't seem to be working with her, and one day we were together, and she did something that was very, very evidently an act of blatant disobedience, and he called her to himself, and through a thick pamper, or double diapers, or whatever she had on, I saw him flicking her behind with a very loose wrist, saying, no, no, no, no, no. I mean, she wasn't feeling hardly a tap on the outside of her diaper, let alone anything on the nerve endings of her buttocks. And it was no wonder that the spanking wasn't working, because it was not inflicting real pain. And so the number will be in great measure...

13:14 Now, what that number is, I refuse to give specifics, but once the end is accomplished, and the child shows repentance for his or her misdemeanor, a sweet submission to your will at the point of controversy, and a resolution at that time not to repeat it, to give one stroke more is to be guilty of a tyrannical use of the rod, because it's unlike God. He does not afflict willingly. He will not always chide nor keep his anger forever, and he chastises us until we are brought to the point of submission. Now, in some cases, he has to take very extreme measures. With a disobedient prophet, he had to create a great fish that could swallow a man. Do something to keep him alive in that fish for three days and nights, and then vomit him up on the place where he was to go as a prophet. Now, God had to use strong measures

14:24 with Jonah, but he didn't use the same measures with Peter. All he did was look at Peter, and he broke. Well, now did the Lord need to do anything more? Peter went out and wept bitterly. Deep repentance! Now, for the Lord to do anything more than look at him would have been overkill. So if you take your pattern from God and say, Lord, help me to be like you in this specific act of discipline, when you and I have a controversy with God, as I've often told people in pastoral counseling, look, you better capitulate. Fighting with God is losing business. God's never impressed with a stuck-out lower lip. God's not impressed with your howling. He says of his own people, he says, they howl upon their beds. But that wasn't the crying of repentance, and God says, I'm going to deal with you in chastisement. I'm going to criticize you until you get the message. So likewise with our children.

15:22 And you may have in the same household, coming out of the same union, of the same husband and wife, one child who's like Peter, who breaks with a look, another who in a given incident and in patterns of his life is like a Jonah. And you will have to be crying to God for wisdom and grace to see those differences and to persevere. And beyond that, I refuse to say anything more because I have no biblical warrant to. You must cry to God in your situation and you must not sit in judgment on your brothers or sisters. Now, if you see them do something that very clearly has the evidences of overkill or underkill, then if a brother be overtaken in a fault, ye that are spiritual, restore such a one. If you have a couple that are in your presence or a woman who's in a situation of overkill, then you must not sit in judgment on their process. And one of them deserves my frames of that situation and you must not do that, because the mother is the most sensitive. And then, I want you to take a look, and, we'll go through the pattern, that one of them does something that is clearly an act of disobedience and warrants the application of physical chastisement. And you see the

16:41 mother just chastise the child enough to set her jaw and go stomping off. And you see that as a pattern. You have an obligation to speak to your sister and say, now, I know the most sensitive thing in the world is to talk about our kids. But I love you too much to allow what appears to me as nothing but to listen. And now, we move on to the lover's point, and that's the nation, the sister, and the father. But you must not be tempted to do what he had said. as an improper use of the rod. It's what I saw, what happens all the time.

16:52 Get your facts. Don't send a case to the jury and come back with a verdict and stand like a judge ready to pronounce. Get more facts. But if you see that, on the other hand, if you saw the child was spanked and there seemed to be that sob to your mother's ear or your father's ear seemed to be the sob of real brokenness and penitence and a real spirit of desiring to be forgiven and resolution not to repeat it and the parent kept on and you saw that, then you would have an obligation to seek to point out the fault of the brother and sister.

17:26 Now, I'm not negating that biblical responsibility and I trust in one of these days I want to preach on the text about a wise reprover upon an obedient ear. And one of the things that makes it difficult to do this is we're not sure the person we want to talk to has an obligation. They may have an obedient ear. We're afraid they may have a volatile ear.

17:47 They may have a landmine ear which if we touch is going to explode in our face. But in these things, if it's clearly a violation of a biblical principle, then we have an obligation to restore and help our brothers. All right, any further questions now on that matter of how many quacks? I cannot say anything more than that with regard to this question without moving into the next question.

Addressing Children's Complaints about Discipline

18:13 I'm going to move into a realm that I believe would be legislating beyond the warrant of Scripture. Someone want to follow up on some aspect of that? Yes.

18:39 Yeah.

18:42 Yeah.

19:01 Yes.

19:04 That's right. Yes. Honest them for the impudence that would put them in the place of the judge over you. Having done that, then explain to them when you respond as quickly and as freely as your sister or brother, then you'll only get as much as they get.

19:24 And then say, you know, don't complain to us. You go complain to yourself. You'll be more responsive. You'll be more sensitive.

19:31 And mommy and daddy will see that. And then maybe your brother or sister will be coming asking that question of us. With regard to you. Why don't you accept it as a challenge?

19:40 And given their age, you know, though you get in the place where as they get older, we must, as it were, take our children into the theater of how we wrestle through these things so that we help them and guide them against the time when they will be in a similar situation. But I think that's absolutely right, Barb, that you should first of all make it plain to them that they have no right to come having sat as judges over you but at the same time you are prepared, given their ages, et cetera, to be able to explain the rationale for what you're doing and to demonstrate the fairness of it. Good. All right, any further question on this matter of the number of whacks?

Discretion, Physical Marks, and Societal Hostility

20:23 Yes, Jonathan.

20:54 Mm-hmm.

21:00 No, the modern pediatrician would tell you it was, and that's why you better be careful. If you've got a date with the pediatrician on Tuesday, you may have to let your kid get away with murder on Monday on an issue. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

21:12 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Because it's not, really, it's not beyond the pediatrician to turn your name in, and with the bureaucratic structure with Dyfus now, you can have someone come to your front door with no constitutional authority, purely bureaucratic authority, and march in and grab your kid and pull their trousers down and examine them. And I know that to be a fact.

21:33 There's a pastor friend of mine who actually had this happen. And so you need to be discreet in this. But if we take the Word of God as our standard, the Word of God as our standard, the Word of God says, let not thy soul spare for his much crying. Though thou beat him with the rod, he will not die.

21:51 And there is that statement that the purple of the wound cleanses away evil. So as long as the Bible says that, folks, I'm sorry. I cannot say, and I've had parents say to me, well, I was in the nursery and chained someone's child, and I actually saw a handprint, or I saw, you know, what looked to be like little blood marks from spanking, and they were ready to have a federal case. I met it with absolute silence, because I didn't know the circumstances.

22:19 And as long as my Bible says that there may be situations where there will be a purple wound, but it is not physical abuse, so that I am not prepared to say from the Word of God, and here we come back, now let God be true and every man a liar. From the Word of God, I could not say that, if there is any subsequent sign that the child received the severe spanking on his buttocks, that we somehow had been guilty of overkill. But it should be in that fleshy part where there is no danger of doing damage to bones and ligaments, etc. And it seems to me that if we accept the testimony of Scripture, this is the position. On the other hand, I would say that if the child continually goes around with a black and blue behind, we maybe need to examine whether or not there is something not right in the whole chemistry of the overall relationship that the child is manifesting such a pattern of inveterate stubbornness. I said examine, not conclude. There is a problem with us, because I go back again to Scripture, that in that incident in Deuteronomy, where the parents, bring that son, though they had faithfully chastised him,

23:47 he turns out to be a drunkard and a glutton, and he is stoned to death. And the whole doctrine in the book of Proverbs of the foolish son, and of how that manifests itself. You have that text, I believe it's Proverbs 17. Yes, look at 17.10.

24:07 A rebuke enters deeper into one that hath understanding than a hundred stripes into a fool. Now what do you do with that text? If you have a child that is an emerging fool, one who is determined to reject all parental restraint and become a veritable hellion. I don't know what the female of hellion is.

24:34 Hell yet? Maybe hellion applies to both. I don't know. God says that a hundred stripes, does really no good.

24:46 But the hundred stripes were administered. So, brethren, sisters, we've got to keep glued to the word of God in these matters. And I do not say that as someone who to my knowledge was ever guilty of child abuse, of physical abuse, though there were occasionally times when my handprint could be seen on the bottom of my children. And I was one who used my hand because I've been told by others I didn't know my own strength and I used it as a matter of restraint upon myself, knowing I could measure the degree of pressure put upon their bottoms when I could feel the level of sting in my own hands.

25:30 And I was willing to forego the luxury of letting a nerveless paddle do the work for me. But that was just a matter of judgment on my part in my case. Jonathan, is that, is that a sufficient response?

25:47 As I say, you've got to be very discreet. Let not your good be evil spoken of. So be very, very careful in this because we live in a society, it's very, very strange, isn't it? They call evil good and good evil.

26:01 This is the society supposedly so concerned about child abuse and they go right on cutting them up and sucking them out of mother's wombs and putting the little pieces together to make sure they haven't left anything in there. It's sick. Call me abusive when with pain to my own heart and my own emotions I apply principled discipline to my children while they turn around and kill babies by the millions in their mother's wombs. What a perverse, perverse morality.

Evidence of Repentance and Discipline Method

26:35 But that's the climate we're living in and we want to be wise as serpents and harmless as doves. All right, someone else had a question following on from this. Yes, Joe? Well, I would take, I would take the submission as the evidence of repentance.

27:06 In other words, in us, how do we know we are repentant? Not for the number of tears we shed, but when a prodigal says, I will arise and go to my father. When the son who said, I won't, said, I will, the Bible says, he repented and he said, I will. The other man said, oh, I will, but he didn't.

27:25 So I would not set up some arbitrary standard of a subjective sense of whether they are evangelical repentant or repentant toward God, but penitent with regard to what they did. There's no longer the spirit of defiance, but there is a spirit of willingness to acknowledge their wrong and say, I'm sorry, I should not have done that. Will you forgive me? Then I would not press it beyond there, except on my knees before God, that the day will come when they say against thee and thee only have I sinned, O Lord.

28:00 All right?

28:02 Yes, Cynthia?

28:17 Yes.

28:22 Mm-hmm. Yes, if you get a, well, again, if the child is trying to go with the blow, he could end up wrenching the back. There are a number of benefits for the knee. For someone who used a hand like I did, it was like in the magnetic resonance imaging with my knee.

28:40 They isolated the knee by putting it in a cuff and making sure that the magnetic field came right down where it's supposed to. Well, when I had the child over my knee, I knew my, I mean, I'd really have to be out of whack not to aim and hit what I'm aiming, whereas the child standing, if he moved one way or another, you could then end up striking them where you didn't want to. And then the second benefit I found, and again, I'm not legislating for others, when they were relaxed over the knee, you had a real good symbol as to whether or not they were fighting the discipline. When you say, come here, place yourself over daddy's knee, you could pretty well tell whether they were fighting against it.

29:21 against it and resisting it. But again, I couldn't legislate and say the Bible says you must take them over your knee, but the Bible does say that we must, in the light of all of these principles, implement a method and a framework of discipline in which we do not, in any legitimate way, indulge in what could be called child abuse, bring unnecessary, even possibility of abusing the child physically. Yes, Howard?

30:02 Mm-hmm.

30:05 Oh, just the general principle that we are not to be excessive, that's all. I mean, that was an entirely different thing. Those stripes were the stripes of corporal punishment for civil misdeeds, and that was to make sure that the person was not abused. So I'd say that just underscores the principle, but I wouldn't press the number.

30:27 I think it would be mixing apples and cabbages to press the number. Yes, Pete? What is abusing the child for?

31:02 Abuse any kind of instrument in our hand. Only in our hand is it used. Just like, you know, when you put out a drink by hand, that can give a prompt to our child that they say, it's the opposite. Mm-hmm.

31:18 Yes, well, with regard to the matter of the hand, it was interesting. Remember I said, you know, I read this, these pontificating experts. Never strike with the hand. The hand is the instrument that gives and strokes and loves, and therefore it will confuse the child.

31:33 Psalm 39, verse 10. Remove thy stroke away from me. I'm consumed by the blow of thy hand. When thou with rebukes dost correct man for iniquity, thou makest his beauty to consume away like a moth.

31:49 So the psalmist knew that the very hand of God that was stretched out to care for him and protect him was the hand, he says, that had afflicted him and brought chastisement upon him. I'm consumed by the blow of thy hand. So I say that we must give liberty for the use of the hand, though other instruments may be wiser in most cases. It certainly was not wiser in mine.

32:16 There were a few instances where I used the belt. But each person, again, must wrestle this through for himself, herself, husband and wife together, and beware of those that make rules that will in any way cause you to be unlike God. If God does not scruple about saying, I strike with my hand, we should not scruple about striking with the hand. If God says, rod, stick, then we should not scruple about rod or stick.

32:48 But again, as Pete has underscored, we need to be wise as serpents in this matter. We had a family years ago that had a third-floor apartment. It was hot. It was an old wood-frame home.

32:59 And in July, in August, in Jersey, it can get terribly sticky. And they kept their windows open and the neighbors heard a child crying one day when they were spanking him. And the next thing they know, they had Dyphus on their doorstep.

33:14 And as I say, I know a pastor friend who had his children taken out of school, taken into a room, and stripped and examined, all because of a bureaucratic wing of Dyphus. So we've got to be very careful and recognize the situation that we find ourselves in. I fully realize that somebody that wants a case on me could take our tapes, which are public domain, and take me to court. Well, I recognize in delivering this stuff, I'm willing.

33:43 As a minister of the gospel, if someone wants to take what I've said in the Church of Jesus Christ in this context and try to throw me into court for it, I'm willing for Christ's sake and truth's sake to do that. And I've weighed that and I've counted the cost. And though I don't anticipate it, it wouldn't shock me if it happened. All right.

Exceptional Use of the Belt and Man-Made Rules

34:03 Anything more now on this matter of the number of spanks? There are a couple of other questions I'd like to press on and answer. Yes.

34:18 Yeah.

34:26 Yes. Well, again, it's a matter of particular circumstances which, given the age of the child, which was not an infant, was a teenager, given the circumstances which were aggravated, not only disobedience to parental directive, but even to civil law, I judge that in that situation an extreme measure was needed in that one instance, and the belt was applied after a full day of lying before God with an open Bible in prayer and fasting. Now, that's the circumstance in which I used the belt. I don't want to go into any more particulars because it would be an invasion of domestic privacy.

35:11 But I'm unashamed to say I used that on one occasion. Now, if anyone wants to take that and go and say, Dr. Martin used the belt and go around whacking an 18-month-old with a belt, God have mercy on them if they haven't heard anything. I mean, I mean, it's somewhat, if someone is that ludicrous and irresponsible, then I have to say, you know, you wonder why God gave them children.

35:34 But all I am saying by using that reference is that we must not allow ourselves to be bound by man-made rules in the application of the principles. We must prayerfully seek the mind of God to apply the biblical principles and use legitimacy. That's what it means. But I'm glad you brought that up, Janet, lest anyone get the idea that I went around with a big, long horse whip, you know, cracking kids' fingers off with it.

36:05 Not at all. That wasn't the case. And it was a case where I was sure that it would land only on the fleshy part of the buttocks. All right?

Question 2: Delegating Disciplinary Authority

36:15 All right, then. One of the questions that I'm sure has relevance for many of you is what guidelines can you give for the delegation to other people? Others of the rod of correction. The question was asked in this manner.

36:32 Should the rod be delegated to school teachers, to responsible friends who babysit our children, three children taken into our home on a regular basis as in babysitting for school children from 3 to 6 p.m. when parents are working? Should we request authority of the rod in having such children in our home?

36:53 Well, as I wrestled with that question, I have to say, and I'm looking at my notes carefully, I am not presently aware of any explicit biblical example with specific reference to the rod of correction being delegated to another person. Now, I'm not saying there are none in the Bible, but as I prayed and my mind just sort of ran over the scriptural materials and I could not come up with a specific example. However, there are some examples of generally delegated parental authority and influence. You have Samuel put under the care of Eli, and his mother would come and visit him once a year, but he is put under the parental as well as the spiritual guidance of Eli. Moses, as a little baby, was taken into Pharaoh's household and in a unique way, Pharaoh's daughter became his surrogate mother. So you have at least those two instances where children in a formative period are placed under a surrogate mother. A parental framework.

37:58 And I would say by argument from analogy that everything, therefore, that is proper for parents in parental role in that kind of a situation would be proper. Now, to this specific question, it seems to me, this is my judgment, that if there is to be any delegation, it must be mutually understood and consented to by both parties. And clearly communicated to the children involved if they're old enough to have it communicated to them. For example, when we would have babysitters in for our children, it was always people whom we had first of all had into our home to see our principles of discipline. Then we would say to them, when we are out, we want you to implement the same principles. That is, when the children were just beginning to coddle and they had the touchies and they were just and felt that anything in sight and within reach was a legitimate object to touch, they saw us teaching them restraint by saying no and spanking the hand with regard to certain issues. And we told them, we want you to implement those same principles.

39:14 Now, we couldn't convey that. The children at times were too young for them to understand that. But we wanted a consistent framework. And it's very interesting how almost invariably they would put the babysitter to test at least one time.

39:28 You know, yes, they would. And then when they saw that the babysitter was going to implement the same standards as mom and dad, there was never a problem. As the children are older, and if you believe that the person could responsibly implement that discipline, then you need to have it fully understood what the limits are and convey that to the children. Say, mommy and daddy have given, you may choose to, and I think you ought to have the children call adults not by their first name, but either miss or misses or if they're close friends, and frequent babysitters, we use the term aunt and uncle so that they learn respect for their superiors.

40:05 But that's just a little aside that we'll come into over here under admonition and instruction. But we would make it plain what the terms were and then the child was comfortable knowing the framework. There were no surprises. On the other hand, you may judge if the babysitter is just a young teenager that it would be inappropriate for them to administer discipline.

40:28 But you make plain then to the children if they're old enough that if you disobey in a given area, marry your babysitter is going to make a note of that and mommy and daddy will discipline you when they come home. So that they know that the canopy of your discipline is over the household even in your absence. Now obviously, with regard to the matter of school, that's a complicated issue. In some situations, it may be a little bit more complicated.

40:58 It may well be appropriate to give surrogate authority if it can be done without defiance of the law, if it can be done discreetly. In most situations, it's not possible to do that. Parents are informed of actions that may warrant discipline. That, as I say, is a very complicated question involving many strands of issues that I would not want to get into at this time.

41:25 And then with reference to the third circumstance, if you are a babysitter for someone else, here again, you would have to have it clearly understood between the parent, yourself, and the child what the framework of transferred and delegated authority to discipline was. So that you knew you were acting with the full approbation of the parent and that the child understood that you were acting on behalf of the parent to provide a consistent framework of discipline and you should never touch anyone else's child without their clear consent. Don't ever, ever do that. Though you may be sorely tempted to, I've had itchy fingers on more than one occasion. And I'm sure those of you involved in teaching in schools have had itching fingers on more than one occasion wanting to spank the nonsense and the foolishness out of the heart of a child. But if you do not have that authority delegated to you, you may not be able to do it. You must not take it upon yourself.

42:30 That's a form of domestic vigilantism. And just as we see things in society that irk us and stir us up and we'd like to become a vigilante and deal with it, we have no authority to do so. Well, you can't become a domestic vigilante. I tell myself that right here on these premises from time to time when I see things in children that make my fingers itch.

42:54 And I say, no, but you're not their daddy. And if I see it enough, I'll come to you as a parent as I've come to some of you and try to point out what in my judgment was an issue that ought to be addressed. All right, any further question on that matter of the transferal of the authority to discipline to others? May I say a word here as a grandparent on behalf of us old-time grandparents?

43:26 It's very, very helpful when the children, say to you, mom and dad, we want you to know that in caring for the kids, all of the principles of discipline that we implement, we want you to consistently follow through with them. And we've told the children this so that they don't think they can get away with something. And it makes it so much easier than if you as a grandparent have to say, well, when we're watching the children or when the children are with us, do we have your permission? Make it easy on your grandparents.

43:58 You take the initiative, and say, we do not want the kids to feel that grandma and grandpa means free for all. No restraints, just a few negative words to mom and dad afterwards. And if ever there were a natural framework for delegating and giving to others that authority, it should be the grandparents if they share the same biblical perspectives. All right, any question now on that matter of surrogate and delegated disciplinary activity?

Question 3: Older Children 'Playing Parent'

44:33 Yes, Mike? No, in fact, I'm glad that, because that's the next question, that one of the questions that came up is what does one do when you have an older child? My oldest child constantly attempts to play parent, correcting, bossing, disciplining younger children. How can I encourage responsibility without overdoing it?

45:09 Well, it seems to me that the Bible is very clear. Ye fathers nurture them. And it must either be the parents themselves or someone who in terms of age and maturity could rightly assume that surrogate role. And unless there were an unusual, I'd say at least a 20-year gap between the oldest and the youngest so that that person could possibly be conceived of as a father or a mother.

45:39 That's why I said in the case of a teacher, in the case of a teenage babysitter, I believe it'd be unwise. They don't have the emotional maturity to administer discipline with all of these biblical principles interacting. But it is not snitching for the older child to point out the fault of a younger child. And boy, if anything we need to go after, it's this mentality.

46:02 If you speak of anyone's fault to another, that's snitching, that's ratting. That isn't snitching or ratting. When Paul says, it was reported unto me by the household of Chloe, there are divisions among you. Was he guilty of ecclesiastical snitching and ratting?

46:18 If so, Paul commended him for it. And how did he know that Yodi and Syntyche were fussing with one another if Epaphroditus didn't tell him when he came with his gift? So he says, I beseech Yodi and Syntyche to be of the same mind in the Lord. He says, you two sisters stop fussing and butting heads with one another so that we need to instruct the older children in how we should treat them.

46:40 Well, responsibly, without being, as the person said, what was the attempt? Correcting, bossing, disciplining. Well, they can also be guilty of this, they're doing this, nitpicking. And we've got to teach them that love covers a multitude of faults.

46:57 And this is how we're training the older children to make a distinction between what is real culpability that ought to be reported and what is a niggling little thing that ought to be overlooked in love. And you can say to the older child, do you want dad to start getting on you for every little thing like you're getting on your sister? And with regard to this questioner, we did this with our children, and I'm thankful my parents did this with us. I was second oldest of the 10, one older sister, and then the rest were younger, is that they constantly reminded us, who's the father?

47:33 Who's the mother? And we were not allowed to take that role, even though we were older in the family, because there's something, you know, something in the rebellion of the human heart that would not only take God's place of authority, it would take a parental place of authority. And we must not permit that. We must teach the child his proper place.

47:52 And I don't believe it would ever be right to confer that ordinarily, unless there were such a large gap between, that in an exceptional case, if the parents were away on an extended trip and leaving the care of the whole household, well, if someone then is old enough and mature enough to have the care of the whole household, then you might be able to delegate to them the responsibility of discipline. Yes. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

48:41 Sure. That's right. That's why, again, on these matters, parental sensitivity and seeking under God to have wisdom to know where each child is at is so crucial, because what in one may be a legitimate, genuine concern, to come to mom or dad for the well-being of that sibling, in another is just feeding this nitpicking, hypercritical, get-at-em attitude, and we have got to have wisdom from God to know which is which and how to deal with both of them. And we may, in the eyes of the child, as Barb brought out earlier in the class, they may, in a surface way, judge us of unfairness.

49:21 Well, we've got to be prepared for that. We've got to be prepared for that. And in all of these things, that's why when I read some of the books and listen to some of the tapes, I've just listened to another eight tapes, and then George McDiarmid's six tapes. So that's 14, 18.

49:41 I've listened to somewhere around 20, 25 different tapes in recent months on child-rearing, and some of them excellent stuff. But some of them, when I think of some of the rules that people would make and impose upon others, I'm astounded. I'm astounded, because it just creates a vicious legalism, and it takes away that sense that every parent ought to have when he faces these matters. Who is sufficient for these things?

50:10 And we're driven to God for wisdom and for discernment in order to deal with each individual situation in terms of the particulars that are only present in that set of circumstances. And if someone sees it in a surface way and tries to take out of that general principles to apply in all cases, that's a form of ethical legalism. And we must not be guilty of the legalistic use of the rock. Well, our time is just about gone.

Conclusion: Seek God First for Wisdom

50:44 In fact, it is gone. It is 1032, so I shouldn't say just about gone. That's an inaccurate statement. It is gone.

50:53 Well. Let me encourage you. Please, in this whole matter now, as I said at the outset, as you seek to implement these biblical principles, when you hit a difficulty, don't immediately confer with another parent, an elder, or an expert. Confer with God.

51:12 Confer with his word. Go back over your notes. Pray them in. Have your senses exercised to discern good and evil.

51:20 Then if you still are at an impasse, that's where you're to seek counsel. From others, whether a more mature brother or sister who's been an effective parent, or whether one of your elders. But don't miss the blessing of having God teach you in answer to prayer and in the exercise of your own faculties before God and under the guidance of the Spirit. Well, let's pray together.

Closing Prayer for Wisdom and Consistent Discipline

51:48 Our Father, we do thank you for our time together this morning. We thank you that we have the scriptures as a lamp unto our feet and a light to our pathway. And O Lord, if in anything said this morning I have not rightly represented your mind in the scriptures, blow upon it and bring it to naught. For we would not be under the tyranny of men's wisdom, but we would know the liberty of the wisdom of Christ as given to us in the scriptures.

52:20 O Lord, you know the many unanswered questions in the hearts of the parents present today. Amen. Amen. And we pray that you'd fulfill your promise that as they ask wisdom of you, that you will grant that wisdom and never upbraid them for their asking.

52:39 We pray that in this place there will be a wise, loving, fair, consistent, Spirit-filled application of corrective discipline, that our children may have their foolishness driven from them, and that the sanctified use of the rod may be blessed of you to delivering their souls from hell and to the impartation of wisdom. O God, may it not be said that our children were left to themselves and eventually then bring shame to their mothers and to their fathers. Have mercy and help us in this awesome task. Amen. Amen. Amen.

53:27 Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.

53:31 Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.

53:35 Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.

53:39 Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.

53:43 Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.

53:47 Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.

53:51 Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.

53:55 Amen. so-called insights and expertise and bring us under the discipline of the word of God in all things. We ask these mercies in Jesus' name. Amen.

54:29 Or if you prefer, you can write us at the Trinity Book Service, Post Office Box 569, Montville, New Jersey 07045.