In v.29 God accuses Eli of honoring his sons above Him. By failing to discipline, parents dishonor God and cause His blessing to cease upon their household and the generations to come.

We often take Scriptures out of context, resulting in the weakening of its original intent. We should always remember that God’s statement, “Those who honor me I will honor, and those who despise me shall be lightly esteemed” has its original roots in parental discipline! (1 Samuel 2:30)

We read about the tragic end of Eli and his sons in 1 Samuel 4. The ark of God’s presence is taken by the Philistines. Eli’s two sons are slain. When Eli, who is now 98 years old, hears the news that the ark has been taken, he falls backwards off his seat and breaks his neck. His daughter-in-law dies in childbirth and the grandson is named, Ichabod, meaning “The glory has departed from Israel.” Failure to bring godly discipline was the main factor in causing such a tragic end to the man of God called Eli.

In 1 Samuel 8:1-5 we read a similar story about Samuel. When Samuel was old (like his predecessor, Eli) he made his two sons judges over Israel, “But his sons did not walk in his ways; they turned aside after dishonest gain, took bribes, and perverted justice.” We cannot help wonder why Samuel, who had experienced all of Eli’s judgment would allow himself to fall into the same deception. He was indeed a great man of God, except in the area of disciplining his children. Like Eli, he favored his own sons and gave them positions of judges of which they were not worthy. This failure to discipline brought about the tragic change in the future of Israel’s leadership.

When we consider all this we cannot help be concerned for the future of our modern world where child discipline is frowned upon and spoken against. The church, in general, is following the advice of the world – to our detriment. Child abuse must never be tolerated but a good spanking at the appropriate time on the appropriate place never did anybody any harm. On the contrary, it always had and always will do a lot of good. We have many generations from the beginning of man’s creation to prove this truth.

The departure from appropriate godly, loving, firm discipline could very well be one of the greatest failures of our modern civilization. This departure from the strong exhortations throughout God’s Word will not only cause heartache, stress, turmoil and destruction to the individual family unit, but will also bring havoc and destruction throughout our whole society.

Godly discipline builds character. The lack of godly discipline destroys character.

COLIN CAMPBELL

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