Proverbs parenting?

[Mama2MeadowRose]

NOTE:I have a sincere question and I'm honestly not here to argue, I'll take all/any opinions but I won't argue even if I disagree.

Anyways, my question is this. How do the GCM and AT philosophies explain Proverbs 23:13-14 and Proverbs 13:24?

My little baby girl is only 10 weeks old, but I'm already beginning to try to shape my philosophies for later parenting as well. I really appreciate the forum and it's great to know that other parents share the same philosophies concerning raising infants.

[CarissaJoy]

There are a ton of great resources on this topic if you search on the forum. Also, I invite you to my blog, where I address these issues under the topic "Is Spanking Biblical?" It is good to wrestle with these verses because we need to be confident when we parent that we are parenting by the word of God.

[BarefootBetsy]

I've written 2 posts about this very issue at the blog in my signature. I'm working on a 3rd post, but due to some happenings in my life and now being sick, it's taken me a lot longer than I thought it would I do encourage you to check out the first two. I have a ton of links and dissect each Proverbs "rod" verse, going back to the Hebrew words and what their possible meanings are.

There are a lot of really good posts not written by me on that blog too!

Here's the link to my first Proverbs post and there's a link to the next post there as well. There will be a link to the third eventually too!

http://greenegem.wordpress.com/2010/...art-1-context/

[dulce de leche]

aolff.org has a great breakdown of those verses, too.

[gpsings]

What does the Holy Spirit tell you? Does it make sense to you that a loving God would want you to beat your child with a rod?
I hope this isn't coming across wrong, but I think it's important that we listen to the Holy Spirit when trying to interpret His word. Then we can consider how it's been translated and taught and discern which is right.

[BarefootBetsy]

I have a direct link to AOLFF's article about Proverbs 23 in my Part 2 post. It's a good one, IMO! It's in the section on Proverbs 23.

The third one that I've been working on is about the rest of the Bible and how we are specifically called to behave as Christians and whether or not that lines up with hitting a child. How does hitting someone else show the fruit of the spirit? How does spanking show the love of Christ to our children and to others who witness us hitting them? I believe that the answer is clear... it doesn't! And yet, people take five (FIVE) verses in Proverbs and base an entire parenting philosophy on them even when their interpretation, IMO, contradicts the ways we are specifically told to behave, as Christians, by Christ Himself.

[BriansLovie]

[Nik999]

Thank you to all who took the time to write these things. I listen to some well-known pastors all the time via podcasts. They all insist that the Proverbs teach to spank. It makes me question myself and the speakers because if they're interpreting Scripture wrong about spanking, what else are they wrong about?

[Tengokujin]

It's kinda funny to me that Christians have hyper focused on a couple of Proverbs verses as being about how to raise children, when the WHOLE thing is written to "my son". So many passages about teaching and reasoning with one's child. Beautiful imagery. But then just a couple of verses are taken as "literal"--it doesn't fit with the entirely of the book.

I do think that the issue of spanking being in the Bible is something that most Christians haven't really examined, but have instead just accepted. It's easier to just remember a couple of verses and "do" them, rather than seek out God's heart for children. I think it's a big blind spot in Christendom.

[BarefootBetsy]

Well, it takes a long time to go through even just five verses and figure out what all the main words could mean in Hebrew and look at all the different ways they've been translated in English over the years and puzzle out the various ways they could be interpreted... I can understand why not everyone would want to do that when the "rod" verses have such an established meaning already.

But I'd think that doing such a thing would be something a teacher *should* be doing before they teach about it. It really is disturbing that so few (read: almost none) actually bother to do anything remotely like a word/context study on certain passages (not just these) because they just accept what the popular interpretation is without question. They might do it on other passages where the consensus is a little shakier, but since everyone seems to agree that the rod verses mean spanking... who's going to question it? IMO, until and unless we shake that consensus enough for people to actually need to revisit it, almost nobody will.

[Peridot]

Originally Posted by gpsings

What does the Holy Spirit tell you? Does it make sense to you that a loving God would want you to beat your child with a rod?
I hope this isn't coming across wrong, but I think it's important that we listen to the Holy Spirit when trying to interpret His word. Then we can consider how it's been translated and taught and discern which is right.

When I was spanking Maximus for hitting his newborn brother, I was saying, 'YOu may not hit him just because he doesn't do what you say!'...

a gentle voice whispered, "but that's what YOU are doing"....


There's a reason we feel uneasy when we start spanking. It makes us feel badly, and that's because it is NOT right.

On another note- BareFootBetsy's posts are SO good that a gentleman who is prospanking posted it to his website saying that it was well done and he needed to wrestle with it because there was truth there.

(its in the comments)