Welcome to the Further Gospel Podcast, where we provide sound doctrine for everyday people. I'm your host, Kosti Hint, and I've been talking about parenting in this current series and the importance of raising our kids faithfully. We've covered the biblical basics, talked about it being a blueprint, fatherhood, motherhood, gentle parenting fails last time. And now today I want to walk you through how to discipline your children biblically. Now I understand that there are going to be some different views on this, and good Christians may differ here, but we need to think biblically. And I want to challenge your thinking. That's the beauty of these kind of forums. You don't have to agree with everything I say, but I hope it'll challenge you, sharpen you, make you think about certain things, perhaps in a way you didn't before. Now, parents today are more confused about discipline than ever before. We can all agree on that. And based on some of the responses to my last episode on gentle parenting, I do think we have a whole generation of parents who have been poorly taught or are undertaught, or personal experiences have caused them to at least shy away from this type of healthy and sharpening discussion. I know and would understand that there are personal experiences people go through, very unfortunate cases of parental abuse. But my friends, I want to challenge you. Don't let bad experiences alter your desire and your action in doing all you can according to the word of God when it comes to discipline. And that would include challenging, gentle parenting. And so we can still be loving and gentle and gracious in our discipline of children and disciple our children appropriately without ever abusing them or harming them physically in that way. Now, you'll have these kind of two camps that emerge, and I always warn you about the extremes for the gospel as a ministry that aims for balance, even when we don't always agree on certain things or people take issue with one thing. I still want you to try to walk this balance. You end up with one group on this topic who says discipline is harmful and it's abuse of children, and you should never use the rod and there should never be any spanking and all of that. Another group says it's biblical and we have to do it. And yet, within that group, there are those who are angry and violent with their children and they're overly authoritarian, not healthy authority, but they're overly aggressive. And they have a little mini-God complex. They discipline their children with the kind of attitude that says, you know, that's it, I've had enough, or when I'm over it, you know, or you're annoying me. And it's very dogmatic, like a dictatorship. And children grow up walking on eggshells, not a healthy fear or respective parents and a fear of the Lord, but a kind of like, well, who knows what version of mom or dad we're going to get today? Better not upset them. Both groups are making a mess of it all. Meanwhile, you've got exhausted moms and dads that are either left gaslit or confused, wondering, like, am I too harsh? Am I being too soft? Is she right? Is he right? Is the mommy blogger, Instagram influencer, the one that I should listen to? What should I do? What about this? And when the real question is really just what does the Bible actually teach? And here's the reality: every parent is disciplining their children somehow, some way. Even permissive parents are disciplining their children towards something with the discipline of over-permissive parenting. So the question is: are you disciplining and discipling your child in a biblical, loving, wise, gospel-centered way? The culture increasingly views discipline itself as dangerous. And I want to highlight something that is important for you to think about as a discerning Christian. If the culture is up in arms over this, don't you think, just maybe, just maybe, that that type of response is rooted in darkness and the enemy having an agenda to go after our kids, have parents discipline less, kids are out of control, just like he's done with gender ideology and a host of other issues. The culture is making a huge deal about this. And that should give you a clue. Scripture actually views the refusal to discipline as dangerous. There's this well-known passage, maybe you've heard it in Proverbs 13, 24, says, He who withholds the rod hates his son, but he who loves him disciplines him diligently. That's not abuse. That is loving. That's biblical. So today, I want to walk you through three truths about biblical discipline and make a case for this clearly. I want to cover and highlight what discipline is not, and I think that'll help some of you. And then I want to give you kind of a practical how to discipline your children in a loving, gospel-centered way. Maybe you want to break this episode up into a couple of listening sessions. Seek the counsel of a wise, older, biblically minded Christian mentor in your church and in your life. And certainly talk to your pastor. Pastors are always great resources for this when they are biblically faithful. So here we go. Three truths. Number one, biblical discipline is an act of love. Biblical discipline is an act of love. If you're on YouTube when you're watching this, you'll see all these on the screen. If you're listening, I'll walk you through the main points. I'll try to repeat them so you remember them. But if you have your Bible, Hebrews 12, 5 to 11 is a great place to go. If you're driving, working out, cleaning, or you're on the fly, don't worry. As always, I gotcha. I'll read it to you. Hebrews chapter 12, verses 5 to 11. I'm reading in the NASP. It says, And you have forgotten the exhortation, which is addressed to you as sons. My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor faint when you're reproved by him. For those whom the Lord loves, he disciplines. And he scourges every son whom he receives. It is for discipline that you endure. God deals with you as sons, for what son is there whom his father does not discipline? But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children, and not sons. Furthermore, we had earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them. Shall we not much rather be subject to the Father of spirits and live? For they disciplined us for a short time, as seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, so that we may share his holiness. All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful but sorrowful. Yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness. Just a cursory reading of that passage in Hebrews makes it clear. Discipline is a biblical concept, and that even God disciplines us as an act of love. It's not abuse. In fact, it is being disciplined that the Bible says is a sign that you're not an illegitimate child, because a father only disciplines his own children, not anybody else's. And by the way, that's as an aside, a very important point here. I'm only called to discipline my own children. If you're a parent, you're only called to discipline your own children. I don't discipline other people's children. A sign of love for your own is that you discipline them. And therefore, since biblical discipline flows from love, that silences this whole gentle parenting, or I believe gentle parenting, people get caught up on definitions, leads to permissive parenting. It's all fruit from the same root of the same tree. And basically the crowd that says physical discipline is abuse. But it also silences the angry parent who yells at their kid and hits them and whips them when they finally had enough or they just snap. Discipline is rooted in love. And if you truly love your child, you'll discipline them lovingly, consistently, and for their own good. If you really love your child, you're going to lovingly correct them. And you do it with the heart of the father, wanting their best. And really, as parents, we're mediators between them and God. The children are our children, we say, but really they're God's. And so we really have to be honest with ourselves. A parent who never corrects their children, they themselves are selfish and rebellious and they're defiant against God's word. And they will produce children who are selfish, rebellion, and defiant against God's word. And so to not discipline a child might seem more comfortable in the moment, but it's not helping your child. We are abandoning our children to folly if we take this route. Proverbs 22, 15 says, foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child. Parents are called by God to lovingly confront that foolishness before it hardens into lifelong rebellion. And by the way, we approach this the way James Dobson once said: discipline must be built upon love and respect. It's not harshness. It's not what a lot of parents do. They humiliate their children or they create a culture of terror. It's love. A loving parent corrects because sin destroys people. And that's where the culture gets confused when it comes to kids. Many people are interpreting love as the absence of consequences. But your toddler running towards traffic is to be told stop. And love intervenes. And love disciplines when they put themselves in danger or they're defiant and they don't obey. Nobody says, oh, don't crush his spirit. Oh, oh, just let him be in his little circle of self-expression. No. Why are we serious about sin? Why do we look at our children and teach them as the little, cute, sweet, but sinful people that they still are? First time obedience. Delayed obedience is disobedience. You need to obey me right away, the first time. Why? Well, because danger requires action and they can be a danger to themselves. It's not, I disciplined them because they spilt their milk. You discipline them because they were dancing around in the living room just being kids. We'll talk about it more towards the end of the episode when we look at the practical how-to, but you're disciplining for blatant foolishness, not childishness, not kids being kids. And so I want you to really begin the uh to understand the need for discipline and the need for children to be provided boundaries and consequences. And when you begin to understand all of this, you will understand sin is a lot more dangerous than traffic. And you're getting to the heart of the issue, which is sin and disobedience. Truth number two, biblical discipline aims at the heart. That's why I mentioned that. Biblical discipline aims at the heart. Ted Tripp's book, it's called Shepherding a Child's Heart, phenomenal book. It's been such a helpful book in our own parenting journey, countless couples in our church as well, numerous other churches. The book has been around for a long time, and it's a very helpful book. He's got one of the most balanced approaches I've ever seen in a book on parenting. And I think what Ted Tripp does is take us away from kind of the old school, a little more legalistic, heavy-handed type of parenting approach. He also keeps us away from this gentle and permissive kind of parenting approach where we're tiptoeing around our kids and it's a child run home. His entire framework in shepherding a child's heart is that behavior actually flows from the heart, and the heart is attached to worship. And so you have a worship issue, you have a heart issue, and the behavior is just the outworking of that. Jesus said in Luke 6, 45, out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks. And so Ted Tripp kind of makes that his thesis and his catalyst for a lot of his material. And that's important because parents often only address the behavior, like stop it, stop fighting, stop lying, stop hitting, stop doing that, cut it out. No, no, no. That's not how we want to approach it. Biblical parenting is thinking what is happening, why is it happening? What's going on inside my child's heart? Is there a deeper underlying spiritual issue here? Yes. When they're lying or they're hitting or they're stealing toys or they've started a riot in the living room. The root of that is something deeper than just the behavior. Cut it out. You're making us look bad. No. Selfishness, anger, pride, jealousy, rebellion, greed, all of that. That's at the root of sinful behavior. And if you're starting to think, Costi, this is literally the issue with adults, bingo, you got it. It manifests more as adults, but really it started when we were children. All of the issues of life begin in the heart, the issue of sin. The Bible says the heart is the wellspring of life. So what you're doing is not stopping your children from bad behavior. We need to minister to their heart and shepherding their heart to understand, oh, that's why I reacted in anger. It's sin. Oh, that was my pride that caused me to behave that way. Yeah, I need to repent. Oh, that was selfishness that drove me to that. Wow, that was an unrighteous outburst of anger. And now we're realizing what sin is, who God is, why obedience matters, how that will destroy our life and relationships, and how it destroys our family, and how it leads to broken, fractured relationships. You think about even in today's day and age, when you know parents and their kids become estranged, when families are dividing, when they can't get along, when every Thanksgiving is an absolute blow-up, a wrecking ball of destroyed relationships and drama. People are like this with friends. People are like this at work. And you think, what is the deal? Well, the home, the home, it was behavior. It was external. It was, let's be pretty and perfect when everyone's watching. But there was no discipleship of the heart. It's one of the great dangers for me as a pastor with my own home. Things that my wife and I talk about all the time. People say pastors live in a glass house. And so years ago we thought, yep, it's a glass house, look in. We're not perfect. We're on the journey. We should be an example. That's important. You should be growing, absolutely, an example of godliness and purity, love, speech, conduct, all those things. But in the end, Christians, pastors are Christians, modeling even their own need for the gospel. And so in your home and in mine, we're discipling our children, not so that they look good on the outside and underneath they're just hiding it all. No, like our own lives. We need heart work. It's transformation from the inside out. Now, that's why discipline conversations matter. We gotta stop yelling at our kids. Stop it. Apologize to your sister. Say you're sorry. They're like, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Say you forgive her, I forgive you. Say you forgive him, I forgive you. All right, done. Let's do it. That's not biblical discipline. That's not how the conversations go. We want to ask, hey, so when you were attacking him, what what was going through your mind? What's your great fear? What were you concerned about? Why do you think you responded that way? Hey, is that what God calls us to? Is that how we honor Christ? Is that a way to love someone? Do we want to love them by putting them in a headlock and tackling them in the living room because they took your golf ball? No. That may or may not be a real example. I don't know. But in the end, we're talking to our kids about the real issues because now, as they grow into adulthood, what are they going to begin to understand? I react this way because of this. This is sin. That's what I fear. That's pride. That's ego. That's selfishness. That's worry. That's doubt. And I need to trust the Lord. And it begins to help you process these things. You have less conflict, less divided relationships, less destruction, less imploding home lives. And so the goal is not raising externally compliant children who secretly hate authority and, to be honest, have a contempt for their parents. The goal is raising children who understand sin, repentance, forgiveness, truth, grace, and how to discern the deeper issues of their heart. And they grow into adults who can apply those same spiritual skills. So many adults have issues because they were never discipled or disciplined biblically and given the skills needed to deal with their own sin challenges. I want to just highlight one resource that we have for the gospel before I get to truth number three. And it's a parenting series. You can find it on our YouTube channel under playlists. And me and Chris Hamilton, he's an elder from Grace Community Church, wonderful, faithful church. You know, perhaps about the church that John MacArthur pastored for 50 plus years. Chris Hamilton, a dear brother, faithful friend. A couple years back, we got together in California and filmed this series for parents. Chris is a tremendous resource, very mature, godly, he's got children and grandchildren who know the Lord. He's raised godly children, and he walks us through such a biblical approach. And so if you want more, this series is a great catalyst. Go listen to that with your husband or your wife. And we hit a lot of different topics, but biblical discipline is one of them. He's so good on that. Chris Hamilton, great resource. Playlist on our YouTube channel for the gospel, and you'll see it all there under parenting. Truth number three, biblical discipline includes loving physical correction. Now, this is where modern culture becomes deeply uncomfortable, but Christians just need to stand on scripture. The Hebrew word that is used repeatedly in the book of Proverbs, Shabbat, is translated the word rod. Rod. And many modern parenting experts try to reinterpret this idea of the rod or this literal word as just metaphorical. Yeah, it's just, it's just a figurative kind of poetic thing. But the context does not allow that. To those who say the word is just metaphorical, let's just be exegetically honest here and say it can at times be metaphorical. It can. It can speak of authority, rule, tribe, or a scepter. But in the parenting text in the book of Proverbs, it refers to a literal rod used for correction and discipline, not abuse, not brutality. It's not beating on your kids over the head. It's referring to physical correction. And the reason is the way the text laid out, I want to take you to three of them. I'm going to go over to Proverbs 13. You say, Costi, how do I know when the Bible is being metaphorical or figurative, or how do I know when this is literal and this is not? Usually, just like in English grammar, it's kind of obvious. If you say it's raining cats and dogs, it's not literally cats and dogs falling from the sky. If you say, uh, my dog is on the loose, well, there's probably a real dog running around in the street. If you say, uh Costi's, you know, running around the street like a dog on the loose, you know that I'm not a dog on the loose, I'm a man running around my street. All of these things are pretty clear. So it is with uh the book of Proverbs and the Bible. Proverbs 13, 24. Listen to this. He who withholds his rod hates his son. But he who loves him disciplines him diligently. How do you make that metaphor? He who loves him disciplines him diligently. Well, it means he, you know, what? It's there. He who withholds his rod. Well, the rod really just means like consequences and and and boundaries. So he who well, what do you do with the Shabbat? What do you do with that which means an actual rod, uh, a a staff, a real actual object? He who withholds his that's all literal. Rod, that's metaphorical, hates his son. Now his son's probably metaphorical. His son could just refer to a young boy. So, okay, well, that doesn't make any sense. It's all hermeneutical gymnastics. His people try to weave around what God's word says. Another one, Proverbs 22, verse 15. And I know all of the social media scholars are all over these ones and the gentle parenting bloggers whose income relies on mothers scrolling all day and believing what they're saying. And now we have people who have no seminary degree or they do have a seminary degree online making things mean what they want them. This is the same thing when the liberals go get M-divs and they're a master of divinity and start telling your kids that they can pick whatever gender they want, or that all the practicing homosexuals can go to heaven or come to church. And so you get rainbow flags outside of church doors that all starts when we start just making God's word mean whatever it we want it to mean, and we decide because we have letters behind our name, we can decide to change the meaning of the text. Doesn't matter. God's word stands. Proverbs 22, 15. Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child. Quite literal. The rod of discipline, the Shabbat, the physical object of disciplining the child with that object will remove it far from him. This is simple, clear, consistent discipline. Proverbs 23, verses 13 to 14. Another one. Do not hold back discipline from the child. Although you strike him with the rod, he will not die. I mean, this is helpful for parents. Like, oh, I don't want to, you know, get you know, swat him on the bottom kind of thing. I don't want to discipline my child, I don't want to do that with anything, you know, I don't want to hurt. Him. The proverb says, Don't hold back discipline, although you strike him with the rod, with an object, he will not die. You shall strike him with the rod and rescue his soul from Sheol. I mean, that's a reference to hell, to the absence of being with God. You are, and that's the Old Testament kind of idea. We've talked about that in our last series last fall on hell. But just for a moment, the language, you shall strike him with the rod and rescue his soul from Sheol. So you're going to discipline your child. You're going to set boundaries, do it calmly, lovingly, and biblically, and you're going to save their soul from hell. You're going to save him a lot of problems and a lot of issues. You'll train a child up obediently, respecting authority, knowing boundaries. And that child will understand authority and ultimately be pointed to Christ as his savior. Although you strike him with rod, he will not die. These texts destroy the whole, it's only symbolic argument because the parallelism includes physical striking language. You can't decide to switch between metaphor and literal whenever you want. So even if this is uncomfortable for some of you, you break down the word rod and you discover what it was not and what it was. So let me just help you with this. What was the rod? Okay. The rod was not a giant club. It was not a bat. No one's swinging a baseball bat. It wasn't a golf club. It wasn't a weapon. And this was not abusive beating. They weren't beating the kids in the head. They weren't beating them over the back. They weren't smashing them across their arm. This was not what people do violently today. That's horrific. That's unbiblical. That's sin. People should be put in prison. The rod was a shepherd's stick. It was a switch, like a branch, a small staff, or that kind of, you know, thin, thin type of stick. Some scholars say a thin branch used for correction. The reason why, you know, your grandpa or great-grandpa used to get, you know, riled up over what his kids were doing and go, all right, that's it. You go get yourself a switch. That's the concept. It's the same word used for a shepherd's rod in Psalm 23. It's used to describe tribal staffs, instruments of guidance and correction. So biblically speaking, the rod was associated with authority, with guidance, with protection and physical correction. Psalm 23, 4 says, Your rod and your staff, they comfort me. So the idea of the rod and being disciplined actually gives way to comfort and peace. It tells us that the shepherd's rod protected sheep and corrected wandering sheep. That's the biblical imagery. And so we don't dismiss biblical discipline. We don't shy away from proper biblical correction, proper biblical interpretation done lovingly and faithfully, just because some parents have been abusive, or some people offer their gentle or permissive parenting tips as an alternate approach because those ideas are all poor replacements for biblical truth. You just go with what the Bible actually says. And then historically, loving corporal discipline was universally understood across Christian history until actually very recently. The modern rejection of all physical discipline is largely rooted in modern secular psychology and anti-authority ideology, not historical Christianity. And usually the faulty arguments begin with something like, oh, Costi, well, now you're advocating for abuse. Or people say, I followed this ministry, or I love your resources, but I'm out. Like this is the end of my and they're so sensitive and so triggered by all of this, thinking that there's an advocation for abuse. No. It's a fair argument to advocate for the truthful view of scripture, while knowing and submitting to the fact that the Bible never endorses abuse, injury, rage, terror, humiliation, or just uncontrolled anger in the beating of children. The Bible calls for loving, measured, physical discipline administrated calmly by loving, wise, discerning, caring parents. It's not beating your kids. It's not shouting at them in anger. It's not going off because they spilled their milk. It's not having a quick trigger finger with the rod of correction because they've annoyed you after a long day of work, or they were being silly when you were tired. Ginger Hubbard written some great books, does a lot of wonderful things for women and mothers online and through her books and resources. She says, we are not punishing children for being children. We are disciplining them for sinning against God. And so you're looking for real sin and you're disciplining that. You're not beating your kids at all. And you're certainly not swatting them for every little thing they do that bothers you. That is sinful and wrong. And that's an important distinction. Now that helps us see what biblical discipline is not, because many people have experienced sinful parenting, disguised as biblical discipline. And let's be honest, all parents get some things wrong. And some parents have damaged their children through anger and volatility and harshness and intimidation. And by the way, Ephesians 6 is really clear: fathers do not provoke your children to anger. And by the way, disciplining them in anger will lead to angry children. So it can't be anger-driven. Discipline should never be accompanied by emotional explosions and this loss of control. If a parent is out of control, they cannot teach self-control. So you never discipline in rage. In fact, one of the most important things you could ever do is take a little breather, calm down, step away and pray, and then address the issue if you're pretty fired up and riled up as a parent. And if we're honest as parents, sometimes it is best to just hold off. You think, well, Costi, now the kid's going to just think he runs the house. No, he's going to see a parent that understands they're under the authority of God as they administrate their authority over their child. And you want to do what honors the Lord. Your sinful anger only adds to the problem. So we got to keep in mind that children are not ultimately sinning against us per se, even if we're the ones being disobeyed or disrespected. They're sinning against God. That should change the tone of our parenting and our discipline completely. Instead of, you know, you embarrassed me. The issue is you dishonored God. We don't want to dishonor the Lord like that. Christ has called us to love her or him. Christ has called us to share. And that suddenly removes ego from discipline, and it helps parents be careful not to make discipline about their own annoyance, their own pride, their own rules, or even the embarrassment of your child not obeying you and they didn't make you look good in public. And so you punish them. No. Our primary concern is about shepherding souls. Now, when we're talking about genuine biblical discipline, we need to understand some general wisdom here. No discipline should result in bruising, injuring, striking out of rage, or physical domination. Nothing scripture says would ever support the sinful kind of discipline that some children sadly have to endure. Many, many old school Christian parents wisely have avoided using their hands for spanking because hands should primarily be used for communicating love and affection, comfort, safety, and protection. So that may be helpful if some of you have been using your hand to swat your kids. Stop that immediately. Scripture uses the word rod, and that should be an affirmation of this. You don't hit your kids with your hands. You don't put your hands on your kids in a rough way. If you have, you repent and you alter your course of discipline. Your goal is not for your child to twitch from your hand being over them, but to experience basic, consistent, controlled discipline. Choosing the same place, perhaps, as often as possible to talk about these things and to administer discipline. Choosing, of course, the same object, the same tone, the same measured process. And a child then learns another principle we need to think about, which is consistency. Because one of the most frustrating environments for children is unpredictability. Kids should not wonder what version am I getting of dad today? What version will I get of mom? Biblical parenting is clear and steady. It is predictable. Kids should know the rules. What gets disciplined? What doesn't? What gets a talk? What gets a timeout? What gets the rod? You shouldn't be moody and chaotic about your discipline. What gets disciplined one day should not be tolerated the next, and vice versa. To be blunt with you, a lot of inconsistencies with our kids are the result of our own inconsistency with discipline as parents. We gotta get honest, don't we? We've trained them to be what they are. And so, parents, you gotta take ownership. If they're inconsistent with their behavior, it's likely because you're inconsistent with your discipline. Now, how do we discipline our children? Let's get practical here. And let me just give you some clear guidelines to operate by. Number one, discipline, clear defiance. Discipline, clear defiance. Not childishness. We're disciplining foolishness. So when the rebellion is clear, discipline is what should follow. And that's going to include a number of things. You could have direct defiance, just straight at you. You could have lying, hitting, you could have aggression, you could have blatant rebellion, you could have dangerous disobedience. In our home, we talk about this. When disobedience is also leading to danger, like you're endangering your brother or your sister by your behavior, or you know, you tell your child, stop swinging a golf club in that particular area. Your little brother or your little sister is right behind you and they don't care. Um, that's kind of a rule of thumb in our house. So our children do care. You're not allowed, and that would get disciplined. Why? It's dangerous disobedience. You know, I'm just gonna do what I want. No, you're not. You're gonna take somebody's head off with your golf club. Intentional disrespect, even mockery when kids mock their parents and go, Oh, yeah, well, we'll see about that. That that's a that's an avenue to discipline. Unwholesome speech is another one. I'm not advocating the old days where, you know, I grew up, we we were, I was, I'm old enough, I'll kind of give a real uh obvious allusion to my age here. Um, I was in the era where you got your mouth washed up with soap for cussing. You get your mom told you get a bar of soap, and you, your teeth were basically brushed with it. I'm not saying that that is the way that you need to deal with it, but discipline for unwholesome speech should be an absolute. That's clear defiance of God's word and parental authority. Parents, you need to ensure you have the facts straight and use wisdom. So, number two, you need to discipline immediately and calmly. And when I say immediately, I mean you got the facts straight first. Delayed discipline is going to weaken clarity. So we got to address the issues consistently, calmly, and right away. We're not shouting in anger across the house for three hours and then finally just blowing our lid and then disciplining. We're not offering endless warnings. We're we're not saying, you know, well, one more time and that's it. No, children will learn quickly whether parents actually mean what they say and do what they say they're gonna do. They also learn, unfortunately, that if they lie or if they delay, they can get away with more. And then sadly, some children have to endure discipline without the right facts. And because the parent is just flying off the handle and they don't ever slow down and they're not calm, you're never calm enough to get the facts and actually think. So it is immediate, but you're calm and you're clear. So that kind of consistency is going to build security and respect. We get the facts straight and then we move right to it. Number three, explain the sin. You're not, we're not just enforcing these consequences mechanically and like boom, boom, boom, done, done, get out. All right, you're done. Say sorry. No, we talk to our kids. And it's also important to add, they're not disrespecting us if they ask us why or seek to understand. Or you might even say, Do you understand why I'm disciplining you right now? Why are you getting a consequence? That's not gentle or permissive parenting. That's not a child run home. You're ensuring the child understands what they're being disciplined for. Now, maybe they say no and they're just upset. Explain why. Maybe they do understand. Well, that's an important part of the process. We need to explain what God says and why obedience matters. We need to help them understand why what they did is sinful. And by the way, if what they did isn't sin, you probably got to end that process right there and go, you know, I'm sorry. It's unwise what you did. It's not helpful, but um, I'm sorry for bringing you this far. And I'm glad that we made it here. But that's again why you need to confirm the facts before you get to that point. Even young children, they can begin to understand, oh, this is sin. This is disobedience, this is selfishness, this is unkind, this is what repentance looks like. And so you want to be very clear. Explain the why as early as possible so that they understand what gets disciplined and why they're being disciplined. When children get confused and we're inconsistent, you'll get reactive, angry, hurt children who are very confused by your process. Number four, use appropriate consequences. You want to use appropriate consequences. Sometimes it includes loss of privilege. Sometimes it's restitution. You got to pay for something or pay it back. Correction is another one, just verbal correction or bringing order, and sometimes physical discipline. All of this promotes training and boundaries, but consequences have to fit the offense. And our house say, we say the punishment needs to fit the crime. Okay. Parents need to be thoughtful and wise and discerning about this. Not everything is a physical discipline moment. And you also got to think about age and things of that sort. You know, your 14-year-old, your 13-year-old, you know, is not going to be getting discipline the same way that when they were five. It's different. So understand where you are and be thoughtful, be wise, be discerning. Number five, and this is the one not to miss, bring the gospel into the moment. It's the most important part. During and after the conversation, attached to discipline, be sure to pray with them, hug them, restore fellowship, reiterate your love for them and God's love for them, that He forgives and you forgive. And if they don't get directed to Jesus, it's nothing more than behavior modification. We haven't done what's most important for their heart. And so we can't miss on that one as parents. It's not over until the gospel's had the final say. The gospel is what changes the heart. So the discipline moment is actually a discipleship moment. And children should leave that particular situation, understanding the seriousness of sin, but also the grace and forgiveness that God gives to sinners and that Christ saves sinners. And in all of these things, remember to model your own need for the gospel. Parents, we sin. Parents, we need forgiveness. Parents, we need to point our kids to the same Savior that we tell them they need, we need them too. I remember one preacher saying, we're all just beggars, telling the other beggars where to find bread. That's telling people about Jesus, the same Jesus that we need, who we come to poor in spirit. And perhaps that visual helps us with our parenting. And we begin to parent with more humility and more appreciation for the gospel because we ourselves are children of God, beggars who desperately need him. And so we point our children to our great source, the very bread of life. Just like they need him, so do we. We love you. If you're one of our regulars, thanks as always for your prayer, for listening, for watching, for supporting for the gospel. I want to remind you with gratitude that we are 100% donor-supported. We're reaching millions of people every single month around the world. And that is because of God's kindness and grace and faithful friends like you. So thank you. It's not lost on us that the power source behind for the gospel as a ministry is the power of God and Him using faithful partners like you. If you're new with us, you can learn more about for the gospel at forthegospel.org. If you'd like to partner with us financially with a one-time gift or monthly as a gospel patron and receive our impact reports, you can also do that at forthegospel.org. Just click give. I'll be back next Monday with another episode. Keep on living for the gospel.