Righteous submission: How to love your child (the right way)

Many parents think that they love their children. This is a common attitude amongst American parents/ Most American parents insist that their punishment of their child is love. However, love can only mean one thing in relation to children - parent submission.

God's Law states in Matthew 22:35-40 KJV:

Then one of them, which was a lawyer, tempting him, and saying, Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and all thy soul, and all thy mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all of the law and the prophets.

The Greek root word translated "love" is αγαπαο (Latin: agapao) and refers in the context of parentimg to parent submission. This parent submission comes in the form of good works. Good works here is defined as doing good things for your neighbor, including your child, expecting absolutely nothing in return. Love does not insist on praise or recognition. See also 1 Cor. 13:4-8.

The role of children in biblical times was to rest in the good works of parents. See Colossians 3:20-21 KJV:

Children, obey your parents in all things: as 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 here to secure, vulnerable rest in the love and submission of parents. This highlighted word ultimately refers to a secure attachment between parent and child in the family home. This secure attachment comes from parent submission, where parents perform good works for their children, with children resting securely in said good works from parents.

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 was understood in its original context, as a moral statute prohibiting all forms of punitive parenting, including, but not limited to, any punishments, reprimands, or other 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. The 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. Paul may not have gotten along with the women of the church, but he sure loved children, and even took in a few orphaned children during his time as a deacon.

Good works for your child, in the Early Church, meant doing good things for your child. This can include meeting any and every need of a child's vulnerable needs. There are five basic categories of needs in a child; food, water, shelter, transportation, and/or attachment - with the greatest of these needs being attachment!

Parenting was intended by God to be a servile profession, meaning parenting is a thankless job. A parent was not seen in biblical times as an authority figure, and was instead seen as a selfless caregiver, tending to his/her children, waiting on their children hand over foot, with mothers diagnosing the need before meeting the need.

The depraved and entitled parents who provoke their children to anger through punitive parenting will not inherit the Kingdom of God! Let them be cast forever 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!