Of Grace and Discipline

Of Grace and Discipline

The reality of grace does not replace the necessity of discipline.

Exodus 21:17

“Whoever curses his father or his mother shall be put to death.”

Mark 7:9-13

Leviticus 20:9

“For anyone who curses his father or his mother shall surely be put to death; he has cursed his father or his mother; his blood is upon him.”

Deuteronomy 21:18-21

“If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey the voice of his father or the voice of his mother, and, though they discipline him, will not listen to them, then his father and his mother shall take hold of him and bring him out to the elders of his city at the gate of the place where he lives, and they shall say to the elders of his city, ‘This our son is stubborn and rebellious; he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton and a drunkard.’ Then all the men of the city shall stone him to death with stones. So you shall purge the evil from your midst, and all Israel shall hear, and fear.”

Exodus 21:15

“Whoever strikes his father or his mother shall be put to death.”

We recall that, in ancient Israel, the people did not yet possess the Spirit of God; deep-seated and lasting heart-change was therefore not as readily possible as in this age of grace (cf. Deut. 5:29; 30:1-10; Ezek. 36:26, 27). While it would have been every parent’s greatest horror to see his child sentenced to death, this rule should probably best be understood as intending to reinforce the previous mandate to fear parents.

No parent could carry punishment of a child all the way to the point of death on his or her authority alone. Such a severe punishment was the decision, first, of the judges of the city, and then of all the men in the community. Types of behavior for which this drastic discipline could be imposed are here clearly spelled out: cursing or striking one’s parents, rebelling against their will, stubbornly refusing to obey, becoming a glutton or a drunkard. Any disobedience or disrespect short of these must be addressed by parents. Children and youth thus had spelled out for them the outside parameters of behavior expected of them by the members of their community.

In our day the equivalent of the death sentence would be separation from the believing community for a season (cf. 1 Cor. 5). Parents might accomplish such a sentence by “grounding” children from their favored activities, and church leaders might do so by prohibiting recalcitrant youth from participating in the activities of their peers within the believing community. We live in an age of grace, but the reality of grace does not replace the necessity of discipline. It simply tempers it.

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In the Gates is a devotional series on the Law of God by Rev. T. M. Moore, editor of the Worldview Church. He serves as dean of the Centurions Program of the Wilberforce Forum and principal of The Fellowship of Ailbe, a spiritual fellowship in the Celtic Christian tradition. He is the author or editor of twenty books, and has contributed chapters to four others. His essays, reviews, articles, papers, and poetry have appeared in dozens of national and international journals, and on a wide range of websites. His most recent books are The Ailbe Psalter and The Ground for Christian Ethics (Waxed Tablet).

Scripture quotations in this article are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, (c) copyright 2001, 2007 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.