I often think about the time my family visited a church and sat close to a child who was behaving quite badly. Because he was only a couple of rows ahead of us, we could hardly fail to notice that he was sitting neither still nor quiet. It seemed clear that he was old enough to be capable of doing so, but willful enough to choose not to. I saw his father growing more and more impatient until eventually he snapped and took action. He shoved his son into the aisle, then grabbed him by the ear and half-hauled, half-carried him out the back doors.
Parents are rarely at their best when they are being challenged by their children. They are rarely at their best when they are in church or other public settings and their kids act in embarrassing ways. Yet this never gives parents an excuse to mistreat their children or to handle them in inappropriate or undignified ways.
Matthew 18 does not speak specifically to the kind of discipline parents bring to their children, yet it does…