“Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child; but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him.” Proverbs 22:15
We live in a modern society that believes that this verse is teaching child abuse. To spank your children is considered radical in many areas of the world. And even in some countries, your children can be taken away from you for spanking them. The rod of correction is absolutely biblical used in its proper context.
Let’s review this verse to first see what it is not saying. It is not saying that we should beat our children. This is important to understand. God is our Father and he is the great example of fatherhood and parenthood. God does not correct his children out of anger. He always corrects them out of love. Let that be your first guide: the correction of your children should be done in a calm, loving state of mind. If you are angry and about to correct your child, stop, step back, go into your room, pray, calm down and seek the mind of God for how to handle the situation.
The word child in this verse speaks of a child from the age of infancy until adolescence. In Jewish culture this was until age 13. Next, this verse shows us that children are, by nature, foolish. They say and do foolishness things. Even though that is the case, we do not leave them in that condition. We use the rod of correction to drive foolishness far from them.
Another thing that we notice in this verse is, it is not called the hand of correction, rather the rod of correction. The Bible and I do not recommend you use your hand to spank a child for the very reason that your hand is to be a sign of comfort, not pain. The rod brings pain, not the hand. It is important that when children make foolish decisions, they get pain in exchange for it. Unfortunately, in today’s helicopter parenting approach, children are exonerated from all consequences of their actions. It is critical that children have consequences as a result of their behavior. This is how the world works and it should be how we train our children. It is our duty to train our children, not a school, not the church, but we as parents. We must take the time to teach them the Bible from creation: Noah’s Ark, to Abraham, to the kings to Jesus Christ, the apostles and beyond. It is our duty to teach our children the truths that is in the “Church Ages” book. Read to them, help them learn, teach them how to behave with proper manners and use the rod of correction when they do not obey. Be consistent in your home and how you handle correction. If you correct them every now and then for random reasons they will start to rebel against your arbitrary correction. But when you are consistent, calm, loving in your correction, it will actually draw you closer together.