Why Hebrews 12 Is Not About Spanking Children
Addressing common prooftexts in Christian parenting resources
Second to “the rod” Proverbs, Hebrews 12:4-11 is the most commonly proof texted passage Christian spanking-advocates use to defend the corporal punishment of children. They typically emphasize verse 6: “For those whom the Lord loves He disciplines, and he scourges every son whom He receives” (NASB 1995).
Let’s take a closer look. Hebrews is a book written to the early church during a period of immense suffering and persecution. Hebrews 11, the “Hall of Faith” chapter, closes with visceral descriptions of martyrdom and death. Hebrews 12 opens with this encouragement: The God who raises the dead, who can bring resurrection out of evil and suffering and even death, can use the evil and suffering you endure for your maturation and growth. That is a very different thing than saying God is the author of evil and suffering and inferring, then, that human parents should create suffering in the lives of their children in order to secure desired ends.
Another reason spanking defenders source this passage is because the author refers to human fathers (vv. 4-10). This draws upon a common human experience (everyone was once a child and experienced some kind of father-child relationship) to help people understand something about the God who transcends human experience. It’s important to remember that the point of the passage is not to give parenting tips or to endorse all the ways human fathers have chastised their children. Again, the fact that God can use the evil and suffering Christians endure for their maturation and growth does not mean that parents should inflict evil and suffering on their children.
Parents are not God. The way we read ourselves into biblical passages reveals something about our theological framework. For instance, Christian parents reveal that they believe themselves to be godlike when they read stories in the biblical narrative about God punishing the people of Israel and conclude that they are to assume the role of God and their children are to stand in for the people of Israel. Rather than identify themselves with the gathered people of God, parents end up placing themselves in a position of unquestionable authority. This manner of interpretation also ignores God’s long-suffering and merciful compassion, the extent of the nation of Israel’s collective and long-standing rebellion, and the many prophetic warnings and calls for repentance.
Taking these narrative ideas and transferring them to, say, a parent’s frustration with a toddler’s tantrum, a preschool child’s incapacity to instantly obey or a tween’s attempts to differentiate, as is so often done in Christian parenting books, is problematic both for the way it coopts the biblical narrative to prioritize parental ease and for the way it ignores God’s design that humans grow from immaturity to maturity. Furthermore, rather than recognizing that the challenges of parenting might in fact be an opportunity for the God of Hebrews 12 to cultivate maturity and growth in parents, Christian adults end up placing unrealistic expectations like “first-time obedience,” enforced by spanking, on very young children. Because Hebrews 12 and “the rod” Proverbs are used to bolster the Christian cultural myth that spanking is biblical, many parents end up spanking “on faith.” In some cases, they may see the enforced compliance and the way it solves logistical problems as evidence that it is “working,” an ends-justifies-the-means approach that fails to consider ethical considerations and the long-term implications.
People who spank sometimes highlight the word “scourges” in Hebrews 12:6. “Scourges” is an English translation of the Greek rendering of the original Hebrew, which is a broad term denoting the concept of reproof, correction, or judgment—not spanking. Many people have been so formed by James Dobson’s behaviorist emphasis on “discipline” (and all the Christian parenting teaching downstream of it) that the word “discipline” has come to equal “spanking.” The two have become synonyms. But biblically speaking, “discipline,” includes instruction, training, and, yes, correction, but all of these together sketch a picture of discipleship not behaviorism. Remembering this can help parents see that the choice before them isn’t corporal punishment or doing nothing. It isn’t spanking or permissive parenting (often erroneously referred to as “gentle parenting”). There are many ethical and nonviolent ways to discipline—instruct, train, correct, and disciple—and we have robust evidence to suggest that spanking is destructive (both from adults reflecting back as well as evidence-based data), so the burden of proof really rests on spanking-defenders: Why rely on questionable methods when there are better alternatives? (For instance, Connected Families is a Christian resource I personally recommend to people in my parish; they prioritize connection as the goal of discipleship).
Furthermore, the insistence that Christian parents should primarily reprove or correct by spanking ignores the fact that the early Christians, despite living in a time when religious leaders or other authorities beat people, did not employ corporal punishment as a communal disciplinary practice. It also ignores other biblical passages that use caring parental imagery in the context of reproof—nurturing mother hens (Luke 13:34), fathers who faithfully sustain and rescue (Isa. 46:3-4), fathers who carry their sons (Deut. 1:31), and a parabolic Father who seems uninterested in punishment—something that shocked the religious leaders of Jesus’s day who, like many people who can’t envision parenting without spanking, were upset at the idea that sinners might be let off the hook.
Interpretive choices that instead spotlight painful retributive discipline as an end in itself reveal a view of God as harsh and cruel, swift to mete out punishment, a picture at odds with the long-suffering mercy and compassion that are at the heart of the Christian story. What a strange inversion of Jesus’s description of a generous Father who gives “good gifts to those who ask him” (Matt. 7:11 NIV)!
***
This post is adapted from a downloadable pre-order bonus for The Myth of Good Christian Parenting: How False Promises Betrayed a Generation of Evangelical Families.
***
For further consideration of Hebrews 12:
Does God Spank People?: Hebrews 12, Angry Fathers, and Rewriting God after Our Own Image
Multipart YouTube series exploring this concept more
***
Read what people are saying about The Myth of Good Christian Parenting!
Join me and Kelsey Kramer McGinnis for conversations about the book.
Order your own copy now!
I think that so many very harsh and overly rigid Christian parenting prescriptions stem from the thought that parents should put themselves in the place of God . It’s interesting that some have read those texts and infer that we are to model after him in those aspects. I appreciate the way you articulated this. And I’m enjoying your book!
This is great! And I need that mug. LOL