What sort of advice does the Bible offer parents aside from "Spare the Rod, spoil the child"?

Question

Stone disobedient children, burn a Priest's daughter if she messes around, stone your daughter if she isn't a virgin, how to sell your daughter as a slave, the occasional ritual sacrifice, like Japhthah's daughter and Lot getting his daughters pregnant?

I can find passages where a prophet curses a group of children and two bears eat them, and passages where people eat their children during a famine, but nothing at all that sounds like advice from Dr. Spock.

Where is this "Family Values" stuff that the Moral Majority always talks about, because I've read the Bible sixteen times front to back and I can't find it?

Answer 1

Love the child.

The Ol' Hippie Jesus Freak
Grace and Peace
Peg

Answer 2

Nothing about a traditional family as humans view it today.

The family in the Bible, as in the Ancient Near East (ANE) and in the Mediterranean world generally, was patriarchal. What this means primarily is that the cultures through and in which biblical literature was shaped and formed over some 1200 years were basically patriarchal. The tribe and the family were centered in the men in the family, especially the first-born. This is seen in the biblical understandings of a family and its character, the "father's house" (bet 'av), the family (mishpahah), the concept of peoplehood (ha'am), brotherhood, kinship, Levirate marriage, and even the Jubilee laws of redemption of debtors and family land. "Round the man the house groups itself, forming a psychic community, which is stamped by his character. Wives, children, slaves, property are entirely merged in this unity" (Pedersen: 63).

The children of the family or household were not just the father's future through his name, but the continuing existence of one of the twelve sons of Jacob. Without children his major domo, or head household servant, who was often an alien like Eliezer of Damascus, would inherit the land (Gen 15). Selection of a spouse was a family affair, and not for the individual alone to decide. The wife had to be found not far removed from his family so as not to introduce disruptive foreign or strange elements into the heritage, as Solomon did with his seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines (1Kgs 11:3). While the wife chosen for an Israelite was not to be alien, incest on the other hand was to be avoided. Incest and homosexuality were to be shunned because the Hittites and the Canaanites, and other foreigners, engaged in such practices. The prohibition against incest, however, did not preclude marrying half-sisters or half-brothers; and intermarriage with Canaanites and other peoples occurred frequently, as can be seen in the Book of Judges and elsewhere.

The man was at the center of the family and the woman his partner in assuring continuity (Wright). In a patriarchal society a woman was basically a regenerative-sexual being. (Please don't moralize yeti) It was the man's family she was committed to multiply when getting married. Everything was grouped around the man as the heir of the patriarch Jacob before him (hence the very term, patriarchal). It was his life which was to be continued in the family, and polygamy was practiced to serve that end. And the man could proclaim divorce from a wife if she did not bear children. But the woman who did produce children attained considerable status in the family, even nobility; indeed a foreign slave woman who bore the man children acquired high status.

Answer 3

What Bible have you read sixteen times? What translation? Is it Satanic Bible. I'll give you some verses.
Deuteronomy 6:5-7 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. THese commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.

Proverbs 17:6 Children's children are a crown to the aged and parents are the pride of their children.

Joel 1:3Tell it to your children, and let your children tell it to their children, and their children to the next generation...Read the rest of chaper also.

Proverbs 22:6 Train a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not turn from it.

Proverbs 23:13 Do not withhold discipline from your child...
Proverbs 13:24 He who spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is careful to discipline him.
Proverbs is full of verses, look under child, children and discipline in your concordance to find them all.
Hebrews 12
Matthew 7:11 If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will you Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him. ( this verse is referring to spiritual gifts and God answering prayer)
Ephesians 6:4 Father's do not exasperate your children;instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.
Colossians 3:21 Do not embitter your children, or they will become discourage.
1Timothy 3:4 He must manage his own family well and see that his children obey him with proper respect.
Mark 5:19 ...Go home to your family and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you.
1 Timothy 5:4 But if a widow has children or grandchildren, these should learn first of all to put their religion into practice by caring for their own family and so repaying their parents and grandparents, for this is pleasing to God.
There are many more on "family values"issues on how to love your wife and husband and how to love one another. Use the concordance. These are only a few I could find with what time I have right now. There are many more!! Would love to know what Bible you are reading, or why people like you only pull out what you see as terrible scripture and overlook the good.

Also, there are sooo many references as to how special children are to God, and how he loves and cares for his children and little children. We are supposed to try to be like Christ and follow his example, therefore being the best for our children we can be and loving them like God loves them, and raising them by following God's rules in the Bible.

Answer 4

The moral majority is full of dangerous baloney. They hide behind biblical "absolutes," though they cherry pick what they want to believe, such as anti-gay statements in Leviticus. But they also want to force their personal religion on the remainder of our country, while pretending that they value 'patriotism' and 'support' for our constitution.

But you can't be in favor of America or freedom without respecting our Bill of Rights or separation between church and state. Unfortunately, these fools shove religion into government every day, and pretend that the rights of every state allow them to abridge freedom for ALL Americans (there were recently full abortion bans and anti-cohabitation laws passed in North Dakota, for example).

Not that there isn't baloney on both sides, but look at the Republicans. I would have voted for them over economic issues, but their new game has become "intelligent" design, abortion, and gay marriage.

Where the heck did their brains go? Politics is about the lesser of two evils, and the fundies have led politics astray.

Answer 5

There are a lot of wise passages that pertain to parenting in the book of Proverbs. My favorite is "Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it." This encourages me to help my children to act like good people *now*, so that when they are old, it will be second-nature to be kind and moral.

My other favorite parenting proverb is "A child left to himself will disgrace his mother." This couldn't apply more today, could it? How many "children left to themselves" are out there disgracing their shocked mothers by throwing tantrums, assaulting other children, or just generally embarrasing everyone. This encourages me to pay closer attention to my kids, guiding them into becoming nice little people. It also makes me proud to be a SAHM - I know for a fact that my little ones are not being "left to themselves".

Answer 6

well lets see, Jacob favors one son over his 12 others, and that seemed to cause like 450 years of slavery. I think there might be a lesson there.

If you are going to start out with the opinion that the Bible is worthless, it is no surprise you don't find anything of worth in it.

Answer 7

What a colourful tale! What replaced into your question? in case you have chose my opinion, i think of there's a difference between an open-palm smack on the butt and new child abuse. I artwork retail...yeah your infants are no longer likely to quiet down and behave purely on account which you asked them appropriate, and ignoring them purely makes them scream louder. i replaced into spanked as a new child, and that i did no longer grow to be a serial killer.

Answer 8

See "Evermom's" response. then go back & read again, because Lot's daughters took advantage of his drunken state to get theirselves pregnant. All the misguided things that were done in the name of religion were the result of self-important Jewish leaders who chose to "add" to God's law. Sixteen times, huh? Your Bible must have some pages missing. Try praying for your eyes to be opened before you read the Scriptures again, and I'll pray for you.

Answer 9

You've read the Bible sixteen times? That sounds a bit obsessive.

Answer 10

"Bring up a child in the way in which he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it."
Jesus said" allow the the little children to come unto me."

"Anyone who would mislead these little ones(children) it was better that a millstone was tied around his neck and he be cast into the sea"

Answer 11

Not that I would wish to give support to the bible, but isn't the "rod" a shepherd's rod or crook that was not used to beat but to direct the sheep gently into a safe pathway?