Listen up, little ones
Listen for the word discipline.
Reading
Hebrews 12:3–11—painful discipline
Optional Reading
2 Chron 36:16–21
Keys for kids
- Spankings hurt.
- Loving parents spank their children because they love them.
- All discipline is intended to help us peacefully obey God.
Questions
- What does God do to the sons he loves?
- What does a godly father do to the sons he loves?
- What does discipline, even though painful, yield?
Notes
Chronicles ends with God sending Judah into exile in Babylon because of their sin. The Bible there says the wrath of the LORD rose against his people, until there was no remedy (2 Ch 36:16). In his righteous wrath, God used the wicked nation of Babylon to punish his people.
Sometimes Christians will say that in the New Testament God never punishes his people, that he only disciplines them. Punishment, it seems in this thinking, is to bring pain while discipline is to bring correction. I’m just not sure that the Bible makes that distinction. God’s punishment, whether in 2 Chronicles 36 or in Hebrews 12 is to bring correction. The writer of Hebrews here in 12:6 quotes Prov 3:11–12 saying that God chastises, punishes, scourges (various English translations) the sons that he loves.
What a wonderful thing it is that God loves us too much to let us go uncorrected in our sin. Even if he brings painful discipline, it is because he loves us. And, in the painful discipline, God has a goal—the peaceful fruit of righteousness in our lives. He disciplines us so that we will live more like the Christians we are—those who are united to Jesus Christ by faith and are being transformed more and more into his image.
Swedish Method questions
Praise
Psalm 78a, 10a
Prayer
- Ask the Lord, when he disciplines you, to bear righteous fruit.
- Pray for a specific application from yesterday's sermons.
- Pray for a member of our church, for your family, and for a non-Christian friend/family member.