Sin nature.

[NavaNessa]

Originally Posted by arymanth

Just a few more thoughts. I was talking with my friend about this, and I kept going back to what Paul was talking about when he said AFTER "What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase?"

What is the answer to sin and how to we transmit it to our kids? The Bible says

"but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed.Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death." James 1: 14-15

The problem is in WHAT WE WANT. We sin because we are going after something we want. The key to changing our nature is to find a way to CHANGE WHAT WE WANT. It is like what you do as a parent when you are learning to control your own frustration and impatience, you have to focus on how much you LOVE your child, and not how much you want them to be less difficult. When your focus is on LOVE, it changes how you respond. Human nature is essentially self-centered. The natural man wants to find ways to make himself happy. It is not always natural to want to help others or make them happy. That is the part of us that is like God, but the other side of our nature is constantly at war with this.

The more we focus on God, getting to know him, loving him, the more HIS desires become OUR desires. His goals become our goals. If we are actively pursuing a relationship with God, it is very difficult for sin to get any hold in our lives, because the only way sin can get in is if we WANT something we shouldn't want. You have to have a desire for sin before it can do anything to effect your behavior. If a man is so deeply in love with his wife, he is not going to be thinking about wanting another woman, not even in his heart... and where there is no desire, there is no sin.

So how do we translate this to our kids? Well for one thing, it does no good to tell a small child that having desires are wrong. They are not. There is nothing wrong with wanting to be happy. The problem is in how you go about making yourself happy. So showing kids how to meet their own needs in appropriate ways leads them AWAY from sin. Sin is just trying to make yourself happy in inappropriate ways. Hitting your brother because you can't have his toy is an effort to get the toy to make yourself happy. Showing a child how to share, how to take turns, how to ask nicely, and even how to be content with something else for awhile are all ways to "turn off" sin. If they are getting their need met, where is the desire to hit their brother going to come from? Sometimes it is going to take TIME for them to learn, because of their own immaturity. Teaching a child how to find better ways to get what they want/need is not going to happen overnight, but if you are sowing gentleness and patience into them by your own behavior, then it WILL happen eventually.

Using impatience, frustration and even anger to correct a child sows all of those things into them and teaches them that the proper way to respond to someone who does something you don't like is with frustration, impatience and anger. You reap what you sow. If you have a frustrated toddler, you want to give him the ANTIDOTE to anger, not feed it with your own. The antidote to anger is patience and love.

"Be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind". Changing the way you think about things changes who you are and how you respond. So how you renew the mind of a toddler??? "Repeat them again and again to your children. Talk about them when you are at home and when you are on the road, when you are going to bed and when you are getting up." Deut. 6:7 Show them by HOW YOU LIVE YOUR OWN LIFE how to respond to things in theirs. The best way to teach is to be an example of what you are trying to teach. Love is attractive, it garners respect and honor. When a child lives with an adult who is consistently living the way God wants them to live, they EARN that child's respect simply because of WHO THEY ARE.

We have gotten a backwards view of this from too many teachers who tried to insist that children need to honor their parents FIRST, that parents were to DEMAND honor from their children... instead of focusing on BEING SOMEONE HONORABLE YOURSELF.

If you want your kids to turn away from sin, you have to give them something valuable to substitute for the wrong things they want. If you are angry and frustrated and miserable and stressed out... what is there to want to imitate there? Who wants to be like that?

If you focus on your OWN relationship with God and dealing with your OWN areas of sin in your life... you will automatically become a beacon in that area. This is why God says "First get rid of the log in your own eye; then you will see well enough to deal with the speck in your friend's eye." Matt. 7:5 and "if one blind person guides another, they will both fall into a ditch." Matt. 15:14

If you can't figure out how to deal with the sin in your own life, you will never be able to help your children deal with theirs.

As a parent, the best way to deal with sin nature in our children is to FIRST deal with the sin nature in ourselves. Then, as we master sin in different areas of our lives, we can share what we have learned with our children in a HUMBLE way. "if someone is caught in a sin, you who live by the Spirit should restore that person gently. But watch yourselves, or you also may be tempted"

If you see your child getting caught up in sin (the desire to get something they shouldn't have or getting what they want/need the wrong way) you should restore them (correct and steer them in the right direction) GENTLY, always being aware that you are not above falling for the same type of temptation yourself, and are really no "better" than your child.


Demonstrate God's love and how to conquer the desire to sin in your own life, stay humble, be patient. Sin doesn't stand a chance.

THIS!! Amazing. Thank you for this. It's what I wish I could formulate the words for when speaking to others

[TenderLovingWillow]

Please tell me you have a blog, or would allow someone to post that as a guest blog..

Both replies.

Those are oh.my.word mind blowing. Really. If they are in blog form I will totally share it on FB. Like right now.

I guess if sin would be in the blood then pro-spankers would have a point because really...the only way to control it in a child so young that they have no "self-regulation" yet would actually be to put fear in them and just "control" them. Having no self-regulation, limited cognitive abilities and only a propensity to sin...I'd imagine that'd make them horrific to deal with!

What we do with gentle parenting agrees more with the concept that they are "made in the image of God." It's why we can trust that they're not manipulating us or attempting to gratify some "wrong" urge when they cry for us. It's why we can trust our hearts and our instincts because God made our bodies to tell us the truth about what's right with our children. Our kids don't want to be bad. They don't want to be separate from us. And, we feel horrible when we do wrong things with them. It's because our bodies don't lie. (Lie detector tests work because our bodies negatively react when we commit the sin of lying, for example.)

Perhaps rather than fitting "not spanking" into the idea of "original sin" it may be worth it to reconsider that whole doctrine. The ancient Jews (who were writing the Bible) didn't believe in that...and still don't. I just made a Jewish friend this year and she'd never even heard of the concept and thought it was strange. The idea that we're "born" sinful is something that came from outside the Bible and got put in later...particularly in the new versions of the Bible things have been reworded.

Sorry if that's...argumentative?! I don't know if I'm allowed to comment like this or not!? It's a topic I love though because of my favorite verse (Romans 1:18-20) so I couldn't resist!!!

[TenderLovingWillow]

Originally Posted by DaraSKS

I guess if sin would be in the blood then pro-spankers would have a point because really...the only way to control it in a child so young that they have no "self-regulation" yet would actually be to put fear in them and just "control" them. Having no self-regulation, limited cognitive abilities and only a propensity to sin...I'd imagine that'd make them horrific to deal with!

What we do with gentle parenting agrees more with the concept that they are "made in the image of God." It's why we can trust that they're not manipulating us or attempting to gratify some "wrong" urge when they cry for us. It's why we can trust our hearts and our instincts because God made our bodies to tell us the truth about what's right with our children. Our kids don't want to be bad. They don't want to be separate from us. And, we feel horrible when we do wrong things with them. It's because our bodies don't lie. (Lie detector tests work because our bodies negatively react when we commit the sin of lying, for example.)

Perhaps rather than fitting "not spanking" into the idea of "original sin" it may be worth it to reconsider that whole doctrine. The ancient Jews (who were writing the Bible) didn't believe in that...and still don't. I just made a Jewish friend this year and she'd never even heard of the concept and thought it was strange. The idea that we're "born" sinful is something that came from outside the Bible and got put in later...particularly in the new versions of the Bible things have been reworded.

Sorry if that's...argumentative?! I don't know if I'm allowed to comment like this or not!? It's a topic I love though because of my favorite verse (Romans 1:18-20) so I couldn't resist!!!

As long as you are not posting outside of the Statement of Beliefs, we have lots of great, edifying conversations here.

[Scox2003]

I believe children are born capable of sin, but are not born sinful. Like infants, they don't sin. They can't. Their brains just don't allow them to despite what many Christians believe. They cry because that's how God created them to communicate. This is not manipulation. It's just how they work.

As they become toddlers, they have big emotions. Of course, this is how God created children to develop. But since they truly lack vocabulary and impulse control, they don't always handle their big feelings appropriately. Yes, they sin. But they don't mean to. They don't even understand what sin is yet. This is where gentle discipline comes in. Discipline teaches them skills and appropriate behavior. It's grace. Because Jesus died for all our sins, we live under grace!

Spanking/hitting does the opposite of discipline because it teaches fear. But 2 Timothy 1:7 says that fear is not from God. Fear ends up planting sin into the child's heart because they quickly learn to do things to avoid punishment. They learn to hide their sins whenever possible to avoid being hit. God cares about the motives of our hearts. So, if we just do things to avoid punishment, I believe that that may be part of sin. We should do things because it is right and because we truly love and respect God & other people. Gentle discipline teaches children how to do this over time. And it teaches God's grace and love for them. Making them want to come to Christ and have a relationship with Him. Yes, spanked/hit children may come to Christ, but they tend to struggle in their relationship with Him and others.

Also, adults sin soooo much more than children do. It's like the parable of the unmercifully servant. The king forgave the servant a huge debt. Then the servant turns around and holds his servant accountable for a much smaller debt. So it isn't fair when adults make children pay for their sin by spanking/hitting them or sending them to time-out instead of extending grace to them and disciplining them appropriately.

Hope this helps.

[Hermana Linda]

Originally Posted by Scox2003

Also, adults sin soooo much more than children do. It's like the parable of the unmercifully servant. The king forgave the servant a huge debt. Then the servant turns around and holds his servant accountable for a much smaller debt. So it isn't fair when adults make children pay for their sin by spanking/hitting them or sending them to time-out instead of extending grace to them and disciplining them appropriately.

Great point, Steph! Is this in your book?

[Zooey]

Originally Posted by saturnfire16

I said this at a Bible study one time. Something like, "I can just imagine baby Jesus crying for his mom and hitting his brother."

That particular crowd was at the crying, but at that thought of toddler Jesus HITTING someone!

I think that this idea is upsetting to those who interpret all that children do (which they don';t want them doing) as being sinful.
But of course, what it really is showing is that children are simply being children.

Originally Posted by marbles

I think something that people on the total depravity side forget is that God only holds us responsible for the things he has given us. Children have little to no knowledge of God and are not capable of understanding Him. He says all over the place that he has different "standards" for different people (his standards don't really change, but he meets people where they are) like teachers, parents, children, priests, those who have much and those who have little. So we can't expect children to live according to standards they don't know.
On the other side of that is the parable about the debtors. We have been forgiven much, we shouldn't go demanding a few pennies.

This. Especially the part I bolded.

[HadassahSukkot]

Originally Posted by DaraSKS

...The ancient Jews (who were writing the Bible) didn't believe in that...and still don't. I just made a Jewish friend this year and she'd never even heard of the concept and thought it was strange. The idea that we're "born" sinful is something that came from outside the Bible and got put in later...particularly in the new versions of the Bible things have been reworded.

Sorry if that's...argumentative?! I don't know if I'm allowed to comment like this or not!? It's a topic I love though because of my favorite verse (Romans 1:18-20) so I couldn't resist!!!

I believe you can discuss that considering we have a lot of Messianic Jews and Gentiles here. I don't think it's argumentative to point that out when you've done it as amicably as you have here.

I was flabbergasted when I found that out. I had asked a couple people I knew that were not really religious and raised reform and they'd never heard of the concept until they had kids and were in church with them. So I did more digging and the model in the Orthodox and Conservative community goes one of 3 ways, GBD type; permissive-ish; very authoritarian minus the spanking aspect.

So it really makes me wonder where and how this fearful "must beat the child = discipline" idea came about... in a sort of morbid curiosity that I'm not ready to quite deal with. We have a background that has broad brushes of FotF's Dobson, Gothard, Tripp and Pearl-types iykwim - so... I'm not ready to go there yet.

---------- Post added at 04:04 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:03 PM ----------

Originally Posted by Scox2003

I believe children are born capable of sin, but are not born sinful. Like infants, they don't sin. They can't. Their brains just don't allow them to despite what many Christians believe. They cry because that's how God created them to communicate. This is not manipulation. It's just how they work.

As they become toddlers, they have big emotions. Of course, this is how God created children to develop. But since they truly lack vocabulary and impulse control, they don't always handle their big feelings appropriately. Yes, they sin. But they don't mean to. They don't even understand what sin is yet. This is where gentle discipline comes in. Discipline teaches them skills and appropriate behavior. It's grace. Because Jesus died for all our sins, we live under grace!

Spanking/hitting does the opposite of discipline because it teaches fear. But 2 Timothy 1:7 says that fear is not from God. Fear ends up planting sin into the child's heart because they quickly learn to do things to avoid punishment. They learn to hide their sins whenever possible to avoid being hit. God cares about the motives of our hearts. So, if we just do things to avoid punishment, I believe that that may be part of sin. We should do things because it is right and because we truly love and respect God & other people. Gentle discipline teaches children how to do this over time. And it teaches God's grace and love for them. Making them want to come to Christ and have a relationship with Him. Yes, spanked/hit children may come to Christ, but they tend to struggle in their relationship with Him and others.

Also, adults sin soooo much more than children do. It's like the parable of the unmercifully servant. The king forgave the servant a huge debt. Then the servant turns around and holds his servant accountable for a much smaller debt. So it isn't fair when adults make children pay for their sin by spanking/hitting them or sending them to time-out instead of extending grace to them and disciplining them appropriately.

Hope this helps.

[bentlaj11]

Originally Posted by arymanth

Just a few more thoughts. I was talking with my friend about this, and I kept going back to what Paul was talking about when he said AFTER "What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase?"

What is the answer to sin and how to we transmit it to our kids? The Bible says

"but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed.Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death." James 1: 14-15

The problem is in WHAT WE WANT. We sin because we are going after something we want. The key to changing our nature is to find a way to CHANGE WHAT WE WANT. It is like what you do as a parent when you are learning to control your own frustration and impatience, you have to focus on how much you LOVE your child, and not how much you want them to be less difficult. When your focus is on LOVE, it changes how you respond. Human nature is essentially self-centered. The natural man wants to find ways to make himself happy. It is not always natural to want to help others or make them happy. That is the part of us that is like God, but the other side of our nature is constantly at war with this.

The more we focus on God, getting to know him, loving him, the more HIS desires become OUR desires. His goals become our goals. If we are actively pursuing a relationship with God, it is very difficult for sin to get any hold in our lives, because the only way sin can get in is if we WANT something we shouldn't want. You have to have a desire for sin before it can do anything to effect your behavior. If a man is so deeply in love with his wife, he is not going to be thinking about wanting another woman, not even in his heart... and where there is no desire, there is no sin.

So how do we translate this to our kids? Well for one thing, it does no good to tell a small child that having desires are wrong. They are not. There is nothing wrong with wanting to be happy. The problem is in how you go about making yourself happy. So showing kids how to meet their own needs in appropriate ways leads them AWAY from sin. Sin is just trying to make yourself happy in inappropriate ways. Hitting your brother because you can't have his toy is an effort to get the toy to make yourself happy. Showing a child how to share, how to take turns, how to ask nicely, and even how to be content with something else for awhile are all ways to "turn off" sin. If they are getting their need met, where is the desire to hit their brother going to come from? Sometimes it is going to take TIME for them to learn, because of their own immaturity. Teaching a child how to find better ways to get what they want/need is not going to happen overnight, but if you are sowing gentleness and patience into them by your own behavior, then it WILL happen eventually.

Using impatience, frustration and even anger to correct a child sows all of those things into them and teaches them that the proper way to respond to someone who does something you don't like is with frustration, impatience and anger. You reap what you sow. If you have a frustrated toddler, you want to give him the ANTIDOTE to anger, not feed it with your own. The antidote to anger is patience and love.

"Be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind". Changing the way you think about things changes who you are and how you respond. So how you renew the mind of a toddler??? "Repeat them again and again to your children. Talk about them when you are at home and when you are on the road, when you are going to bed and when you are getting up." Deut. 6:7 Show them by HOW YOU LIVE YOUR OWN LIFE how to respond to things in theirs. The best way to teach is to be an example of what you are trying to teach. Love is attractive, it garners respect and honor. When a child lives with an adult who is consistently living the way God wants them to live, they EARN that child's respect simply because of WHO THEY ARE.

We have gotten a backwards view of this from too many teachers who tried to insist that children need to honor their parents FIRST, that parents were to DEMAND honor from their children... instead of focusing on BEING SOMEONE HONORABLE YOURSELF.

If you want your kids to turn away from sin, you have to give them something valuable to substitute for the wrong things they want. If you are angry and frustrated and miserable and stressed out... what is there to want to imitate there? Who wants to be like that?

If you focus on your OWN relationship with God and dealing with your OWN areas of sin in your life... you will automatically become a beacon in that area. This is why God says "First get rid of the log in your own eye; then you will see well enough to deal with the speck in your friend's eye." Matt. 7:5 and "if one blind person guides another, they will both fall into a ditch." Matt. 15:14

If you can't figure out how to deal with the sin in your own life, you will never be able to help your children deal with theirs.

As a parent, the best way to deal with sin nature in our children is to FIRST deal with the sin nature in ourselves. Then, as we master sin in different areas of our lives, we can share what we have learned with our children in a HUMBLE way. "if someone is caught in a sin, you who live by the Spirit should restore that person gently. But watch yourselves, or you also may be tempted"

If you see your child getting caught up in sin (the desire to get something they shouldn't have or getting what they want/need the wrong way) you should restore them (correct and steer them in the right direction) GENTLY, always being aware that you are not above falling for the same type of temptation yourself, and are really no "better" than your child.


Demonstrate God's love and how to conquer the desire to sin in your own life, stay humble, be patient. Sin doesn't stand a chance.

Thank you! I, very much needed to hear this!

[Hermana Linda]

In case anyone wants an easy way to share arymanth's very insightful comments without sharing this site, here is her blog.