1 Samuel 2:24-25 

New International Version (NIV)

No, my sons; the report I hear spreading among the Lord’s people is not good.

For Meditation

Child discipline has become a societal abomination. Gradually, social pressure, dressed in garbs of human rights, is striping off the clothing of morality and decency from our communities.  When this troubling trend reveals its ugly face in Christian homes and the church, we court God’s displeasure and wrath.

Eli failed to discipline his children who ministered before the Lord as priests. He allowed them to run wild by defiling the sacrificial offering the people brought to God and defiled His holiness by seducing the women who served at the entrance to the Tabernacle (1 Sam. 2:12-17, 22). When he moved to do something about it, Eli’s rebuke was lame at best. “No, my sons; the report spreading among the Lord’s people is not good” (23-24).

1. But, was that all Eli could do? Is that how to discipline a child or the leaders under us?
2. Didn’t Eli have divine power and authority to discipline (Rm. 13:4-5; Prov. 13:24; Heb. 12:7)?
3. Did Eli have to wait for the Lord to step in to do it Himself?
4. Was he not the appointed priest and representative of God (1 Sam. 2:28}?
5. Is there any wonder why God held Eli responsible for his children’s sins? Do you see how easy it is for us to honor our children above God and incur His wrath (29-33)?

I pray we never trivialize the sins of our children by withholding from them, the right discipline for a slap on their wrists.

May we never honor our children, or any other person under our authority, above God by diminishing their offenses. Rather, may we take the sins of our children very seriously and attack them with divine anger. For the Lord who has called us is holy and demands holiness in His children (1 Pt. 1:16).

Shalom