Some people are naturally inclined to discipline. It is a great help to them in almost every area of life. I am not one of those people. Discipline is hard for me. Studying for this passage this week confronted my need to be disciplined by decision and not rely on discipline by divine intervention for growth. The following are some observations about discipline that stood out from our passage in Hebrews 12:4-11.
Discipline is a Means and Goal
Discipline allows us to share in God’s holiness (v.10), but it is also the goal of our endurance (v. 7). I need to love not only the results of discipline, but value discipline itself as a virtue.
Self-Discipline is the Best Discipline
When God intervenes to discipline His children, it is a blessing and a sign of His love (vv. 6, 9). However, I should not wait until God brings discipline into my life to grow. My children do well when they submit to the discipline of household chores, but they do even better when they undertake duties of responsibility of their own accord. I should discipline myself for the purpose of godliness (1 Tim 4:7-8).
Discipline is Inseparable from Wisdom
Wisdom is skill in right living. Discipline is what produces that skill by teaching us the peaceful fruit of righteousness (v. 11). Not every disciplined person is wise by biblical definitions. Every undisciplined person, however, is a fool by definition. Ouch.
Discipline is Determined on the Inside and Displayed on the Outside
Discipline only bears fruit in the lives of those who are trained by it (v. 11). Instruction, correction, hardship, and even suffering cannot guarantee an outcome of growth. They are the opportunity or context in which discipline can be accomplished. The most important step in discipline is the internal decision to submit to it (v. 9). If I want to grow, then discipline becomes a blessing and not a chore.
Discipline Is an Investment that Earns Interest
Discipline has a cumulative effect. Investments in the unpleasant and sorrowful (v. 9) realities of discipline bear dividends in life, goodness, holiness, and righteousness (vv. 9,10,11). I need to trust the process and not value discipline based on its inconvenience in the moment, but for its great benefits in time and eternity.
Discipline Makes Me a Better Son
The language of family in this whole section is a reminder that we are truly children of God by faith in the Son. Discipline is an opportunity to express frustration and annoyance with God, but it doesn’t have to be. Discipline can be a treasured time with a good Father. It lets us know His heart, experience His attention and presence, watch Him demonstrate His power in our lives, and become a child of God that is learning how to live up to the family name. It is how we come to walk worthy of the calling with which we have been called. I need to remember that when my plans for the day are tossed out the window. I need to learn to recognize a good Father at work and say in my heart, Okay, Dad, let’s do this.
Comments(2)
Peggy Jackson says:
July 17, 2025 at 11:18 amIs every physical infirmity that happens to us God’s discipline? I’ve been laid up with Sciatica again (last time 2023), same thing as last time. How can I know if this is just something that happens to me, or if it is God’ s discipline and I just didn’t learn my lesson the last time? I’m in so much pain……would love to learn whatever it is God is trying to tell me! Or, does physical illness come upon us just because it does in life (and old age!!), and not every ailment is meant as discipline?
Chris Martin says:
July 18, 2025 at 1:57 pmHey Peggy, thank you for the clarifying question. I know I can’t appreciate the sort of pain you are experiencing with your sciatica, and I am sad to hear it has returned again. I am praying for you today.
In response to your question, yes – I do believe that every physical infirmity is part of God’s discipline. However, I think that assertion can easily be taken in a way that I very much do NOT mean to imply and which the Bible does NOT teach.
As we discussed on Sunday, the word translated as “discipline” (paideia) can be summarized simply as training. A Greek dictionary gives these definitions: 1) the act of providing guidance for responsible living, 2) the state of being brought up properly. When we think of discipline, our minds often immediately go to the idea of a negative consequence given in response to doing something bad. There are times when God’s discipline does take this form (“He scourges every son whom He receives” Heb. 12:6), but it is much more common for God to bring things into our lives not as a response to our bad behavior, but as an opportunity to help us both develop and demonstrate maturity.
James 1:2-4 makes this truth very clear:
“Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.”
Based on this passage, this would be my argument:
Are physical infirmities always a trial? Yes. They are always a hardship that tests us.
What is to be the result of every trial? Enduring faith.
What is the goal of such endurance? Maturity – becoming perfect and complete.
What is a biblical word to describe the process of being made perfect and complete? Discipline. (Another similar word would be sanctification.)
Therefore, physical infirmities are always an expression of God’s discipline in our lives.
However, and I think this is extremely important, note what attitude we are encouraged to have in this process. Joy, not guilt. James does not teach us that we should feel guilty whenever we encounter trials because it means we are doing something wrong and clearly haven’t learned our lesson yet. There is no implication that the trial only lasts as long as it takes us to “get it.” Our trials are part of a broad context of growth and maturity, they are part of the “state of being brought up properly.”
Physical infirmities are not the dismissive backhand of an irritated deity. Nor are they merely hardships that “come upon us” without purpose, even if they are experiences common to life or old age. They are an ordained path that our loving heavenly Father walks with us. He never lets go of our hand (Matt 28:20), He never wavers in compassion (Psalm 103:13), He never ceases in supplying our needs (Phil 4:19), and He never fails to accept us completely in Christ (Eph 1:5-6). As we endure through the trials, one day at a time (Matt 6:34), we may be surprised to look back now and then and see just far we have come in faith. By the kind intention of the Father, the finished and ongoing work of the Son, and the daily empowering of the Holy Spirit, our trials, indeed our seasons of discipline, are “producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison” (2 Cor 4:17).
I am thankful, sister, for your testimony of faithfulness and joy through so many trials. Far from being evidence that you aren’t learning your “lesson,” your life is proven evidence that by the grace of God you definitely and increasingly HAVE learned much of what it means to be like Jesus. This has been a great encouragement to me, and, in the words of James, I hope it can be a source of joy to you as well.