The disciplines to which God’s Law summons His people are of five sorts.

Spiritualdisciplines, which are foundational to all, shape the course of our souls for loving God and our neighbors. Relationaldisciplines direct us in the proper application of God’s Law to our relationships with one another. Vocational disciplines help us to make the best use of the resources and abilities God has given us for the work He has appointed. Communal disciplines – such as worshiping, appointing judges, caring for the poor, and the like – help us to keep our lives in community loving and just. And provisional disciplines are those we need from time to time only, depending on whatever temptations, trials, adversities, or chastening the Lord may bring to us.

While these various disciplines are not spelled out as such in the Law of God, we can see them, if only in outline form. They overlap and interface with one another, and so reinforce one another in the course of our daily lives. And we need to embrace and master them all if we would know full and abundant life in the Lord’s redemption.

It pleases the Lord from time to time to bring chastening to bear on His people. At such times we need to know which provisional disciplines are appropriate for us to gain the benefit God intends.

The word, “chastening” or “discipline,” comes from a Hebrew root which combines in one idea various related ones. The essence of musar (from yasar) is “instruction.” But it also means to chastise or correct. It can also imply a kind of testing by the Lord, yet not such as to lead us into sin. Implied in the idea of “discipline” therefore is the need for change in our lives. God disciplines us because something about our lives needs changing or improving. Provisional disciplines are called for at such times, and so we need to work at learning and mastering these as well as the other types of disciplines.

Provisionaldisciplines begin in recognizing the Lord’s chastening and responding to it with gratitude and joy. Even though, as we shall see, such discipline is not pleasant, still, the hand of the Lord is in it for our good. We will only benefit from the chastening or testing of the Lord when we learn to receive it with thanksgiving and look to the Lord for the instruction, correction, or growth He is seeking to accomplish in us.

So we must not despise the trials, difficulties, temptations, setbacks, disappointments, and so forth that we encounter in our walk with the Lord. They come to us from our Father’s hand; they are completely in line with His covenant promise to bless us; and they can fit us for a closer and more consistent walk with Him, and greater service in His Name. The key to gaining the benefit God intends at such times is to practice the necessary provisional disciplines, beginning in praise and thanks to the Lord in – though not necessarily for – all things.

T. M. Moore

The book of Ecclesiastes is a crucial resource for understanding the Biblical worldview against the backdrop of our secular age. Follow T. M.’s studies in Ecclesiastes by downloading the free, weekly studies available in our Scriptorium Resources page at The Fellowship of Ailbe. Click hereto see the weekly studies available thus far.

Except as indicated, Scripture taken from the New King James Version. © Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.