7.1-Does the Bible normalize deviance?

7.1-Does the Bible normalize deviance?

Training our families is a top notch job for us.  They need correction in order to deliver to us the comfort and delight we desire.

They need a vision of the kind of life we have in mind for the them. They need no threats but consequences of choices that are carried out without demeaning anger and discouraging words.  This is the discipline of a loving mother and father. 

 

There is a difference in a healthy family and a dysnfunctional family.

Or.

Does the Bible normalize deviance? No.  But it does help us not to be self-righteous and conceited about our our own problems. 

I believe there is such a thing as a healthy family but not a perfect family.

Here are the elements of God’s vision of a healthy family:

-Correction of children done in the spirit of love and kindness.

-A clear vision of what the goals of the parents are for the children.  

- Behavior of the parents that is full of integrity and consistency.

-Removing of the protection from consequences of bad behavior.

-Teaching by experience that discipline can be absorbed and used as growth food.  God disciplines those He loves and healthy parents discipline and train their children whom they love. Discipline is painful for a short time, but the effects of good discipline last for a long time.

-Consistent, honest discipline and good communication builds respect between parents and adult children and among siblings.

-A peaceful life requires training.  A life time of training.

-A person under discipline needs relief from pain from time to time to get the feel of how good it is to be free from painful consequences.  This is a part of the motivation to move forward.  We must be careful not to over-discipline to the point of discouragement.

-Our life as a family is not based on perfection but direction and the mercy and grace of God.

Proverbs 29.

¹⁷ Correct your son, and he will give you comfort;
He will also ^[k]delight your soul.
¹⁸ Where there is no ^[l]vision, the people are unrestrained,
But happy is he who keeps the law.
¹⁹ A slave will not be instructed by words alone;
For though he understands, there will be no response.

Hebrews 12.

⁴ You have not yet resisted ^[d]to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin; ⁵ and you have forgotten the exhortation which is addressed to you as sons,

“My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord,
Nor faint when you are reproved by Him;
⁶ For those whom the Lord loves He disciplines,
And He scourges every son whom He receives.”

⁷ It is for discipline that you endure; God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline? ⁸ But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. ⁹ Furthermore, we had ^[e]earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them; shall we not much rather be subject to the Father of ^[f]spirits, and live? ¹⁰ For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but He disciplines us for our good, so that we may share His holiness. ¹¹ All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.

¹² Therefore, ^[g]strengthen the hands that are weak and the knees that are feeble, ¹³ and make straight paths for your feet, so that the limb which is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed.
¹⁴ Pursue peace with all men, and the sanctification without which no one will see the Lord. ¹⁵ See to it that no one comes short of the grace of God; that no root of bitterness springing up causes trouble, and by it many be defiled; ¹⁶ that there be no immoral or godless person like Esau, who sold his own birthright for a single meal. ¹⁷ For you know that even afterwards, when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place for repentance, though he sought for it with tears.