How Do Pastors Pick Their Fights?

We need men who know how to disagree without creating division. We need pastors and elders who have enough self-control to avoid needless controversy, and enough courage to move gently and steadily toward conflict.

Not a brawler. 

The 400-year-old King James Version (KJV) translates 1 Timothy 3:2–3 with surprising timelessness. Of the full list of fifteen, this qualification for pastor-elder in the church is one of just five negative traits. Modern translations say “not quarrelsome” (ESV and NIV) or “not . . . pugnacious” (NASB), but here the language of the KJV has endured. Indeed, we know who the brawlers are today, and it doesn’t take much foresight to recognize what a problem it could be to have one as a pastor.

However, a nuance that “not a brawler” may lack is distinguishing between the physical or verbal nature of combat. This is the upside of “not quarrelsome.” In 1 Timothy 3, the physical already has been covered: “not violent but gentle.” What’s left is the temperamental, and especially verbal.

We all know too well, by the war within us, how the flesh of man finds itself relentlessly at odds with the Spirit of God. We want to quarrel when we should make peace, and not ruffle feathers when we should speak up. And in a day in which so many are prone to sharpness online, and niceness face to face, we need leaders who are “not quarrelsome,” and also not afraid to “reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching” (2 Timothy 4:2). We need men who “contend for the faith” (Jude 3) without being contentious. We need pastors who are not brawlers — and yet know when (and how) to say the needful hard word.

10 Things Grandchildren Need to Hear

“For this reason I will not be negligent to remind you always of these things…” (2 Peter 1:12)

Last week all our children were home along with their spouses and our eight grandchildren. We live on a ranch in the mountains so coming home to visit Gramma and Papa is filled with lots of adventures and feeding the animals.

Getting older brings a clarity to what’s important. While we want our grandkids to remember their times on Papa’s farm, we want to leave them with a godly legacy. With this goal in mind, let’s look at 10 things every grandparent should tell their grandchildren.

1. I'm so glad God made you.

Our grandkids are growing up in a world that does not acknowledge God as their Creator, so it’s vital that parents and grandparents regularly remind them how God carefully designed them in their mother’s womb.

Along with knowing God made them, kids need to believe that people important to them are happy they are alive. Too many children struggle with feelings of inadequacy and loneliness. Some act out, some recluse, but few will say, “Hey, when you're too busy to play with me, read to me, or tuck me in at night, I feel like I don’t matter.”

2. I will always listen to you.

If you want to have the privilege of speaking truth to your grandkids, you have to earn that honor by being a good listener. Too many grandparents spend little time in conversations with their grandchildren until they see them making mistakes or choosing a wrong path. If the only time you engage with your grandchild is to correct them or point out what you don’t like about their attitude or attire, don’t be surprised if they’re not interested in listening to your wisdom when they become adolescents or young adults.

3. You are precious.

Jesus Loves the Little Children is the song at the top of my 3-year-old granddaughter’s request list whenever she gets tucked into bed at night. I often bend over and kiss her forehead as I sing, “Red, brown, yellow, black and white, they are precious in His sight” to show her how precious she really is to Jesus and to me.

What Does “Spare the Rod, Spoil the Child” Mean in the Bible?

There is often confusion between this phrase and a biblical Proverb regarding “sparing the rod.” This phrase was actually coined by a 17th-century poet and satirist by the name of Samuel Butler in his poem “Hudibras.” The poems’ main characters, Hudibras and the widow he longs for, are planning to start a love affair, but before the widow commits to it, she asks Hudibras to prove his love for her by committing to twisted acts. The widow then states:

If matrimony and hanging go

By dest’ny, why not whipping too?

What med’cine else can cure the fits

Of lovers when they lose their wits?

Love is a boy by poets stil’d;

Then spare the rod, and spoil the child.

This is night and day compared to the biblical verse containing the phrase “spare the rod.” The term “spoil the child” is not actually in the Bible. What “spare the rod, spoil the child” actually means in reference to biblical guidance is to guide our children in the way they should go. Let’s explore this phrase further in the Bible.

Where is “spare the rod, spoil the child” mentioned in the Bible?

This phrase is most closely associated with Proverbs 13:24. We start to understand the context more as we read in various translations. The King James translation states “He that spareth his rod hateth his son: But he who loves him chasteneth him betimes.” While the New Living Translation reads “Those who spare the rod of discipline hate their children. Those who love their children care enough to discipline them.” In any translation, the intent is disciplining our children in the sense of guiding them in the way they should go. To put it simply, it is to instill in our children right from wrong.

 In the time scripture was written, and even still today, shepherds used various tools to guide their sheep. They use a staff, or a crook, and a rod. The crook is the curved stick you see in cartoon depictions of shepherds. When sheep fall into a pit or lose sight of their flock, they look down. The curved end of the crook is used to pull the sheep’s head back up and guide it in the way it should go. In the same way, the rod is used to guide sheep who begin to splinter away from the flock back together. It can also be used defensively to keep the sheep safe from predators.

This Proverb, as with many proverbs and teachings of Jesus, teaches using a parable. It does not intend for children to be physically punished as the only means of correction. It refers to teaching them through guidance and appropriate discipline. Discipline, according to this PMC article, is about positively influencing behavior in children, not about punishing them. It says, “Discipline allows children to develop self-discipline, and helps them become emotionally and socially mature, secure adults.” It goes on to explain that effective discipline is that which is self-enhancing for the child. Leading children to self-discipline is congruent with Proverbs 22:6, which says, “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.”