discipline

• God sometimes chastens us for our own profit

2:5.3The Cre­ators are the very first to at­tempt to save man from the dis­as­trous re­sults of his fool­ish trans­gres­sion of the di­vine laws. God’s love is by na­ture a fa­therly af­fec­tion; there­fore does he some­times “chas­ten us for our own profit, that we may be par­tak­ers of his ho­li­ness.” Even dur­ing your fiery tri­als re­mem­ber that “in all our af­flic­tions he is af­flicted with us.”

• family members must sometimes share in

3:2.9We are all a part of the fam­ily of God, and we must there­fore some­times share in the fam­ily dis­ci­pline. Many of the acts of God which so dis­turb and con­fuse us are the re­sult of the de­ci­sions and fi­nal rul­ings of all-wis­dom, em­pow­er­ing the Con­joint Ac­tor to ex­e­cute the choos­ing of the in­fal­li­ble will of the in­fi­nite mind, to en­force the de­ci­sions of the per­son­al­ity of per­fec­tion, whose sur­vey, vi­sion, and so­lic­i­tude em­brace the high­est and eter­nal wel­fare of all his vast and far-flung cre­ation.

• errant Melchizedeks purged with correctional rest

35:2.8The Mel­chiz­e­deks are well-nigh per­fect in wis­dom, but they are not in­fal­li­ble in judg­ment. When de­tached and alone on plan­e­tary mis­sions, they have some­times erred in mi­nor mat­ters, that is, they have elected to do cer­tain things which their super­vi­sors did not sub­se­quently ap­prove. Such an er­ror of judg­ment tem­porar­ily dis­qual­i­fies a Mel­chiz­e­dek un­til he goes to Sal­ving­ton and, in au­di­ence with the Cre­ator Son, re­ceives that in­struc­tion which ef­fec­tu­ally purges him of the dishar­mony which caused dis­agree­ment with his fel­lows; and then, fol­low­ing the cor­rec­tional rest, re­in­state­ment to ser­vice en­sues on the third day. But these mi­nor mis­adap­ta­tions in Mel­chiz­e­dek func­tion have rarely oc­curred in Neb­a­don.

• in social groups › social groups may maintain order

43:8.4On the man­sion worlds you com­pleted the uni­fi­ca­tion of the evolv­ing mor­tal per­son­al­ity; on the sys­tem cap­i­tal you at­tained Je­ru­sem cit­i­zen­ship and achieved the will­ing­ness to sub­mit the self to the dis­ci­plines of group ac­tiv­i­ties and co-or­di­nated un­der­tak­ings; but now on the con­stel­la­tion train­ing worlds you are to achieve the real so­cial­iza­tion of your evolv­ing mor­ontia per­son­al­ity. This su­per­nal cul­tural ac­quire­ment con­sists in learn­ing how to:

• of children › favorable

66:7.5The Prince’s staff lived to­gether as fa­thers and moth­ers. True, they had no chil­dren of their own, but the fifty pat­tern homes of Dala­ma­tia never shel­tered less than five hun­dred adopted lit­tle ones as­sem­bled from the su­pe­rior fam­i­lies of the An­donic and San­gik races; many of these chil­dren were or­phans. They were fa­vored with the dis­ci­pline and train­ing of these super­par­ents; and then, af­ter three years in the schools of the Prince (they en­tered from thir­teen to fif­teen), they were el­i­gi­ble for mar­riage and ready to re­ceive their com­mis­sions as emis­saries of the Prince to the needy tribes of their re­spec­tive races.

• Van’s loyalty resulted from disciplined character

67:3.6Through­out the seven cru­cial years of the Cali­gas­tia re­bel­lion, Van was wholly de­voted to the work of min­istry to his loyal army of men, mid­way­ers, and an­gels. The spir­i­tual in­sight and moral stead­fast­ness which en­abled Van to main­tain such an un­shak­able at­ti­tude of loy­alty to the uni­verse gov­ern­ment was the prod­uct of clear think­ing, wise rea­son­ing, log­i­cal judg­ment, sin­cere mo­ti­va­tion, un­selfish pur­pose, in­tel­li­gent loy­alty, ex­pe­ri­en­tial mem­ory, dis­ci­plined char­ac­ter, and the un­ques­tion­ing ded­i­ca­tion of his per­son­al­ity to the do­ing of the will of the Fa­ther in Par­a­dise.

• early war enforced

70:2.41. Im­posed dis­ci­pline, en­forced co-op­er­a­tion.

• of children › begun very early among ancients

84:7.20Among an­cient sav­ages, dis­ci­pline of chil­dren was be­gun very early; and the child early re­al­ized that dis­obe­di­ence meant fail­ure or even death just as it did to the an­i­mals. It is civ­i­liza­tion’s pro­tec­tion of the child from the nat­u­ral con­se­quences of fool­ish con­duct that con­tributes so much to mod­ern in­sub­or­di­na­tion.

84:7.21Es­kimo chil­dren thrive on so lit­tle dis­ci­pline and cor­rec­tion sim­ply be­cause they are nat­u­rally docile lit­tle an­i­mals; the chil­dren of both the red and the yel­low men are al­most equally tractable. But in races con­tain­ing And­ite in­her­i­tance, chil­dren are not so placid; these more imag­i­na­tive and ad­ven­tur­ous youths re­quire more train­ing and dis­ci­pline. Mod­ern prob­lems of child cul­ture are ren­dered in­creas­ingly dif­fi­cult by:

84:7.221. The large de­gree of race mix­ture.

84:7.232. Ar­ti­fi­cial and su­per­fi­cial ed­u­ca­tion.

84:7.243. In­abil­ity of the child to gain cul­ture by im­i­tat­ing par­ents—the par­ents are ab­sent from the fam­ily pic­ture so much of the time.

84:7.25The olden ideas of fam­ily dis­ci­pline were bi­o­logic, grow­ing out of the re­al­iza­tion that par­ents were cre­ators of the child’s be­ing. The ad­vanc­ing ide­als of fam­ily life are lead­ing to the con­cept that bring­ing a child into the world, in­stead of con­fer­ring cer­tain pa­ren­tal rights, en­tails the su­preme re­spon­si­bil­ity of hu­man ex­is­tence.

• few mortals engage in spiritual

110:7.6But with the vast ma­jor­ity of Uran­tians the Ad­juster must pa­tiently await the ar­rival of death de­liv­er­ance; must await the lib­er­a­tion of the emerg­ing soul from the well-nigh com­plete dom­i­na­tion of the en­ergy pat­terns and chem­i­cal forces in­her­ent in your ma­te­rial or­der of ex­is­tence. The chief dif­fi­culty you ex­pe­ri­ence in con­tact­ing with your Ad­justers con­sists in this very in­her­ent ma­te­rial na­ture. So few mor­tals are real thinkers; you do not spir­i­tu­ally de­velop and dis­ci­pline your minds to the point of fa­vor­able li­ai­son with the di­vine Ad­justers. The ear of the hu­man mind is al­most deaf to the spir­i­tual pleas which the Ad­juster trans­lates from the man­i­fold mes­sages of the uni­ver­sal broad­casts of love pro­ceed­ing from the Fa­ther of mer­cies. The Ad­juster finds it al­most im­pos­si­ble to reg­is­ter these in­spir­ing spirit lead­ings in an an­i­mal mind so com­pletely dom­i­nated by the chem­i­cal and elec­tri­cal forces in­her­ent in your phys­i­cal na­tures.

• of children › in Joseph and Mary’s family

123:3.9This year Je­sus made great prog­ress in ad­just­ing his strong feel­ings and vig­or­ous im­pulses to the de­mands of fam­ily co-op­er­a­tion and home dis­ci­pline. Mary was a lov­ing mother but a fairly strict dis­ci­plinar­ian. In many ways, how­ever, Joseph ex­erted the greater con­trol over Je­sus as it was his prac­tice to sit down with the boy and fully ex­plain the real and un­der­ly­ing rea­sons for the ne­ces­sity of dis­ci­plinary cur­tail­ment of per­sonal de­sires in def­er­ence to the wel­fare and tran­quil­lity of the en­tire fam­ily. When the sit­u­a­tion had been ex­plained to Je­sus, he was al­ways in­tel­li­gently and will­ingly co-op­er­a­tive with pa­ren­tal wishes and fam­ily reg­u­la­tions.

• of children › Jesus began early; punishment seldom required

127:4.3Je­sus be­gan wise dis­ci­pline upon his broth­ers and sis­ters at such an early age that lit­tle or no pun­ish­ment was ever re­quired to se­cure their prompt and whole­hearted obe­di­ence. The only ex­cep­tion was Jude, upon whom on sundry oc­ca­sions Je­sus found it nec­es­sary to im­pose penal­ties for his in­frac­tions of the rules of the home. On three oc­ca­sions when it was deemed wise to pun­ish Jude for self-con­fessed and de­lib­er­ate vi­o­la­tions of the fam­ily rules of con­duct, his pun­ish­ment was fixed by the unan­i­mous de­cree of the older chil­dren and was as­sented to by Jude him­self be­fore it was in­flicted.

127:4.4While Je­sus was most me­thod­i­cal and sys­tem­atic in ev­ery­thing he did, there was also in all his ad­min­is­tra­tive rul­ings a re­fresh­ing elas­tic­ity of in­ter­pre­ta­tion and an in­di­vid­u­al­ity of adap­ta­tion that greatly im­pressed all the chil­dren with the spirit of jus­tice which ac­tu­ated their fa­ther-brother. He never ar­bi­trar­ily dis­ci­plined his broth­ers and sis­ters, and such uni­form fair­ness and per­sonal con­sid­er­a­tion greatly en­deared Je­sus to all his fam­ily.

• of children › let compassion be part of all punishment

131:9.4“A wise man is oc­cu­pied with the search for truth, not in seek­ing for a mere liv­ing. To at­tain the per­fec­tion of Heaven is the goal of man. The su­pe­rior man is given to self-ad­just­ment, and he is free from anx­i­ety and fear. God is with you; have no doubt in your heart. Ev­ery good deed has its rec­om­pense. The su­pe­rior man mur­murs not against Heaven nor holds a grudge against men. What you do not like when done to your­self, do not to oth­ers. Let com­pas­sion be a part of all pun­ish­ment; in ev­ery way en­deavor to make pun­ish­ment a bless­ing. Such is the way of Great Heaven. While all crea­tures must die and re­turn to the earth, the spirit of the no­ble man goes forth to be dis­played on high and to as­cend to the glo­ri­ous light of fi­nal bright­ness.”

• of children › punishment as corrective affection

142:2.4Then Je­sus went on to say: “When your chil­dren are very young and im­ma­ture, and when you must chas­tise them, they may re­flect that their fa­ther is an­gry and filled with re­sent­ful wrath. Their im­ma­tu­rity can­not pen­e­trate be­yond the pun­ish­ment to dis­cern the fa­ther’s farsee­ing and cor­rec­tive af­fec­tion. But when these same chil­dren be­come grown-up men and women, would it not be folly for them to cling to these ear­lier and mis­con­ceived no­tions re­gard­ing their fa­ther? As men and women they should now dis­cern their fa­ther’s love in all these early dis­ci­plines. And should not man­kind, as the cen­turies pass, come the bet­ter to un­der­stand the true na­ture and lov­ing char­ac­ter of the Fa­ther in heaven? What profit have you from suc­ces­sive gen­er­a­tions of spir­i­tual il­lu­mi­na­tion if you per­sist in view­ing God as Moses and the proph­ets saw him? I say to you, Ja­cob, un­der the bright light of this hour you should see the Fa­ther as none of those who have gone be­fore ever be­held him. And thus see­ing him, you should re­joice to en­ter the king­dom wherein such a mer­ci­ful Fa­ther rules, and you should seek to have his will of love dom­i­nate your life hence­forth.”

• of children › wise fathers chasten in love for correction

142:7.94. Dis­ci­pline and re­straint. Farsee­ing fa­thers also make pro­vi­sion for the nec­es­sary dis­ci­pline, guid­ance, cor­rec­tion, and some­times re­straint of their young and im­ma­ture off­spring.

• of children › restraint of child’s unwise acts

143:1.4“I have come into this world to do the will of my Fa­ther and to re­veal his lov­ing char­ac­ter to all man­kind. That, my breth­ren, is my mis­sion. And this one thing I will do, re­gard­less of the mis­un­der­stand­ing of my teach­ings by Jews or gen­tiles of this day or of an­other gen­er­a­tion. But you should not over­look the fact that even di­vine love has its se­vere dis­ci­plines. A fa­ther’s love for his son of­ten­times im­pels the fa­ther to re­strain the un­wise acts of his thought­less off­spring. The child does not al­ways com­pre­hend the wise and lov­ing mo­tives of the fa­ther’s re­strain­ing dis­ci­pline. But I de­clare to you that my Fa­ther in Par­a­dise does rule a uni­verse of uni­verses by the com­pelling power of his love. Love is the great­est of all spirit re­al­i­ties. Truth is a lib­er­at­ing rev­e­la­tion, but love is the su­preme re­la­tion­ship. And no mat­ter what blun­ders your fel­low men make in their world man­age­ment of to­day, in an age to come the gospel which I de­clare to you will rule this very world. The ul­ti­mate goal of hu­man prog­ress is the rev­er­ent rec­og­ni­tion of the fa­ther­hood of God and the lov­ing ma­te­ri­al­iza­tion of the broth­er­hood of man.

• whom the Lord loves he corrects

148:5.5“But, Na­than­iel, there is much in the Scrip­tures which would have in­structed you if you had only read with dis­cern­ment. Do you not re­mem­ber that it is writ­ten: ‘My son, de­spise not the chas­ten­ing of the Lord; nei­ther be weary of his cor­rec­tion, for whom the Lord loves he cor­rects, even as the fa­ther cor­rects the son in whom he takes de­light.’ ‘The Lord does not af­flict will­ingly.’ ‘Be­fore I was af­flicted, I went astray, but now do I keep the law. Af­flic­tion was good for me that I might thereby learn the di­vine statutes.’ ‘I know your sor­rows. The eter­nal God is your refuge, while un­der­neath are the ev­er­last­ing arms.’ ‘The Lord also is a refuge for the op­pressed, a haven of rest in times of trou­ble.’ ‘The Lord will strengthen him upon the bed of af­flic­tion; the Lord will not for­get the sick.’ ‘As a fa­ther shows com­pas­sion for his chil­dren, so is the Lord com­pas­sion­ate to those who fear him. He knows your body; he re­mem­bers that you are dust.’ ‘He heals the bro­ken­hearted and binds up their wounds.’ ‘He is the hope of the poor, the strength of the needy in his dis­tress, a refuge from the storm, and a shadow from the dev­as­tat­ing heat.’ ‘He gives power to the faint, and to them who have no might he in­creases strength.’ ‘A bruised reed shall he not break, and the smok­ing flax he will not quench.’ ‘When you pass through the wa­ters of af­flic­tion, I will be with you, and when the rivers of ad­ver­sity over­flow you, I will not for­sake you.’ ‘He has sent me to bind up the bro­ken­hearted, to pro­claim lib­erty to the cap­tives, and to com­fort all who mourn.’ ‘There is cor­rec­tion in suf­fer­ing; af­flic­tion does not spring forth from the dust.’”

• in social groups › fellowship should maintain temporal order

159:1.3“The Fa­ther in heaven loves his chil­dren, and there­fore should you learn to love one an­other; the Fa­ther in heaven for­gives you your sins; there­fore should you learn to for­give one an­other. If your brother sins against you, go to him and with tact and pa­tience show him his fault. And do all this be­tween you and him alone. If he will lis­ten to you, then have you won your brother. But if your brother will not hear you, if he per­sists in the er­ror of his way, go again to him, tak­ing with you one or two mu­tual friends that you may thus have two or even three wit­nesses to con­firm your tes­ti­mony and es­tab­lish the fact that you have dealt justly and mer­ci­fully with your of­fend­ing brother. Now if he re­fuses to hear your breth­ren, you may tell the whole story to the con­gre­ga­tion, and then, if he re­fuses to hear the broth­er­hood, let them take such ac­tion as they deem wise; let such an un­ruly mem­ber be­come an out­cast from the king­dom. While you can­not pre­tend to sit in judg­ment on the souls of your fel­lows, and while you may not for­give sins or oth­er­wise pre­sume to usurp the pre­rog­a­tives of the super­vi­sors of the heav­enly hosts, at the same time, it has been com­mit­ted to your hands that you should main­tain tem­po­ral or­der in the king­dom on earth. While you may not med­dle with the di­vine de­crees con­cern­ing eter­nal life, you shall de­ter­mine the is­sues of con­duct as they con­cern the tem­po­ral wel­fare of the broth­er­hood on earth. And so, in all these mat­ters con­nected with the dis­ci­pline of the broth­er­hood, what­so­ever you shall de­cree on earth, shall be rec­og­nized in heaven. Al­though you can­not de­ter­mine the eter­nal fate of the in­di­vid­ual, you may leg­is­late re­gard­ing the con­duct of the group, for, where two or three of you agree con­cern­ing any of these things and ask of me, it shall be done for you if your pe­ti­tion is not in­con­sis­tent with the will of my Fa­ther in heaven. And all this is ever true, for, where two or three be­liev­ers are gath­ered to­gether, there am I in the midst of them.”

• in social groups › fellowship should maintain temporal order

159:1.6Thus did Je­sus teach the dan­gers and il­lus­trate the un­fair­ness of sit­ting in per­sonal judg­ment upon one’s fel­lows. Dis­ci­pline must be main­tained, jus­tice must be ad­min­is­tered, but in all these mat­ters the wis­dom of the broth­er­hood should pre­vail. Je­sus in­vested leg­isla­tive and ju­di­cial au­thor­ity in the group, not in the in­di­vid­ual. Even this in­vest­ment of au­thor­ity in the group must not be ex­er­cised as per­sonal au­thor­ity. There is al­ways dan­ger that the ver­dict of an in­di­vid­ual may be warped by prej­u­dice or dis­torted by pas­sion. Group judg­ment is more likely to re­move the dan­gers and elim­i­nate the un­fair­ness of per­sonal bias. Je­sus sought al­ways to min­i­mize the el­e­ments of un­fair­ness, re­tal­i­a­tion, and vengeance.

• Jesus never hesitated to be severe if necessary

171:7.7Je­sus loved men so much and so wisely that he never hes­i­tated to be se­vere with them when the oc­ca­sion de­manded such dis­ci­pline. He fre­quently set out to help a per­son by ask­ing for help. In this way he elicited in­ter­est, ap­pealed to the bet­ter things in hu­man na­ture.

• of children › restraint of child’s unwise acts

177:2.7It is true that many of the ob­jec­tion­able stunt­ing in­flu­ences and other cramp­ing fea­tures of these olden Jew­ish homes have been vir­tu­ally elim­i­nated from many of the bet­ter-reg­u­lated mod­ern homes. There is, in­deed, more spon­ta­neous free­dom and far more per­sonal lib­erty, but this lib­erty is not re­strained by love, mo­ti­vated by loy­alty, nor di­rected by the in­tel­li­gent dis­ci­pline of wis­dom. As long as we teach the child to pray, “Our Fa­ther who is in heaven,” a tremen­dous re­spon­si­bil­ity rests upon all earthly fa­thers so to live and or­der their homes that the word fa­ther be­comes worthily en­shrined in the minds and hearts of all grow­ing chil­dren.

• in social groups › social groups may maintain order

178:1.2The king­doms of this world, be­ing ma­te­rial, may of­ten find it nec­es­sary to em­ploy phys­i­cal force in the ex­e­cu­tion of their laws and for the main­te­nance of or­der. In the king­dom of heaven true be­liev­ers will not re­sort to the em­ploy­ment of phys­i­cal force. The king­dom of heaven, be­ing a spir­i­tual broth­er­hood of the spirit-born sons of God, may be pro­mul­gated only by the power of the spirit. This dis­tinc­tion of pro­ce­dure refers to the re­la­tions of the king­dom of be­liev­ers to the king­doms of sec­u­lar gov­ern­ment and does not nul­lify the right of so­cial groups of be­liev­ers to main­tain or­der in their ranks and ad­min­is­ter dis­ci­pline upon un­ruly and un­wor­thy mem­bers.

• tempt not angels to lead you in troublous ways

178:1.10Un­der the soon-com­ing per­se­cu­tions by those who hate this gospel of joy and lib­erty, you will thrive and the king­dom will pros­per. But you will stand in grave dan­ger in sub­se­quent times when most men will speak well of king­dom be­liev­ers and many in high places nom­i­nally ac­cept the gospel of the heav­enly king­dom. Learn to be faith­ful to the king­dom even in times of peace and pros­per­ity. Tempt not the an­gels of your super­vi­sion to lead you in trou­blous ways as a lov­ing dis­ci­pline de­signed to save your ease-drift­ing souls.

• Father cuts away unfruitful branches

180:2.6And when the Fa­ther’s hand of dis­ci­pline is laid upon the vine, it is done in love, in or­der that the branches may bear much fruit. And a wise hus­band­man cuts away only the dead and fruit­less branches.

• of children › wise fathers chasten in love for correction

188:4.10Nei­ther do gen­uine be­liev­ers trou­ble them­selves so much about the fu­ture pun­ish­ment of sin. The real be­liever is only con­cerned about pres­ent sep­a­ra­tion from God. True, wise fa­thers may chas­ten their sons, but they do all this in love and for cor­rec­tive pur­poses. They do not pun­ish in anger, nei­ther do they chas­tise in ret­ri­bu­tion.

• Father cuts away unfruitful branches

193:2.2“Peace be upon you. You re­joice to know that the Son of Man has risen from the dead be­cause you thereby know that you and your breth­ren shall also sur­vive mor­tal death. But such sur­vival is de­pen­dent on your hav­ing been pre­vi­ously born of the spirit of truth-seek­ing and God-find­ing. The bread of life and the wa­ter thereof are given only to those who hunger for truth and thirst for righ­teous­ness—for God. The fact that the dead rise is not the gospel of the king­dom. These great truths and these uni­verse facts are all re­lated to this gospel in that they are a part of the re­sult of be­liev­ing the good news and are em­braced in the sub­se­quent ex­pe­ri­ence of those who, by faith, be­come, in deed and in truth, the ev­er­last­ing sons of the eter­nal God. My Fa­ther sent me into the world to pro­claim this sal­va­tion of son­ship to all men. And so send I you abroad to preach this sal­va­tion of son­ship. Sal­va­tion is the free gift of God, but those who are born of the spirit will im­me­di­ately be­gin to show forth the fruits of the spirit in lov­ing ser­vice to their fel­low crea­tures. And the fruits of the di­vine spirit which are yielded in the lives of spirit-born and God-know­ing mor­tals are: lov­ing ser­vice, un­selfish de­vo­tion, coura­geous loy­alty, sin­cere fair­ness, en­light­ened hon­esty, undy­ing hope, con­fid­ing trust, mer­ci­ful min­istry, un­fail­ing good­ness, for­giv­ing tol­er­ance, and en­dur­ing peace. If pro­fessed be­liev­ers bear not these fruits of the di­vine spirit in their lives, they are dead; the Spirit of Truth is not in them; they are use­less branches on the liv­ing vine, and they soon will be taken away. My Fa­ther re­quires of the chil­dren of faith that they bear much spirit fruit. If, there­fore, you are not fruit­ful, he will dig about your roots and cut away your un­fruit­ful branches. In­creas­ingly, must you yield the fruits of the spirit as you pro­gress heav­en­ward in the king­dom of God. You may en­ter the king­dom as a child, but the Fa­ther re­quires that you grow up, by grace, to the full stature of spir­i­tual adult­hood. And when you go abroad to tell all na­tions the good news of this gospel, I will go be­fore you, and my Spirit of Truth shall abide in your hearts. My peace I leave with you.”