This last week in the area I live in I was exposed to two events that reemphasize this Bible verse:
Proverbs 13:24 – Those who spare the rod of discipline hate their children. Those who love their children care enough to discipline them.
Now a context. I grew up in the sixties and seventies and graduated from High School in the late 1970s. Schools were allowed to administer corporal punishment. People knew of and feared the paddle. In the High School I attended the paddle was a cricket bat, and I personally experienced its sting twice. Other more so, yet others never met the bat, but it was on display for all to see in the school office. This threat of punishment maintained order. Were there still fights? Yes, but they were few and far between.
This last week though, a day apart two events happened. A young white man was in the lunch line at his school when a group of young black boys approached him and his girlfriend with cellphones out to film the situation. One of the boys then started harassing the young couple. The young white man then knocked a cellphone from the hands of one of the boys. The person who had his phone was knocked away from him then attacked the young man they were bullying. The young white man, a born again Christian, did not retaliate. The boy who did the attacking has been suspended and removed from this school.
The next day at Howard High School of Technology a young black woman was attacked by a group of black girls in the restroom just before school was to start for the day. During the beating the young woman was severely injured and was then pronounced dead once she was transported to the hospital.
Corporal punishment is not allowed in these school or in any other schools that I am aware of. It is obvious that since there is no fear of punishment that people do not mature into mental adulthood even though their bodies do grow into adults.
True adulthood is the understanding that there is consequences for your actions. It is a simple theory that is even shown in science. For every action there is an opposite and equal reaction. If nature, through the input of science, and the Bible know that there is a need for discipline. Why is it humanity desires to remove discipline? Again the answer is simple:
Mark 7:20 – And then he added, “It is what comes from inside that defiles you. 21 For from within, out of a person’s heart, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, 22 adultery, greed, wickedness, deceit, lustful desires, envy, slander, pride, and foolishness. 23 All these vile things come from within; they are what defile you.”
This is why there is not only a need for corporal punishment but the teaching of the Bible. This is why people need to acknowledge there is a God and accept His Son as their Savior who is the Lord Jesus Christ.