Righteous ordering: Why children call the shots in Christian homes

Many parents think that they call the shots, and give orders to children. This is a common attitude amongst American parents. Most American parents believe they are authority figures over their children, even their young children. However, the Bible teaches otherwise, when understood in context, that children call the shots in the family home. Whatever they want/need from YOU as a parent is a lawfully binding summonses. 

The acronym of righteous ordering is the child's role in the Christian doctrine of mutual submission. See Colossians 3:20-21 KJV: 

Children, obey your parents in all things: for this is well pleasing unto the Lord. Fathers, provoke not your children to anger, lest they be discouraged.

The Greek root word translated "obey" is υπακουο (Latin: hupakouo) and refers to secure, vulnerable rest in the love and submission of parents. Children are to rest securely in the sacrifice of parents, just as parent believers rest securely in the Sacrifice of Jesus Christ. This commandment was intended by the Apostle Paul to lift up the customary law that commands a secure attachment between parents and children in the family home. This secure attachment comes from parent submission, where parents are to submit to their children as their enemy, from beneath yet from above, expecting absolutely nothing in return.

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, stemming from entitlement. This commandment was intended by the Apostle Paul, and understood in its original context, as a moral statute prohibiting all form of punitive parenting, including, but not limited to, any punishments, reprimands, or controlling demeanor towards children. In the Old Testament, punitive parents were put to death by way of bloodletting, after punishing their children one last time. 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 that they did wrong, thereby treating your child as a quartered slave. Paul here was lifting up the Law in order to convict a group of Greek Christian parents who brought their pagan custom of spanking and punishing children into the church. Paul, contrary to popular legend, was anti-spanking, and opposed any and all punishment of a child in his secular writings. Indeed, Greco-Roman fathers used the scourge of cords to punish their children, but NOT the Christians among them - the scourge of cords was shunned by the Early Church.

Parents, in the biblical context, were under the divine and lawful authority of children. Children could issue lawfully binding orders on their parents, and parents, in most cases, had to comply with those orders. The only reasons that a parent could disobey righteously the orders of their children was if the orders were unworkable and/or unlawful. Otherwise, even uttering the word "no" could lead to the parent being excommunicated. When children were righteously disobeyed, it was required that the parent reassure and comfort the child, preferably with skin-on-skin mammary closeness. If parents took their children to court, they were forced to apologize in court to their child, as children could do no wrong in the eyes of the Law. 

Whenever children cried, mothers were there to respond to the every cry of their child, understanding the every cry and upset of their child as lawfully binding summonses. Mothers reassured the cries of their child by cooing while picking up the child, then treating them to skin-on-skin mammary closeness, perhaps breastfeeding the child to sleep if milk-hungry. Older children cried too, and they were picked up and cradled next to the bosom of their mothers. However, most of the time, older children issued lawfully binding summonses to their parents of the verbal type, barking orders in the face of parents, with parents, in most cases, having no choice but to make the child's orders work somehow.

Child abuse, in the Bible, was seen as a provocation to anger. Children were taught in Sunday school on what to do if their parents abused them, meaning children were encouraged in Sunday school to automatically become offended if a parent as much as imposed their entitlement on them. Children were taught to show their anger or upset as soon as an adult punished or reprimanded them, thus discouraging abusive conduct from happening in the first place.

The depraved and entitled parents who provoke their children to anger through punitive parenting will not inherit the Kingdom of God! Let them forever be 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 day and night forever and ever! Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!