What does the Bible say about tough love?

We cannot understand how anyone calling himself a Christian parent can adopt a system of harsh and cruel treatment towards his children. It can only result in making them liars and infidels. They will tell lies to escape the strap. They will despise the religion which stands connected with such inordinate severity. Such treatment as you describe is more worthy of a cruel slavemaster than of a Christian parent. There are cases in which some discipline is necessary, but it should be administered in such a way as to convince the child that it is only for his good and not the fruit of bad temper or of arbitrary severity. The rod should be most reluctantly lifted. It should be the very last resource. In short, the Christian parent should ever keep before him as his model his heavenly Father's dealings with himself. Does He inflict punishment for confessed sin? The thought is blasphemy. He only chastens in love, to make us partakers of His holiness. It grieves Him to have to use the rod. “His soul was grieved for the misery of Israel.” This should be the Christian parent's pattern.

Fathers are to especially guard against being unfair or unduly hard or demanding. This might easily provoke a child to act badly and to be discouraged, so the discipline would fail to fulfill its proper objective, and would only result in the opposite behavior of what the father hoped. We know how easy it is for a father to make a snap judgment when his child has apparently done something wrong, and because he is angry, to punish the child severely. Then he may find out afterward that it was not as serious a matter as he thought, and he knows he has been unfair to the child. His only recourse then is to humbly apologize to his child for this. Let us never discipline in a fit of anger, but seek grace to calmly consider before the Lord what discipline is necessary. For it is true that discipline is sometimes required. The Lord said of Eli that he himself and his house would be judged by God because he had failed to discipline his sons (1 Sam.3:11-13). How often it has been true that children, in later years, have thanked their parents for disciplining them when they needed it! - while many others have sunk into crime and misery because they were never disciplined in youth.

So with the fathers, they are not to provoke or vex their children. Discipline is necessary and good, but, if not itself controlled by love, it may easily become excessive and vexatious to the utter discouragement of the child.

How many parents there are today, even Christian parents, who do not discipline their children according to the Scriptures. They think that it is unkind to punish a child and to correct it, or to give it corporal punishment when necessary. This is of course Freudian philosophy but not Biblical instruction. It is actually a lack of love that does not correct and guide a child when it goes wrong, or when it must be compelled for its own sake.

Then comes the serious question of training, and not merely teaching the young; and the word is, "Withhold not correction from the child." But if he needs chastening for moral delinquency, there must be self-restraint as well as holy resoluteness. He is not to be beaten with a scourge to his great pain or injury, but "with the rod." So beaten, "he shall not die," but live the better. On the other hand, the parent must not shirk pain to natural feeling — "thou shalt beat him with the rod, and shalt deliver his soul from hell." Let the father fear the end of laxity, and look for blessing on a godly beginning.

Solemn passages these, Christian father! Are you going to degrade your own children to "bastards," by training them on the non-punishment principle? Prove that he is your son by — scourging him. It is thus God dealt with you and me. "He scourgeth every son whom He receiveth." And why? Because He loves us, and does love us; "For whom the Lord loveth, He chasteneth." Does "scourging" look like "receiving"? or "chastening" like "loving"? Certainly not in any other relationship, but it is just that which characterises the love of the father for his son. First of all, it is true, came the Father's kisses of welcome; then the "BEST garment" then the ring and the sandals; then the fatted calf, and the music and dancing; and afterwards — the rod. The "rod" does not taste like the "kiss," but the same love that applied the kiss wields the rod. The love that spared not the only begotten Son, but laid the "chastisement of our peace upon Him," Who was the Holy and Spotless One, cannot spare our sinful flesh. Therefore it afflicts the flesh, in order to make the conscience to judge it, and the foolish heart, that had given way to it, return and cling the more closely to the love that applied the rod.

But it must be felt by the child, even whilst under the rod, that it is love that applies the rod. Children's eyes perceive very quickly, and their young hearts feel very acutely, even whilst under chastisement, whether love, or anger and passion, in the parent, applies the rod. In the latter case, the corrective implement will work anything but correction. Wrath provokes wrath. "Fathers, provoke not your children to anger, lest they be discouraged." In such a case, every stroke of the rod will drive the precious object of parental chastisement farther and farther away, and alienate his poor heart from the parent, instead of drawing him nearer to you, as in the case of the chastened boy mentioned above. It is not thus God deals with us, His children, beloved. How important, to learn of Him, Who "is Light" (i.e., "Holy, Holy, Holy,") and Who "is Love," how to show firmness and authority in season, and love in season. And how important, therefore, for a parent, before applying the rod of correction, to look up with an humbled and chastened spirit, before he applies the chastening rod, and ask God, Who giveth liberally and upbraideth not, for the needed wisdom and grace, and that His Spirit of love and of discretion may guide, for His own glory, the father's hand, in applying the bitter rod of correction.

Ephesians 6:4 also says that we should ‘not provoke’ our children ‘to anger’. There are three things that can contribute to this. Firstly, a selfish attitude. If we constantly demand things from our children by saying, ‘Do this quickly’ or ‘Bring me that now’, we virtually treat them as slaves. Such selfish behaviour can provoke and discourage them, as well as lead them to give up trying to please us. Secondly, an uncontrolled temper. If, after a hard day at work when everything seems to have gone wrong, our little boy does something silly at home and we explode, he does not know what has hit him. Why? Because he senses when he should be punished but in this case he asks himself, ‘What did I do wrong?’ He cannot understand why we reacted in this way. We should be mature enough to control our tempers. Thirdly, unreasonable expectations. We cannot expect a two-year-old to do what is normal for a five-year-old. She may try to do it but without success, which will lead her to become frustrated and provoke her to anger. In 1 John 2:12–28 we find three stages of spiritual growth among the children of God: fathers, young men and little children. John addresses them in different ways according to their maturity and experience so let us be wise and bring up our children according to their age and ability.

Ephesians 6:4 reads: "And ye fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and admonition of the Lord." The Greek word for "Do not provoke" is one that is rarely used. The only other place we find it in the New Testament is in Romans 10:19. The noun formed from it is found in Ephesians 4:26, but nowhere else in the New Testament. There it means "Irritation". You have been irritated, and the Lord says: "Let not the sun go down on your irritation." Perhaps the exhortation to the fathers might be rendered: "Ye fathers, do not irritate your children." How easy it is to irritate them. The word is not as strong as to make them angry. Perhaps it includes the teasing that so often we are tempted to indulge in towards our children. Perhaps we think we have a right to do this, and that it is good for them. On the contrary, it is direct disobedience to the Word of God, and will most surely bring a harvest of sorrow. We are to "bring them up." The word translated in this way is used again in Ephesians 5:29; where we read that Christ 'nourishes' the church. We are not to "drive" the children, but "bring" them: and what a difference! We are to bring them up in the "nurture … of the Lord." This word translated 'nurture' literally means 'the rearing of a child.' We find it again in 2 Tim. 3:16, where it is translated "Instruction." There it is the Word of God, the Scriptures, which 'nurture', or 'instruct' us. In Heb. 12:5, 7, 8, 11, we find it again, translated this time: 'chastening.' This includes the disciplinary spankings and other punishments that we are responsible to give our children, and the Scripture tells us that at the time this "does not seem to be a matter of joy, but of grief; but afterwards yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those exercised by it." (Heb. 12:11, New Translation). We are disobeying the Lord when we do not chastise our children, but we have noticed this when speaking of Eli and his sons. But let us bear in mind that to bring our children up in the nurture of the Lord, chastisement is included. This word also includes training, learning, instruction, discipline: each one is most important for the child in its own way, and all included in "nurture." But there is another word. We are to bring them up in the "nurture and admonition of the Lord." The word admonition literally means "Putting in mind." Perhaps most children are forgetful, and part of their training is to put them in mind. What patience is needed for this. Perhaps the word also includes teaching, exhortation, and warning: surely not threatening. All these we must have, but all are to be "of the Lord". And let us remember, never are we to irritate them.

We get another little word for the fathers in Col. 3:21. It is only one line in my Greek Testament: but how much is found in that one line! "The fathers, do not stir up your children, in order that they may not be disheartened." The word for stir up (or, provoke) is found also in 2 Cor. 9:2; not elsewhere in the New Testament. God our Father is the God of all Encouragement, and we are not to do anything that will dishearten, or discourage, our children. Our character towards them is to be the same as our Father's character towards us: Encouragement. May the Lord Himself teach us how to do this according to His will: to imitate (literally: mimic) Him. Eph. 5:1.

When the apostle wrote sternly to the Corinthians commanding them to put away the wicked person from their midst, he said it was "out of much affliction and anguish of heart I wrote unto you with many tears" (II Cor. 2:4). This is the only right spirit in which to exercise discipline.

V. 21. Fathers are to beware lest they assert their authority in an arbitrary way, and thus estrange the child's affection by any unjust punishment; or dishearten the child by needless fault-finding. They are to seek to exhibit that perfect wisdom of Christ, Who knew how to correct His disciples while retaining their affections (Luke 22:24-30).