“Spare the Rod and Spoil the Child”

This is a true scripture (Proverbs 13:24) quoted to cause Christians to believe that they must “spank” or “cause pain” to their children who don’t do the right thing--in many cases to excuse abuse. But it was given under the Old Covenant or Mosaic Law and is not repeated in the New Covenant or its record in the New Testament. It in no way relates to “Fathers do not exasperate your children.” (Ephesians 6:4) or “love believes all things…” (1 Corinthians 13:4-8)

We teach children that hitting is not the way to resolve issues; then we hit them.

While it’s true that a qualification of being an elder is to be one “whose children believe and are not open to the charge of being wild and disobedient”, the same scripture also states that a qualified person is not to be a “striker” (literal Greek translation). (Titus 1:5-7)

When a large child on a playground hits or in other ways hurts a smaller child, what do we call the larger child? Right. A bully. We tell them to go pick on someone their own size. Yet many teach that a man who is five or six times larger than a small child should hit the child when he or she doesn’t live up to expectations.

“Everything That Happens is God’s Will"

“Everything that happens is God’s will because God is sovereign.”

Yes, God is sovereign—ruler of all but that does not mean that everything that comes into our lives is good or from him. The Bible makes it clear that we have an enemy, Satan who would like to “devour” us (1 Peter 5:8) and who comes to “steal, kill and destroy”. (John 10:10) We are to resist the devil and he will flee,” (James 4:7) If the things of the devil are good and God’s perfect will, why is it that we are instructed to resist and “put on the full armor of God” (Ephesians 6:10-18), which includes a shield to “quench the fiery darts of the devil”? We would be resisting God’s will!

No, God in his sovereignty allows these works of the devil to come through so we can fight them off! We’re to fight the devil not people! (Matthew 5:39)!