Scott Aniol, PhD, is Executive Vice President and Editor-in-Chief of G3 Ministries. In addition to his role with G3, Scott is Professor of Pastoral Theology at Grace Bible Theological Seminary in Conway, Arkansas. He lectures around the world in churches, conferences, colleges, and seminaries, and he has authored several books and dozens of articles. You can find more, including publications and speaking itinerary, at www.scottaniol.com. Scott and his wife, Becky, have four children: Caleb, Kate, Christopher, and Caroline.
It's very important that we correct our children when they sin. That's part of what it means to make a disciple. We want our children to know that sin brings consequences and if we withhold the rod, if we spare the rod, we will spoil the child. When I punish my children, especially when they're younger, One of the things I'll often remind them of and teach them is what God said through Moses in Deuteronomy when he told the people of Israel that if you obey me, you will receive blessings and if you disobey me, there will be consequences, there will be punishments. That's one of the greatest lessons to teach our children at an early age.
That's a truism that is going to happen in life. And so when we correct our children with various forms of punishment, In a sense, we're trying to help prevent the worst consequences later in life. We want them to recognize that sin deserves punishment, that sin brings consequences. Now we need to make sure that we are never correcting in anger, that we're never simply lashing out or responding because we're just annoyed or upset. There needs to be an intentionality and that's why we need to see it as part of discipleship.
We want our children to come to faith in Christ, we want to see them grow in maturity and in following Jesus Christ, and so correction and punishment is one of those elements toward that goal. And if we recognize the place of punishment within the broader goal of discipleship, that will give intentionality to it and help us make sure that we're not doing it out of anger. We also need to make sure that the punishment fits the crime, that if it's something more a smaller sin that we're not lashing out in an overreaction. But if it's something particularly an expression of rebellion or lying, something that is very intentional on the part of the child, then we need to make sure again that they recognize the consequence of that, that They feel the pain of it, knowing that sin brings pain. And I'll often tell my children, sin brings pain to God, and sin results in pain for the person who sins.
And this punishment that I'm giving you right now is supposed to help you recognize that and remember that. And hopefully that will help to over time be used by God to teach them those lessons. And then finally, I think it's important that we recognize that the forms of punishment will change as the child grows older. We need to, at a very young age, very swift punishment is usually best to just, again, teach them the lesson that sin brings punishment. But as they grow older we need to take the time to teach them, to disciple them in the midst of the punishment.
The punishment still has to happen, but there needs to be instruction that accompanies that punishment. And then as they grow older, hopefully they get to the stage where there's not necessarily any need for sort of swift pain in punishment any longer, but we're still correcting them. We're still helping them to recognize where perhaps our older children are sinning or maybe moving towards unwise or sinful decisions. If we've started early, then they recognize that sin brings punishment as their older were able to really further disciple them in teaching them the consequences of their actions and really trying to help to instruct them about how to live godly and wise in their decisions. So correction is so important as we see to disciple our children.