Read Previous Articles in this Series:

Biblical Exhortations to Dads #1: Imitate Your Heavenly Father
Biblical Exhortations to Dads #2: Love Your Wife and Children
Biblical Exhortations to Dads #3: Lead Your Family
Biblical Exhortations to Dads #4: Provide for Your Family
Biblical Exhortations to Dads #5: Protect Your Family’
Biblical Exhortations to Dads #6: Disciple Your Children

As Christians fathers, we should want to honor God and bless our families in our parenting. But how do we do that?

In this new series of articles, we’ve been reviewing what God has told us in His Word about what He expects from fathers. We’ve been reviewing a list of biblical exhortations for fathers:

1. Imitate Your Heavenly Father
2. Love Your Wife and Children
3. Lead Your Family
4. Provide for Your Family
5. Protect Your Family
6. Disciple Your Children

Let’s look at the next exhortation on our list.

Discipline Your Children

Scripture is clear that we’re all born sinners. That includes your children. Maybe you’re a new parent and you look at your newborn and think, “How can my one-month-old be a sinner? They’re so cute and precious.” Then when your child hits the terrible twos, “Ok—I get it. They’re definitely sinners.”

The truth is that we are all born with sin in our hearts. Our children, no matter how small they are, have unredeemed hearts that are infected with sin. That sin will eventually come out in their behavior. So, in addition to positive, proactive teaching about God and His Word, we need to correct sinful or foolish behavior.

Now, there are many today who would say that parents should never discipline their children. They would say that parents need to come alongside their kids only as coaches or friends and let them express themselves without judgment. They would say that disciplining a child is harmful and unhealthy.

This point of view is prevalent in the “gentle parenting” movement that is popular today. Dr. Becky Kennedy is probably the most famous proponent of this movement. She’s a clinical psychologist who has been called the “millennial parent whisperer.” She’s gained a wide following on Instagram and her reels giving parenting advice have garnered millions of views. She has a book called Good Inside that shares her insights into her parenting philosophy. Here’s one of the opening paragraphs of that book.

Let me share an assumption I have about you and your kids: you are all good inside … And when I say “good inside,” I mean that we all, at our core, are compassionate, loving, and generous. The principle of internal goodness drives all of my work—I hold the belief that kids and parents are good inside, which allows me to be curious about the “why” of their bad behaviors. This curiosity enables me to develop frameworks and strategies that are effective in creating change.^[1]”

Do you see how that contradicts the Bible? The Bible says no one is good inside:

There is none who does good, not even one (Ps 14:3).

The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it? (Jer 17:9)

For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Rom 3:23).

In light of that, it is actually doing our children a disservice to not correct them or to not discipline them for their sin. If we don’t correct sinful or foolish behavior, we’re letting the sin residing in their heart go unchecked. We need to inform our children about what God says about sin and their need for forgiveness.

Scripture is replete with commands for parents to discipline their children; both with verbal correction and with corporal correction such as spankings:

The rod and reproof give wisdom, but a child left to himself brings shame to his mother (Prov 29:15).

Folly is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline drives it far from him (Prov 22:15).

Proverbs 23:13 explicitly says, “Do not withhold discipline from a child.”

Now to be clear, discipline should never be done in anger, but rather in love. Scripture is clear that parents are not to discipline their children in a way that provokes them:

Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord (Eph 6:4).

Discipline should never be excessive and it always needs to be paired with instruction. Discipline and discipleship need to go hand in hand. We need to teach our children what God’s standards are, what the consequences are for breaking those standards, and our need for forgiveness in Christ. Biblical discipline is a gospel opportunity to point your kids to Christ.

Biblical discipline shouldn’t be about retribution. It should be about reconciliation. It’s not merely about correcting their behavior, but showing them how forgiveness is granted and restoration is found.

You may hear people say, “I love my children too much to discipline them.” However, Scripture says something else:

Whoever spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is diligent to discipline him (Prov 13:24).

Refusing to discipline your child is actually not loving to your child at all. The person who loves their child will discipline them, even though it is difficult for the parent. They will discipline their children because they know it is not loving to let them continue in their sin. It is not loving to neglect to show them that disobeying God’s Word has consequences. It is not loving to fail to teach them how to reconcile and restore relationships.

As fathers, you need to discipline your children to show them the consequences of sin and to point them to their need for forgiveness and restoration with God.

NOTES

^[1] Becky Kennedy, Good Inside: A Practical Guide to Resilient Parenting Prioritizing Connection Over Correction (Harper Wave, 2022), 2.