A Great Parenting Reminder

Mark Driscoll writes a letter to a legalistic friend and applies what he sees to his parenting:

"...this truth needs to be immediately incorporated into your parenting. Because you, Dave, are a religious person who has wrongly seen God as someone who is supremely concerned with the rules, you have unmercifully punished your children for breaking rules. You have withdrawn your relationship and love from them, condemning them to make them pay for their wrongdoing. Your children are confused about the gospel because you teach them that Jesus was condemned on the cross for their sins, and then you also condemn them when they sin.

It is imperative that you explain to them that Jesus forgives their sins because he suffered punishment in their place for their sins, and that you are commissioned by God to discipline them when they sin because you love them and want to train them in righteousness. However, this corrective discipline should never be confused as condemnation or severed relationship or withdrawn love because that is a false religious gospel you are demonstrating. I know that you learned this from your religious father, and for that I am deeply sorry. But you must not let the sin of your father rest upon your children. Instead, you must begin parenting out of the gospel."

- Mark Driscoll, Death By Love, p. 96-97