Pronounciation

Proverbs 22:6
6 Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it.
Ephesians 6:4

4Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.

I've been thinking about this for some time now and have finally decided to write about it. Living here in the south, I've noticed that there are some differences in how people talk. It seems that the correct southern accent involves putting the emFAsis on the wrong sylLAbal. Take, for instacne, the word advance. In the north it's pronounced ad-Vance (emphasis on the vance), but here in the south it's ADD-vance. Better yet, let's look at insurance. The north (or Yankees) would pronounce it in-SUR-ance, but the south says IN-surance. Go ahead and try saying them out loud, you know you want to. There's no one here, it's okay. Try it! There are more words to illustrate this point, but I think you get the picture. Either way you say the word, it still means the same thing, right?

I've recently been pondering the word "discipline". (pronounced diss-a-plin) I've thought, what if the emphasis on the syllabals were changed? Perhaps we should try saying it diss-EYE-plin. It has a southern sound to it, which may be why I thought about it that way. (disciplin') Once I said it that way a light went on in my head. We've been pronouncing it wrong all this time. I realized that discipline simply is disciplin'!! It's teaching and correction; it's instruction and encouragement. It's what we as Christians, parents, employers, and employees need to be doing. We need to be disciplin' the people who matter most to us!

As a father, this revelation has had a great impact on me recently. I've realized that I haven't been disciplin' my own son, I've been punnishing him. That's not what the Father has done for us, however. Jesus Christ bore the punnishment and wrath of the Father when He went to the cross. That's the Gospel Truth. The remaining books of the Bible were given to us by the Father for understanding, spiritual growth, and practical living. The remaining books were givin to us for disciplin'. It's been God's plan for us all along that we would be redeemed to Him and that He would be able to teach us His ways. Solomon, the wisest man ever, wrote in Proverbs 22:6 "train", I'm not sure what the original text says, but perhaps he used a form of the word disciple. The men that walked with Jesus were called His disciples. Paul wrote to the church at Ephusus, "...bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord..." I think that a clear point the Bible is making is that disciplin' is what we are to be doing. Disciples are who we should become.

The truth of the matter is that sometimes discipline hurts, but if the motive behind it is disciplin', then a change will be made.