First is the fact that Pastor Handy only provides four verses in his sermon and that all of these verses are from the same book of the Bible. In order to make a sound judgment on the Bible’s stance on corporal punishment, more verses should be considered. Verses speaking about corporal punishment should be examined as well as verses about parenting in general.
Secondly, Old Testament times differ greatly from today. Not everything from the Bible can be word-for-word applied to our lives today. Laws, mandates, and advice in the Old Testament were written
for a different time, for a different place, for a different society, and for a different people. Therefore laws, mandates, and advice in the Bible should be carefully considered if these apply in their literal sense or if they would be best applied by their concepts.
This leads me to my third point: Bible passages can have different meaning and can be interpreted different ways. Pastor Handy statement that “There really is no other way to interpret these passages” is simply not true. Not only are there many different versions of the Bible based on the original Hebrew, people can interpret the same verse many different ways. Pastor Handy himself demonstrates this when he uses when he advocates spanking. None of the passages he uses mentions spanking, instead they all mention “the rod.” So if there is no other way to interpret these passages, Pastor Handy should be preaching that children should be punished with a “rod,” not a spanking.
Lastly, Pastor Handy’s statement, “…use of physical discipline when the child is young also makes it less likely that one will need to use this type of discipline when the child is older” is not backed up by any evidence. He provides no Bible verses or scientific studies to support his statement.
In conclusion, based on Pastor Handy’s evidence, it is not clear that corporal punishment is a Christian way to parent. His evidence could be a starting point but it is not enough for the firm conclusion he has come to.