Mark,
"Surely you don't think punishment is ever better than love, given an equal outcome?"
Proverbs 14:24 states plainly if you don't punish your son you hate him. If you love him you will punish him.
A cartoon strip called Andy Capp depicted a scene where the main characters wife comes home crying. She claims tearfully that the boy across the street was calling her names again and was throwing rocks at her.
Her husband states he will take care of it. He goes outside, walks right past the offending brat and knocks on the door where he lives.
The dad answers the door and is promptly punched in the beak by Andy.
As he returns home he states "I always go to the source of the problem."
Parents that don't discipline their kids from my experience are always the biggest part of the problem along with their choice of friends (the kids).
I compare much of the disdain that people hold for the word of God and the suggestion that He would punish anyone eternaly with the same dislike that people have for worldly authority.
Consequences are a given. God says come to my Son for redemption or there are consequences, punishment. He warns us in His word so we are without excuse.
If there are no consequences, live as you wish, use whom you may, hurt whomever for your profit. Eat, drink, be merry for tomorrow we die. Just get it right in the next life or the next or the next.....
But the bible says it is appointed unto men once to die and then the judgment. No second chance.
John |
