How shall we raise our covenant children in the home?

Rod and reproof.

How shall we prepare our children for school?

Rod and reproof.

How shall we ready our children to take up their callings in the world as God’s friends and servants who know him and serve him in every area of life?

Rod and reproof.

How shall the foolishness that is bound in the heart of the child be driven far from him?

Rod and reproof.

How shall the soul of the child be delivered from hell?

Rod and reproof.

How shall the child receive wisdom in his heart?

Rod and reproof.

How do we show utmost love to our children in the covenant and with a view to their salvation?

Rod and reproof.

How shall our children give peace to our souls and be a delight to our eyes?

Rod and reproof.

How shall we be spared the shame of the unruly and rebellious child?

Rod and reproof.

How shall God be glorified, Christ honored, and the Holy Spirit obeyed in the rearing of the covenant seed?

Rod and reproof.

Such indeed is the Spirit’s answer to these questions. Let me prove that. “He that spareth his rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes” (Prov. 13:24). Deepest love for the child is in the rod. Hatred for the child is when the rod is spared. “Chasten thy son while there is hope, and let not thy soul spare for his crying” (19:18). Chasten him before you spoil him, although your deepest natural affection, moved by his crying, tempts you to withhold such profitable correction. What is cute at the age of two is deeply set by age twenty-two and damning at age eighty-two. “Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child; but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him” (22:15). Our dear children have the same natures as we do, but the rod of correction drives foolishness from the heart of the child. Nothing gets to the heart of the child quicker and speaks to that heart more profitably than the rod of correction. “Withhold not correction from the child: for if thou beatest him with the rod, he shall not die. Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and shalt deliver his soul from hell” (23:13–14). A most salutary effect of the rod: a soul delivered from hell! “Correct thy son, and he shall give thee rest; yea, he shall give delight unto thy soul” (29:17). Indeed, the disciplined covenant child grows into the disciplined covenant adult.

Such is the Spirit’s wisdom about raising the covenant seed. Such is the wisdom of Jesus Christ, who is the wisdom that comes into the heart of a covenant child to replace his foolishness. Such is the wisdom of God, our Father, who likewise chastens his own children.

5. And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him:

6. For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.

7. If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not?

8. But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons.

9. Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live?

10. For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure; but he for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness.

11. Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby. (Heb. 12:5–11)

Yes! God disciplines his children so profitably all their lives to the yielding of the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who are exercised by that discipline. And God’s discipline of his children begins in covenant homes by the means of parents to whom he gives the charge to use the rod and reproof.

Proverbs 29:15 is a statement of facts. “The rod and reproof give wisdom…a child left to himself bringeth his mother shame.” These are facts in God’s covenant. God gives wisdom to children through the means of the rod and reproof. God brings shame to parents who—with foolishness of heart and in hatred for their children and to the disturbing of the parents’ own souls—ignore God’s wisdom and God’s facts for the raising of their covenant children.

For the school too! Discipline in the home is essential for instruction in the school. It is not the other way around; discipline in the school is not essential for the home. Discipline in the home is essential for the school. The task and calling to use the rod and reproof fall to the parents in the first instance. Discipline is only delegated to the school. Discipline in the home can be said to be the hinge on which the door of instruction in the school turns. The school is the place of instruction formed by parents for their covenant children. The main task of the school is instruction by teachers who stand in the place of parents.

Parents who send their children to school from the home undisciplined and unprepared to learn at school are unfit to have their children enrolled in the school. Parents whose children are forever disruptive and rebellious are not qualified to enroll their children in the school. For where there is no discipline, there cannot be instruction, and the whole edifice of the school is threatened by unruly and rebellious children sent to the school from disobedient and foolish parents, who have ignored the wisdom and facts of God for the raising of covenant children. “We discipline,” the parents complain. But the proof of the pudding is in the eating. That children will not receive correction from teachers is proof that they are not receiving correction at home. That children come to school with the same rebellious attitudes and disruptive behaviors time and again is proof that correction is not being received in the home. For the lives of children at school are windows into the lives of the children at home. The undisciplined children are the window that allows everyone to see that the home is not Christian. For a home where there is no discipline is an unchristian home. Schools that include such parents cannot long endure as Christian institutions for the instruction of the covenant seed, for such a home will influence the whole school and every student in the school with its rebellious attitudes as the rottenness of the home pervades the attitudes of the institution. Sin that is overlooked and excused in the home will soon be overlooked and excused in the school to the detriment of all the children.

The rod and reproof.

God’s wisdom.

These words of the text are widely disregarded in unbelief today. I speak not only of the world. In the church too this is true. Man would be wiser than God. And thinking himself wise, man becomes a fool, and his children are a shame before the world.

The rod and reproof are scripture’s summary of the will of God for raising the children of the covenant whom he gives to parents. Both the rod and reproof are negative. They aim at the correction of the wayward child. They both imply the positive calling to instruct. Both the rod and reproof are necessary because there has been disobedience to or rebellion against sound instruction. The rod and reproof are mentioned with a reference to instruction because without them there can be no instruction. In the home and in the school, the rod and reproof are the sine qua non of all instruction.

Reproof is the activity of the parent to rebuke the child for disobedience, foolishness, rebellion, or some other errant behavior. In this calling to the parent to reprove the child, the other meaning of the word reproof becomes important. Reproof also means to reason. Reproof, then, is not synonymous with flying off the handle, shouting hysterically, screaming emotionally, or threatening the child. Reproof is the controlled rebuke of the child that aims to bring the child to the knowledge and acknowledgement of his sin, to bring sorrow of heart for that sin, and to correct that errant behavior in the future. Reproof is the very same word that scripture uses for what the believer does when he rebukes his neighbor for some sin. The parent judges that what the child did was wrong, foolish, or sinful. The parent points out that what the child did was wrong and calls the child to repentance for that; the parent demands that the child change his behavior and do what is good and right.

The rod is the instrument used by the parent to chasten the child. Behind that chastisement, then, stands the activity of the parent to discipline the child for his disobedience or continued disobedience of the parent’s instruction and reproof. The fastest way to the heart of the child and the surest way to drive out the foolishness of the child’s heart is the rod. Such is the makeup of our covenant children. Such is the word of God concerning the correction of those covenant children.

Those who suppose that “rod” means the administration of discipline always and absolutely with an actual rod or stick are absurdly rigid in their interpretation of Proverbs 29:15 and similar texts because the meaning of “rod” is not first an instrument of discipline but a symbol of authority. The rod is a scepter, which represents the authority of the parent over the child, both to instruct the child and to administer discipline to the child in harmony with that instruction. The analogy is the sword of the civil government. The sword is figurative for the power and authority of the state to punish a criminal by depriving him of his possessions, his freedom, or his life. So also here. The rod is a symbol of authority that the parents have in the discipline of their children. In the fifth commandment God gave to parents the right to teach and to discipline their children. The matter of the raising of children and especially of their discipline is not a matter of the parents’ might but a matter of the parents’ right that God gave to them.

Second, to reduce the word “rod” absolutely and at all times to a spanking with a stick conflicts with the purpose of wisdom. Wisdom is the use of the best means to achieve the highest end. No doubt the best means includes the stick. Scripture says that parents must smite the child with the rod. The child who will not receive instruction and further will not receive correction is worthy of the rod. The rod is an instrument for the correction of the child, along with negative verbal correction and reproof and positive verbal instruction, to enforce the wisdom of that instruction and correction. No doubt, in many instances there is a physical rod of some sort. There is an instrument that is taken out, used, and then put away. The relationship of the parents and the child is not characterized by that rod, so that the rod is a continual threat that hangs over the relationship. The rod is used, and it is put away. So God also characterizes his relationship with the king of Israel, his son, in 2 Samuel 7:14: “I will be his father, and he shall be my son. If he commit iniquity, I will chasten him with the rod of men, and with the stripes of the children of men.” Men and the children of men were God’s rod to chasten. So there is a stick or an instrument for the chastening of children.

Both the rod and reproof imply that the foundational calling of parents is instruction. The text defines the content of that instruction when it says that “the rod and reproof give wisdom.”

Wisdom is Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ and the truth of Jesus Christ are the content of the instruction of the parents. Wisdom is the whole range of positive instruction and nurture in the fear of Jehovah that is the parents’ responsibility toward their children and which they promise to do for their children when they bring their children for baptism. Parents are to instruct their children in the fear of God through Jesus Christ and to bring them up in the fear and nurture of Jehovah. Parents are to teach their children to know Christ—who he is, what he has done, and what he does yet. Parents are to give to their children the knowledge of God, which is above all things most precious. Parents are to teach their children to be God’s friends and servants in the world according to their baptisms.

That knowledge of Jesus Christ is summarized by the Reformed Form for the Administration of Baptism in the phrase “the aforesaid doctrine.” We promise to teach our children “the aforesaid doctrine.” This promise by the parents is not a promise to raise their children in ways that they see fit. It is not a promise to give to their children a generically Christian or even a nominally Reformed upbringing. This promise is very specifically and carefully defined for the parents. The “aforesaid doctrine” is defined in the baptism form as “contained in the Old and New Testament.” The Old Testament and the New Testament are nothing else than the doctrinal teachings of the truth of God’s promise in Jesus Christ. But since many claim to teach the Bible, the creed defines that doctrine as what is taught “in the articles of the Christian faith”—that is, the doctrine taught in the Apostles’ Creed, the Nicene Creed, and the Athanasian Creed, the ancient creeds of the church, and the doctrine as developed and summarized in the Reformed three forms of unity. And since many claim to be Reformed and Christian without actually being either Reformed or Christian, the baptism form adds, “as taught here in this Christian church” (An Exhortation to the Parents, in Confessions and Church Order, 260). This means that doctrinal content is actually preached and actually believed as the living faith and official confession of this Christian church. It is concretely a Reformed Protestant upbringing.

It must be added that instruction is of that doctrine as it bears on the entire lives of the children, so that the doctrine determines and governs all their instruction in math, science, and reading, and as that doctrine determines their entire lives. Part and parcel of that instruction is the requirement of obedience to the fifth commandment. This is no small part of the children’s upbringing. It is the test of the children’s faith in the truth of the word of God that they obey their parents and submit to their parents’ good instruction and correction. The children from their earliest years are taught the authority of the parents under God to guide the children, and the children are taught the demand of God that they are to obey. The requirement, for instance, that the child eat his dinner is not as such part of the aforesaid doctrine except in this regard that his parent requires it of him. The requirement that the teenager be home by eleven o’clock in the evening is not as such part of the aforesaid doctrine except that his father requires it of him, and God requires the child to obey.

And that instruction is guarded by the rod and reproof so that the instruction, the parents, and the God who requires instruction are not despised.

Rod and reproof. It is not rod or reproof. Neither is it only rod or only reproof. It is not without both the rod and reproof but only so-called positive reinforcement or very mild reminders. It is rod and reproof. This rebukes the thinking that virtually reduces the upbringing of children to corporal discipline. The rod without reproof is only a beating, and reproof without the rod is neglect and empty words. Rod and reproof are necessary because they establish order, without which there cannot be effective instruction. Rod and reproof are necessary because they tame the unruly flesh of children so that they can be instructed. And the rod and reproof remind in a painful way the calling to obedience and are instruments to bring children to repentance.

Rod and reproof imply that parenting is a hands-on work. They imply the parents’ presence. The work is not and cannot be accomplished by a series of rules and regulations, no matter how carefully crafted, however just, and however equitably arranged to substitute for the presence of parents. There are absentee parents who rule their house by rules. There are fathers who are frequently gone from the home for days at a time over many weeks of the year, and their solution for their absenteeism are rules and harsh discipline when they return. Such fathers leave their children to themselves as much as fathers who will not discipline, and the results will be the same.

The rod and reproof are motivated by love. This is implied negatively in the text in the words “a child left to himself.” This refers to the child who is without the rod and reproof and so is left to his own foolishness. One certainly does not love what he abandons. And so love is the motivation for the use of the rod and reproof. The parent who “spareth his rod hateth his son” (Prov. 13:24). The parents’ love out of which they use the rod and reproof is not the natural love of parents for their children. This is clear because the mother who did not use the rod and reproof and upon whom now comes the blame for her child’s unruly and undisciplined life certainly loved her child after a natural manner, and it was her natural love that kept her from using the rod and reproof. She let her soul “spare for his crying” (19:18). The love implied in Proverbs 29:15 is the love of the covenant of grace whereby parents do not abandon their children but embrace and receive them as gifts of God in the covenant and in thankfulness, for the covenant with the parents and their children follows God’s wisdom and God’s facts in his home with his children.

God requires the rod and reproof because the rod and reproof give wisdom. Wisdom as to its content is Jesus Christ. Wisdom as a virtue is the spiritual good sense whereby the believer is able to adapt himself, his thinking, and his whole life to the end of the glory of God and Christ Jesus, God’s son. Wisdom is not basic common sense or even worldly savvy, even though wisdom is both sensible and savvy. But wisdom is fundamentally a spiritual concept and a spiritual virtue. The fear of Jehovah is the beginning of wisdom; and after the wise preacher had searched out all wisdom and cunning things, he concluded that the whole duty of man is to fear God and to keep his commandments.

Wisdom is faith’s application of what it knows. Faith receives the instruction, the reproof, and the correction and adapts one’s life to it. Faith apprehends Christ in all the instruction and in every area of life, and wisdom adapts oneself in every area of life to the truth of Christ.

That the Holy Ghost says that the rod and reproof give wisdom implies the child’s condition by nature. The child naturally is foolish. Indeed, the child’s condition by nature is much worse. By nature the child is not only devoid of wisdom, but he is also immune to sound, spiritual instruction and hostile toward wisdom. Being foolish, the child will profess himself to be wise. Who has not had that experience with a child! The rod and reproof give wisdom. The rod and reproof take the instruction given and see to it that it is not so many empty words.

Now let me make the teaching of the text very simple. Teach your children the truth that is taught in the Reformed Protestant Churches, which is the truth of the word of God and of the Reformed creeds refined, sharpened, and developed through struggle and controversy; teach them that and discipline in light of it, and God will give to the children that truth as their own—that is, God will so work in their hearts and in their minds that they receive that truth, hear it, embrace it, confess it, love it, and die for it.

Do not covenant parents rejoice in that promise of God? Is that not what John said was the greatest joy of parents? They see their children walk in truth.

The rod and reproof give wisdom. That is not the power of the rod and reproof themselves. They are simply instruments. Instruments are always controlled by the purpose of the one who uses them. The rod and reproof give wisdom according to the sovereign working and gracious promise of God in the covenant of grace to believers and their seed.

If I were to discipline with the most tender care a reprobate child, he would not receive wisdom. He would refuse the instruction and hate the correction. If I were to instruct an unbelieving child with the eloquence of the angel Gabriel or with the power of Moses, that child could not hear it. He would not hear it, but he could not hear it because he lacks the ears to hear and the heart to understand. He does not have faith. And he does not have that according to God’s sovereign will. The instruction, the rod, and the reproof would serve only for the driving away of that child from the covenant in which he has no part.

The only way in which the rod and reproof are useful for the child is if God has already worked regeneration and faith in the heart of that child by God’s amazing work of grace and according to his sovereign decree of election.

This is God’s word—indeed, his promise—to covenant parents about the rod and reproof. The rod and reproof give wisdom because God ordained those means and uses those means to give wisdom to his children. Because God elected the children, because Christ died for them and paid for all their sins, and because the Spirit operates in their hearts, the rod and reproof give wisdom.

That speaks to the children for whom chastening is not pleasant but grievous. Jehovah God intends their profit by chastening, even if their parents sinfully go beyond the bounds of what is right and just in the administration of reproof and correction. That is sin on the part of the parents to be repented of and not to be excused. But God uses chastening for the children’s profit. The parents may be evil, yet God uses that chastening for their children’s profit. Especially then is this true regarding the loving, howbeit imperfect, discipline of believing parents. God intends that and works that for the children’s profit to give them wisdom.

Is wisdom then not a vital part of the instruction that parents must give? They are not called merely to administer the rod and reproof but also to teach their children the purpose of the rod and reproof. Parents administer the rod and reproof not because their child embarrassed them, inconvenienced them, or made their lives difficult but for the purpose of giving wisdom.

That God uses the rod and reproof to give wisdom ought to humble parents in thanksgiving. It is not the parents’ excellent administration of the rod and reproof that gives the wisdom. No, parents are rebuked in their many sins, shortcomings, and failings in this regard. It is God’s promise and his work that use these weak means. They are a means, as are the parents, in his grand work of the salvation of believers and their seed.

That ought to comfort parents too. If parents teach their children all those things and the children reject them, then that is the parents’ greatest sorrow, but they can rest in that sorrow in God’s sovereignty and marvel at his works. Parents take comfort that God gives and God withholds, that he has mercy on whom he will have mercy and whom he will he hardens. Blessed be the name of Jehovah. It is of God who gives wisdom according to his eternal and sovereign good pleasure in the line of believers and their seed.

By faith in God’s promise, the mother and the father use the rod and reproof. The use of the rod and reproof is a matter of faith or unbelief. Do the parents believe the word of God that the rod and reproof give wisdom? Do they instead believe the lie of the world, Satan, unbelieving psychologists, and their own flesh that the rod and reproof will injure the child and turn him into an unfeeling monster? It is a matter of faith in the word of God and his promise or unbelief in that word and promise and listening to the word of man, listening to one’s own flesh and one’s own natural desires.

For this is also God’s fact in the covenant: “A child left to himself bringeth his mother to shame.” The text says “mother” not because it is only mothers who are brought to shame, but because it is mothers who are frequently at fault for excessive indulgence, just as fathers are frequently at fault for excessive severity. The fault in view in the text is indulgence by a failure to use the rod and reproof. Leave the child alone, and he will bring his mother to shame.

Further, the text says “mother” because in their most formative years, children are with their mothers far more than they are with their fathers, so that, to change the saying, the hand that rocks the cradle has an enormous influence in the raising of children. God honors the Christian mother here by recognizing the honorable place that he gave to her in the rearing of his children.

The text also exposes the pretension of the mother—parent—who unbelievingly rejects this word of God. “It is not loving,” she says, “to use the rod and reproof.” Perhaps she maligns that as barbaric, old-fashioned, and ineffective. Perhaps she is not so obviously unchristian in her approach to discipline, but she reads many Bible verses to her children, though she never picks up the rod. Perhaps she fights the discipline of her husband and sows dissension in the house. He is always the discipliner; she is always the comforter, and she never tells her children that they got what they had coming to them. The text says that the mother—parent—who will not use the rod and reproof abandons her child. She does the same thing as those mothers who in the old days had babies and left them on a hillside to die. She preens herself as a very good mother; but she is, in fact, no better than if she would abandon the child on a hillside or send the child out of her house to fend for himself on the streets. A mother who abandons her child certainly does not love that child.

And God is not mocked. What you sow is what you reap. The child shall bring the mother to shame. The parent says, “I will use only reproof and not the rod.” That child will bring his mother to shame. The parent says, “I will use only the rod and no reproof,” so that the whole upbringing of the child is virtually only the rod. That child will bring his mother to shame. The mother says, “I will not use the rod,” and like Eli she does not restrain her children.

Understand that shame is the judgment of God upon the parent’s unbelief. It is understandable, of course, that a foolish child left to himself lives foolishly and embarrasses his mother. But there is more. Inasmuch as the giving of wisdom is the work of God, so the foolish child is likewise the judgment of God upon the parent who did not receive God’s word and left that child to himself.

This is not a word directed against the parent for every foolish child. Surely there is the foolish child, the child of the flesh, the Esau in the covenant, who despite all instruction, the rod, and reproof carries on his wicked course of life and is destroyed. Rather, this is the word of God to the parent who left the child alone, who did not administer the rod and reproof because she thought she had a better way. She does not believe God’s word; she supposes herself to be wiser than God; she trusts her own wisdom and not God’s word; or she indulges her own natural love for the child. That will bring her to shame.

The idea of “bringeth his mother to shame” is a kind of public disgrace by events that turn out differently than expected. What goes on in the home is by and large hid from the eyes of fellow saints. The mother did not believe that her poor child needed all that reproof and discipline. She indulged him. She ignored and tolerated his tantrums, his demands, his disobedience, and his rebellion. Oh, probably not entirely! Maybe, like Eli, she gave him a good talking-to or a timeout, read a Bible passage to him, told him that he really had to think about what he did, or gave him what he wanted to make him be quiet. But she never laid hold on him as though God himself came to that child through her in righteous anger and offense at the child’s rebellion. And what goes on in the home is revealed through the child. The foolish child exposes the foolish mother—parent—who did not believe God’s wisdom and God’s facts in the covenant.