Unruly and Rebellious Children

I was doing my daily Bible reading today and I read something that I have read many times and never really thought about before. It is in Dueteronomy and a lot of Deuteronomy is about sacrifices and other laws that I dont think we can follow in today's world. Not that I dont think it applies to us. I think that God is the same yesterday, today and forever. The God of the old testament is still the God of the new testament. I think we are under a new covenant and dont have to follow the law that was given to the Jews. That being said how serious does God take disciplining our children?

If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, which will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother, and that, when they have chastened him, will not hearken unto them:
Then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him, and bring him out unto the elders of his city, and unto the gate of his place;
And they shall say unto the elders of his city, This our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton, and a drunkard.
And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he die: so shalt thou put evil away from among you; and all Israel shall hear, and fear. Dueteronomy 21:18-21

Do I think we should take our rebellious children to the street and stone them? NO! NO! NO!

But I did find it interesting that when the parents could not control the son he was killed so that the evil would be put away.

Can you imagine how this would look today? Does anyone not know at least one family, probably more that have no control over their children?

Now in reading this, I realize that it was probably an older son, but the way I see it the young person did not just become stubborn and rebellious overnight. Also, these parents had come to the end of their rope. They knew what would happen if they took their son before the elders.

Anyways, it just gave me something to think about. We live in a world right now that is so afraid of hurting our children's feelings that we are not disciplining. We are letting them grow to be stubborn and rebellious, glutons and drunkards. All the while we just shake our heads and say, "We did the best we could."

I am reading a great book right now called Boundaries with Kids. Its by Dr. Henry Cloud. I was pleased to see that I was implementing a lot of what he said already, while learning some new stuff, also. See, my husband and I are raising our kids on purpose. We are not of the mind that the kids should raise themselves. While I dont agree with everything in the book, I do agree with the principle surronding it. Make kids take responsibility for their actions and for who they are. I want to expound on this some more in another post. We live in a society where people dont think they should have to be held accountable.

Apparently, God thinks we should.

Anyways, just something I was thinking about.

Be Blessed.