No Discipline Seems Enjoyable At The Time

The ancient proverb says, "Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another." - Pro 27:17 ESV. This is the concept behind discipline. When you come against someone as hardened and strong as you only one of two things follow. You will be changed by that encounter. Either you will be defeated and collapse or you will become sharper and better prepared for the next encounter. Iron does sharpen iron.

Picking up on this, the Hebrews writer speaks about discipline (paideia in Greek). Our heavenly Father loves us and wants us to grow stronger and stronger in our faith convictions. This chapter is devoted to spelling out the Father's understanding of discipline.

For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives." It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. - Hbr 12:6-11 ESV

Notice that our Father both disciplines and scourges us. Jesus was scourged and flogged by the Romans before His crucifixion. Roman scourging was so severe that those crucified often died from it shortly after being crucified. There is another proverb about the LORD treating His children in this manner.

My son, do not despise the LORD's discipline or be weary of his reproof, for the LORD reproves him whom he loves, as a father the son in whom he delights. - Pro 3:11-12

 Here we face the harsh reality of how our LORD (the Lord Jesus as well) deals with us who are His disciples. And it is no fun ! Make no mistake about this. You and I are God's children, reborn and adopted into the family by being baptized into Jesus Christ. But follows now the rest of the journey to the Father's house. Our sinful human nature remains. And it fights against the new life we have received in Christ. Consequently we are disciplined, scourged, reproved and rebuked for sin. As we endure such discipline, at times the Lord seems to be the enemy, coming at us with great hostility. It seems as if He wants to destroy us. We are only a moth to be crushed as we flutter about the light of a candle. We are nothing more than a mere breath, a shadow! The whole enterprise of life seems pointless in those moments. We are spent, exhausted, worn out.

Listen to David as he struggles with the LORD's discipline and consider the emotions behind his words.

"O LORD, make me know my end and what is the measure of my days; let me know how fleeting I am! Behold, you have made my days a few handbreadths, and my lifetime is as nothing before you. Surely all mankind stands as a mere breath!    Selah

Surely a man goes about as a shadow! Surely for nothing they are in turmoil; man heaps up wealth and does not know who will gather! 

"And now, O Lord, for what do I wait? My hope is in you. Deliver me from all my transgressions. Do not make me the scorn of the fool! I am mute; I do not open my mouth, for it is you who have done it. 

Remove your stroke from me; I am spent by the hostility of your hand. When you discipline a man with rebukes for sin, you consume like a moth what is dear to him; surely all mankind is a mere breath!    Selah 

"Hear my prayer, O LORD, and give ear to my cry; hold not your peace at my tears! For I am a sojourner with you, a guest, like all my fathers. Look away from me, that I may smile again, before I depart and am no more!" - Psa 39:4-13 ESV

And yet . . . this is who we are, children of God. The dark nights will come. For some of us they have, again and again and again. And yet . . . as we look back we see. What? What the writer points to: "the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it." The new life in Christ emerges stronger, more vibrant and the old-adam-nature is crushed and destroyed, beaten down even if not completely destroyed.

I can tell you no more than this. Do not throw away your faith. Only darkness and despair await if you do. Struggle, wrestle, scream, cry out, demand, pray, shout, but persist. We are Israelites after all. The story of Jacob's encounter with the LORD is ours. And from that encounter Jacob emerged as a changed man (Gen. 32:24-32). 

God Is Treating You As Children When You Are Persecuted

It is becoming more and more difficult to be a Christian. That's not to say that this difficulty is the same in every country. Since I live in the U.S.A. I can only speak for us in this country. Here the challenge is to deal with hostility in a quite differing manner than in some other places. Here we face what the Hebrews writer calls hostility in a different way than say in a predominately Muslim country. Listen to what he says.

Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted. In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons? "My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by him. For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives." It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. - Hbr 12:3-8 ESV

The Greek language has a unique word for hostility, one used primarily in this letter and once in Jude. The word is anti-logia. It would be what we call contradiction or dispute. The primary manner by which we Christians face hostility here is by indirect contradiction. In other words, much of what we stand for is considered irrelevant or narrow-minded. Plenty of examples of this:

• Christians are anti-scientific. They are the idiots who claim that evolution did not happen when all of the rest of the world knows that it did. These dimwits claim that the world is only about 6,000 years old while all the rest of the scientific world knows that our planet is billions of years old. 

• Christians are anti-scientific in another way as well. They claim that the entire world was once covered with a flood that wiped out all mankind except one family. There is no evidence of this. None! And yet they hold to this silly little concept because their sacred book says something like that. 

• Christians insist on something they call a soul. Now we all know that this is an outmoded concept. We are nothing more and nothing less than biological machines that have evolved along with all other forms of life. And soon the day will come when we will be able to download this biological information into advanced computers, eliminating the need for outmoded human bodies. We won't need then to talk about souls or spirits—a medieval, non-scientific mental construct. 

• Christians insist that their's is the only religion. What nonsense that is. As any thinking person knows, all religions have something to contribute to the mankind's search for meaning and relevance. Consequently what is called for in these modern times is dialogue, open, honest dialogue and respect. Then we'll all learn from one another. 

I could go on and on to talk about how many in the upcoming generations are taught by their teachers and the media to view Christians as quaint and well-meaning at best. Above all they are sidelined in a way that says, "We'll put up with you as long as you don't interfere. But be sure that you stay out of the way. We have far, far more interesting and important things to do." 

This, I suggest, is what much of modern hostility is about. And, if you are a Christian committed to the Lordship of Jesus Christ and the authority of Holy Scriptures you know what I mean. We Christians in the U.S.A. are not hauled into court directly for being Christians and then thrown to the lions. No we have to deal with the lions in our workplaces, in our schools and even in our homes. There we are challenged, mocked and despised and then driven at times to weariness and exhaustion. We get so tired of having to take up yet another confrontation, another dispute. Why, why? 

The Holy Spirit's answer to all this is (in Greek) paideia. This was the whole training and education of children. It was the work of parents, mentors and teachers. It was the task of getting children to use their minds, deal with the challenges of making decisions in the right way. It was the task of correcting them so that when they make a mistake they learn from the mistake, grow from it and become better prepared the next time they face the challenge. This is why the LORD allows us to be attacked, vilified, mocked and despised. It is part of the paideia, the discipline and training the LORD is putting us through so that we might grow up. 

More on this next time. 

The Tragedy of Divorce

As we continue our discussion of the tragedy of divorce one of you writes, 

I have been in a marriage for 28 years and my husband verbally and emotionally abuses me daily. When other people are around his whole demeanor changes and he is attentive to me and speaks highly of me. When we are out of earshot of our friends the verbal abuse begins. He is always angry at me. I am 63 years old now and do not want to be alone, but find myself dreaming of starting a new life away from this mental abuse. What does the Lord teach about a woman divorcing her husband because he does not love her?

Pretense, anger, mockery, contempt, demands, neglect, shouting, physical and mental abuse—over and over and over again. How often have I seen these things, poured upon a marriage partner sometimes by a husband and, yes, sometimes by a wife. Where is love? What indeed does the Lord teach about divorce in such instances? Are these legitimate and proper reasons for divorce? Or, as we have so often heard, is fornication the only ground for divorce? Others have written that malicious desertion with no intent ever to return to the marriage is also a reason for divorce, because by that disertion the marriage has already been broken. In that connection they quote Paul (1 Corinthians 7:15): 

But if the unbelieving partner separates, let it be so. In such cases the brother or sister is not enslaved. God has called you to peace. 

The critical word in the above quote from Paul is peace. What does the Apostle mean to tell us by reminding us that God has called us to peace? The word has its roots in the entire teaching of the Old Testament. Among God's Hebrew speaking people it is called shalom. In its verbal form shalom points to the act of finishing what you started, completing your transaction, paying your debts and making a permanent covenant.


Consider the way the people of Gibeon made peace (shalom) when Israel moved in to conquer the promised land. When the Gibeonites heard what had happened to Jericho and the little town of Ai, they were frightened out of their wits. So they tricked Joshua and the Israelites into thinking they were a group of travelers and "Joshua made peace with them and made a covenant with them, to let them live, and the leaders of the congregation swore to them" (Joshua 9:15). There would be no war or fighting among them. The Gibeonites became servants to the Israelites.


The whole idea of shalom means more than the absence of war, however. It refers to wholeness, harmony, unity, oneness, completeness. This is what God offered to His people after King David's reign. David had been a man of war. Under him Israel had become a mighty nation, but it did not have true shalom. That was to come from David's son, Solomon. His very name meant shalom. He would be a Prince of Peace. The Lord promises, "Behold, a son shall be born to you who shall be a man of rest. I will give him rest from all his surrounding enemies. For his name shall be Solomon, and I will give peace (shalom) and quiet to Israel in his days" (1 Samuel 22:9).


Yet even Solomon could not bring permanent and lasting peace. At best it was rest from all of Israel's enemies. Lasting peace was yet to come in the greater son of David. Solomon was but a type, an example, pointing to what was yet to be. So the prophet Isaiah saw in a prophetic vision the coming of the true Prince of Peace:

For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. (Isaiah 9:6)

This is what the angel proclaimed to the shepherds on the night that Jesus was born: 

"Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!" (Luke 2:14). 

This is what Jesus brought to the earth through His life, death and resurrection. So the Apostle teaches,

"But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility" (Ephesians 2:13-14).

Marriage is to be the earthly sign of that peace, that shalom. Later in his letter the Apostle writes that husbands are to love their wives as Christ loved the church, His body, and gave Himself for her. A man's wife is his body which he feeds, nourishes, protects and cares for. That is his bonded responsibility, his joyful obligation. She and he are one, bound together in this mysterious union that is renewed day by day. In this union we glimpse what is yet to come when Christ presents His bride, His body, the church to His Father on the last day (Ephesians 5:26-33).


It remains yet to answer my correspondent's question, "What does the Lord teach about a woman divorcing her husband because he does not love her?" It seems that your husband has broken the covenant between you. He has built a wall of hostility and hatred between you. You and he are no longer at peace, one in Christ and one with one another. It seems that you are not married and have not been so for quite some time.


Of course, I do not know your husband. I do not know his heart. Nor do I know you. This I do know. Marriage always involves both of you. Things have happened between the two of you. You both have brought your past with you into the marriage and continue to do it daily. For whatever reasons you no longer have a oneness between you. Only mutual sorrow and repentance, plus mutual forgiveness in Christ can truly break down the wall that now divides you. I urge you both to go to your pastor or to a Christian counselor. See if there is any chance, any possibility of shalom in your marriage.


Ultimately—and I speak with deep concern and humility—if your husband persists in building that wall between you, you may have to treat him as the one who has abandoned the marriage, deserted you. No one can stand in your way. God has called us to peace!