The other day, I wrote a post concerning smacking as a prescribed form of discipline in scripture. Given it had reared its head on the interwebs again, I thought I would address whether smacking really is demanded of believers as a form of discipline. I made the case that nothing in scripture should lead you exegetically to the view that smacking is prescribed. The most one could argue to that end is that smacking is a permissible form of discipline that sits under the much broader biblical prescription to simply enact discipline lovingly. I noted some examples in the text that might push us away from a view that smacking is a good application of the biblical call at all, but note that these are inferences rather than prescriptions. I was seeking to be careful neither to say more than scripture does nor to say less than it and am much more comfortable leaving the matter, as the Bible seems to, with a broad call to loving discipline without specifying the particular form that discipline ought to take.

Just as I was arguing there is a broad principle in scripture concerning discipline, without the particular form that discipline must take, so I think the same is true more broadly in much of scripture. Not least, when it comes to reading scripture itself. I think many of us are very quick to baptise and sanctify our applications, assuming the form of what we do is necessarily what scripture prescribes, when the most we can really say is this is a legitimate, permissible application rather than the specific requirement on all believers.

The examples of this are far too numerous to lay out in any great detail. But I do think – and I have made this point before but intend to continue making it because it gets so easily lost – much of what we insist is biblical is not required of all believers, but is simply permissible as a form of the actual thing required. But because we deem the form to be effective, or we think it a good outworking of the principle or instruction, we quickly default to calling the form biblical and expecting it of everyone when, if we just looked a little closer, we would see the Bible doesn’t actually demand what we seem to think it does at all.

I was having a discussion with someone not too long ago around exactly this. So much that is deemed good in the Christian world – much of which is genuinely and actually good – ends up being prescribed and demanded. So said somebody after I (still rightly, in my honest opinion) said home groups were not necessarily the best and most essential place for spiritual growth, even though I do think they are nevertheless broadly helpful. I am reminded of the response to what I thought was a perfectly reasonable and properly biblical argument that Christian books are not essential to your spiritual growth. Books can be great, we give away books in every meeting we have, but the fact is, they are not essential. But the point could be multiplied over and over. Much that is good and probably helpful simply isn’t prescribed in scripture.

Of course, there is nothing wrong with saying ‘I find this helpful’ and nothing wrong with saying ‘this is what we do’. Similarly, there’s nothing wrong with saying ‘this is permissible and I have found it to be helpful/effective/useful/etc’. I think much would be helped if we just didn’t go beyond what scripture actually says. When it comes to things it does seem to require, we need to be careful this is actually something scripture requires. If it is, we then need to be clear whether in our doing of what is required are we encouraging others to do what it requires or to copy the permissible form of whatever it is we do to fulfil it. But so often we just baptise our forms and then insist they are elements, we sanctify our applications of biblical principles and then suggest our applications are actually the principles demanded.

Considering we evangelicals like to think of ourselves as Bible people, we do a good line in going well beyond what scripture says – even if what we’re doing is permissible – and then insisting everyone else does the same as us. But if we really are Bible people, whilst we won’t want to demand less than the Bible does, we should also be careful not to insist upon more than it does either. That way Pharisaism lies.