Solomons Spanking Hypocrisy

By Patricia BackoraMillions of tiny children live in a prison of spiritual fear because their parents are so eager to find reasons to beat them, in the name of Christ. Proverbs stands alone in commanding children to be beaten. But it also commands: 1. Fools must be beaten with rods (Prov.26:3) If your pastor told an inappropriate joke, would he literally be beaten with a rod or just rebuked?.

2. A fool should get his mouth slapped (Prov.18:6). Do adult Christians practice this on each other?

3. Hold a knife to your throat if you like to eat a lot (Prov.23:2). Many grown preachers do like to eat, as their expanding waistlines testify. Their fork is always in their mouth, never at their throat. 4. Those who disrespect their parents will get their eye picked out and eaten by a bird (Prov.13:17) How many of you have ever had God forgive you for not treating your parents right, while still keeping both your eyes afterward? 5. Thieves shall be required to pay back SEVEN times what they stole, and fork over everything in their house (Prov.6:30-31). If the deacon stole a few dollars from the church till, would the pastor force him to donate all his belongings to the church? Probably not. 6. Simple people who dont have all the answers should get their backs beaten (Prov.10:13). Jesus praised God for revealing His teachings to babes instead of wise men (Matt.11:25; Luke 10:21). Solomon taught that the pursuit of wisdom should be the first priority of a righteous life, but failed to use it himself sometimes, to his own detriment. ST7. Fools should be beaten with a mortar and pestle (Prov.27:22) How often is this enforced in church today? Solomons life left a legacy of cruelty. Solomon wasnt supposed to make slaves of the Israelite people, and technically speaking, he didnt EXACTLY make slaves of them (I Kings 9:22). But he charged back-breaking taxes and oppressed his people to the point of rebellion (2 Chron.10:18; I Kings 12:4). Solomon drafted an army of Israelite men for his building projects (I Kings 5:13-18) and they werent free to turn down the job. Slavery by any other name is still slavery, as taxpayers of the present day know when they spend the first half of the year working just to pay the government. After Solomon died, the people pleaded with his successor, Prince Rehoboam to go easier on them than his dad did. But rough, rude Rehoboam threatened the Israelite people with scorpions instead of the whips his father had used on them (I Kings 12:11). Solomon, praised by spanking advocates and certain Christian family authors as the worlds greatest child rearing expert, departed from God in his later years when his multitude of wives led him astray into idol worship. Some types of idols werent just figurines on a shelf. They were big, nasty, ugly brutes that had to be fed, literal furnaces where you threw LIVING sacrifices into their flame-filled bellies. Solomon built child-eating idols (Molech and Chemosh) to please these heathen women (I Kings 11:7). The Moabites would periodically sacrifice a child or two to Chemosh, their god, to ensure good weather for their crops. Molech was served the same way, and neither god would settle for chickens. Screaming children were literally thrown alive into flames as sacrifices to these satanic gods (Lev.18:21; 20:2). In Israel, Sacrificing your children to Molech was punishable by being stoned to death. But this didnt stop Solomon from sponsoring Molech worship (or worshipping heathen gods himself). So when it comes to dealing with children (or people in general), who should you listen to, Molech-manufacturer Solomon or gentle Jesus? One Israelite Queen Mother lost her position at court because she built just ONE idol in a grove (I Kings 15:13 and 2 Chron.15:16). Solomon wanted to stay on good terms with all his hundreds of fathers-in-law in order to avoid war. So to keep his heathen wives in a good mood, he built all the idols these wicked women wanted. But Solomon stayed in power, even though theres no mention of him ever repenting of this gross sin. Adulterous preachers dont get spanked by other people. Not even when their sins wound God or other believers. Adults who cuss and swear dont get spanked. Adults who gamble away their familys grocery money dont get spanked. Adults who yell abuse at other drivers dont get spanked (though they might get hit if theres a confrontation). Christian adults who get drunk dont get spanked. Yet these same self-righteous hypocrites demand perfection of a tiny child barely out of its mothers womb! Even if a Christian child who is otherwise obedient and blameless accidentally spills his glass of milk, he is in danger of being beaten with the rod as part of his training. What the devil is that kid being trained for, to be a bully? If a child is tired and sulky, or even looks at his parent the wrong way, hes in danger of getting worn out with a switch, paddle, or belt. Why the double standard? Why must every imperfection, every misstep, be answered with such cruel consequences? Dont these misguided parents fear God, and how He might treat THEM if they fail to live up to His expectations? Adults who fan their kids bottom with a holey paddle plead with God to go easy on them because they werent in their right mind or the DEVIL made them do it! Sure those parents hate satan, at least till they find a use for him.Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy (Matt.5:7). The flip side of the coin is this: Unfortunate are the unmerciful, for they shall NOT obtain mercy! The same mercy you deposit in your heavenly bank account is what you can draw on when you foul up and need love and compassion from your own Heavenly Dad. No more, no less.When a child is straying off the straight and narrow, gentle admonition should be tried first. Jesus Himself commanded the disciples to FIRST admonish an erring brother before taking stronger measures to correct the problem (Matt.18:15-17). No mention of spanking the offender (presumably an adult). If he repents at the first, second, or even the third (and last resort) admonition, the problem is solved and he is to be totally forgiven and restored to fellowship. No mention of other church members waiting at the church door with paddles to correct the repentant member! Why should a tiny child be treated more harshly than an adult Christian who sins against his brother? The church at Thyatira had a woman who was teaching Christs servants to do abominable things. Jesus gave her and her followers space (time) to repent before casting her into a sickbed as punishment (Rev.2:20-22). Christian parents dont follow Jesus example in this. They dont give their children space to repent so they can avoid punishment. Instead, they fly off the handle and start hitting before they admonish their children in love and try to win them back to the paths of righteousness. Often, Christian parents will even lose their temper and start beating their child before they even get the full story of what happened! Their authority is at stake if they dont show the kid whos boss! These short-sighted parents are depositing CRUELTY AND FORCE (Ezek.34:4) in their heavenly banks accounts as they act so mean that their child associates them only with fear and tears. And the day will come those parents will reap what they sow. One day when they get old and languish in some nursing home waiting for someone to visit them, their abused children, alienated from the REAL Christ of the Bible, wont give them the time of day.In many cases, parental abuse amounts to a sick power game to exert authority over the smaller and the weaker members of the tribe, not unlike savage treatment jungle apes give each other to establish the pecking order. Other times, the parent is really mad at someone else, or just embittered about how hard life is and so theyll take it out on someone who cant defend themselves! In I Tim.3:3 and Titus 1:7 Paul taught that Christians are not to strike anyone. NO exception is made to allow for the corporal punishment of children. In the Old Testament, where you find the ONLY support for corporal punishment of kids, youll find no such universal ban on believers striking people. Instead, the Old Testament abounds with warriors who shed their enemies blood in battle. Many contend theyll feel guilty and disobedient toward God if they dont spank a child for every offense, just because spanking is mentioned in the Bible. Yet these same hypocrites dont feel guilty for disobeying other Old Testament passages. They dont feel guilty for working on the Sabbath. They dont fear any consequences for eating pork and lobster, both forbidden under the Law. They dont observe ceremonial washings commanded to the Jews. They dont stone non-virgin brides. They dont roast animals on the church altar. Just as Paul warned Christian slaveholders that they also had a Master in heaven to fear (Eph.6:9; Col.4:1), so God warns Christian parents that they also have a Parent in heaven Who is watching their lives to see if His fruits of kindness and mercy are blossoming in their lives as they deal with their own tiny little children. Christians WILL have to give an account of how they raised the most vulnerable members of their family when they finally stand before God (Rom.14:12). Take a warning from the Unmerciful Servant (Matt.18:23-35). That man was forgiven a debt so vastly huge, it was a miracle he got forgiven at all. Then he turns around and bullies somebody else who barely owes anything. If a Christian repeatedly asks Gods forgiveness for REAL sins, and then goes and whips his tiny toddler for making a mess in the kitchen, hes in BIG trouble with his Heavenly Dad. And how does God feel about these so-called experts on the Christian family who push the paddle as THE means of remedying all problems in their childs life? These wolves in sheeps clothing tell their readers (who are ALREADY doing it anyway) wwto hear: that its perfectly fine to whip little babies and toddlers who are barely aware that theyre alive in this world, who only want to be cherished and loved. Children who are trying to find their feet to stand, and only want someone to show them the way. These heartless authors of religious child abuse techniques teach you that babies need to be spanked even before theyre out of diapers. They teach you to use paddles of all sizes, belts, switches, and your hand to strike fear into children of all ages, for each and every gum wrapper that falls on the floor. They teach that all other ways to discipline are forbidden or of the devil because they arent mentioned in Scripture. Then why on earth dont they tell adults that it isnt okay to pay a traffic fine with a Swipe Card, that instead they ought to let some judge spank them with a paddle? Their inconsistency is glaringly obvious. Those child-beating ministers of darkness hide behind the exalted priesthood of the father as a cloak for their sins of abuse and spiritual pride. They insist that the child CANNOT reconcile with a Holy God without the mediation of the dad crying crocodile tears on their behalf. The child is NOT encouraged (allowed) to pray for forgiveness until the father okays it, always AFTER a sufficiently hard beating with the implement of his choice! In his darkened heart, hes afraid God might forgive that child first and wash his sin away (if it WAS a sin instead of an accident). Then hed feel like a lowlife if he was to take a child Jesus had just spring-cleaned inside and beat the stuffing out of him to correct him. By dictating just WHEN Jesus is allowed to forgive the child for wetting his bed or leaving the cap off the toothpaste, the father is trespassing in Gods own territory. What an arrogant airhead! Paul writes in I Tim.2:5 that there is only ONE Mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus. Fathers who tell the child theyve got to wait until their backside is blistered before they pray are really saying, Move over, Jesus, Ill be the mediator, and the paddling hasnt happened yet, so God isnt allowed to forgive this child yet. Nowhere do you read of Temple priests assigned the ministry of paddling offenders. There were teaching priests, priests in the musical ministry, priests who offered up the incense of praise and worship. BUT NO PADDLING PRIESTS! The only mention of paddle in the Bible is something you use for personal sanitation out in the woods (Deut.23:13). Even when corporal punishment was necessary, it was the ELDERS OF THE CITY who would administer the beating (Deut.22:18). In this ONE reference, its an adult man who gets whipped for claiming his wife wasnt a virgin when he married her. The burden of proof is on the accused wife to prove her innocence, and if she cant, she gets stoned to death for playing the whore in her fathers house (verse 21). If the girls father presents scientific proof the girl was intact on her wedding night, her husband gets punished for bringing disgrace on a pre-wedding virgin of Israel. Its all in the Bible! If you insist PART of the Old Law is binding on New Testament believers, then its ALL binding on you (Gal.3:10). And if you dont keep ALL the Law, youre under its curse. Unfortunately, Christians tend to focus ONLY on scriptures that reinforce their own power position in life. Like the unmerciful Pharisees in Matt.23 they neglect mercy and choose meanness. * * * * * *

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