"Provoke not your children to anger": What this means in practice

Many parents believe that it is okay to punish or be controlling with children. This is a common sentiment amongst American parents. Most American parents punish or are controlling with their children. This is a sad fact, but a true one nonetheless. The fact of the matter is that God has issued a great commandment to all parents everywhere. "Provoke not your children to anger". 

The Greek root word denoting entitlement in the New Testament, including parental entitlement, and cross-referencing the Tenth Commandment, is πλεονέκτης (Latin: pleonektés) and refers to, officially speaking, wanting things from children, to the point of imposition. Unofficially speaking, this refers to wanting things from children, period. It is not good to want anything in life, including from children. But, since we all want something from children, it is good to ask politely and appropriately, accepting when children can't or won't give us what we want from them. Deadly parental entitlement is when want is imposed on a child, in which case, once that leads to offense by the child, it becomes child abuse. See Colossians 3:21 KJV:

Fathers, provoke not your children to anger, lest they be discouraged.

The Greek root word translated "provoke...to anger" is ερεθιζο (Latin: erethizo) and refers to damages or offenses, namely the slightest of personal offense perceived by a child, including, but not limited to, the slightest of offensive touch or speech perceived by a child, coming from entitlement. This commandment was intended by the Apostle Paul, and understood in its original context, as a moral statute prohibiting all forms of punitive parenting, including any punishments or controlling demeanor. In the Old Testament, punitive parents were put to death by way of bloodletting, after punishing their children one last time (see also Exod. 21:16). Parents who punished their children were charged with kidnapping, with kidnapping being defined under the Law as the slightest of damages or offenses stemming from hostage-taking - child punishment was seen in biblical times as holding your child hostage merely for things they did wrong, thereby treating your child as a quartered slave. Paul here was lifting up this legal context for a group of Greek Christians who brought their pagan custom of spanking and punishing their children into the church. Paul, contrary to popular legend, was anti-spanking, and opposed any and all punishment of a child.

What does it mean not to provoke a child to anger? In the Early Christian context that this commandment was given to, damages and offenses towards a child was understood, at the bare minimum, as the slightest of tears. With that said, tears in parenting are inevitable, so in order to prove your non-entitlement as a parent, you have to constantly attend to and listen to your child's tears. In biblical times, a crying child that was unattended was immediately seen as in danger of child abuse. The ancients had their standard of child abuse, and when a child was crying without support or comfort, usually coming in skin-on-skin fashion, that was seen as a provocation to anger towards the child, and thus an offense or damage. Other forms of damages were marks and bruises on the child (no matter how temporary), and loss of virginity (in the case of child sexual abuse).

The parenting manuals clearly spelled out how a child was to be treated. Children were not simply forced into a role of purity and innocence, otherwise expected to be seen and not heard. Children were seen as extensions of God, meaning installments of God called to convict parents of their charitable role, reporting to God about how charitable their parents really were. Children were constantly judging parents as to how they were treated, according to the parenting manual excavated by archeologists. The cardinal rule in parenting was not to provoke your child to anger, meaning offend them or damage them in any way. Parenting advice in ancient times was not intended as parent-to-parent comfort, but as fearful conviction straight from the church leadership. Alongside the Epistle to the Colossians, such parenting manuals were attached to the letter as an addendum. Children were to be feared in ancient societies, and in Early Christian society, children were to be feared reverently, with parents struck with reverent fear and terror. Mothers were put in a pro-social paranoid state where they knew that if they failed to provide one bit for their child, they were that careless for God.

Children, in biblical times, wore no clothing, at all, until they became adults. Women only wore clothing when outside the home, otherwise going in the nude, in order to serve their husbands and their children, separately. Mothers served their children by way of providing for them nourishment and sustenance, namely breastmilk (until age 3) and skin-to-skin closeness and intimacy. Mothers were required by law then to comfort their crying child, lest they appear as a child abuser. Mothers usually comforted and reassured children then by way of skin-on-skin comforting strategies. Mothers went in the nude at home, and children went naked so that mothers could easily cuddle them up and snuggle them up when they were crying or upset, co-snuggling and co-sleeping next to children, with mothers soothing their children with sustaining comfort and affection. Refusing to do any of this, as per the parenting manuals handed to church parishioners in the Early Church, equated to a provocation to anger against children under the Law. Mothers then were reverently afraid of "getting it wrong", which drove them to excel at motherhood in terms of offering nourishment and sustenance. Offending a child then, due to their vulnerable status, was the same as offending God.

The depraved and entitled parents who provoke not your children to anger through punitive parenting will not inherit the Kingdom of God! Let them be forever cast into the lake of fire and burning sulfur, which is the second death prepared for Satan and his accomplices! Let them descend into the abyss, which is the ever-burning Hell of fire and torment, suffering God's Wrath forever and ever! Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!