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One concept that permeates Joel Beeke’s book Parenting by God’s Promises: How to Raise Children in the Covenant of Grace is an amazing high view of God. There is a consistent theme of “looking away from ourselves and into the face of Christ.” When he writes that “God has eternal designs for parenting,” he makes his case beginning with the theological/covenantal foundations and ending with practical steps for childrearing and helps for teens. There is even a word for grandparents that, by the way, is near and dear to my heart.

Although I differ with some points of Beeke’s theological framework, there is much to recommend about this book. Even in areas that contradicted with my theological beliefs, I appreciated how he faithfully used the Scriptures. This book is filled with many practical suggestions for the parents. Beeke marshalls a compelling case for what the parents should be doing to truly bring their children up in the “discipline and instruction of the Lord” (Eph. 6:4).

As a counselor, I am often asked to counsel children. I answer, “No, but we will counsel the parents and help them to help their children.” That is what Beeke has done with this well written, well organized, helpful, and hopeful book. It does not give unbiblical promises such as, “If you do everything just perfectly, your children will be saved and love the Lord.” But it does give the hope that as parents labor, by God’s grace, for the good of their children and the glory of God that the children will be blessed by God and perhaps even saved.

Beeke sees parents in the role of prophet, priest, and king in God-given authority over their children. This is a sobering responsibility as parents live out their role as prophets teaching the Scriptures and catechizing their children; as priests in the home by conducting family worship, taking them to church, and praying for them; and as kings in the home exercising loving rule through preventive and corrective discipline. As sobering as the responsibility is, Beeke offers counsel for how to, by God’s grace, fulfill this sobering responsibility. Like his Puritan forebearers, he strives to answer the question, “How can this be done according to Scripture and for the glory of God?”

Parenting by God's Promises: How to Raise Children in the Covenant of Grace

Parenting by God's Promises: How to Raise Children in the Covenant of Grace

Reformation Trust (2011). 350 pp.

In Parenting by God’s Promises: How to Raise Children in the Covenant of Grace, Dr. Joel R. Beeke explores what nurture and admonition looks like and offers gems of practical wisdom for parents on topics such as instituting and leading family worship, teaching children, modeling faithful Christian living, and exercising discipline. However, he carefully puts parental responsibilities in their proper perspective and guides mothers and fathers to lean not on their own abilities but to trust more fully in the God who knits children together in the first place. Above all, he affirms, parents must look to the one true God, who promises to provide everything His people need and to bless them and their families.

Reformation Trust (2011). 350 pp.

Beeke sees God as a “promise making, promise keeping God,” and he presents a vivid picture of the parent’s influence and subsequent “blessings by God” on their children. Beeke also views Christian parents as being like God, in that they should be loving, kind, compassionate, and tender with their children. After all, “God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance” (Rom. 2:4). God’s love to the child through his parents is expressed throughout the book, especially in the chapters “Sympathizing with our Children” and “Exercising Loving Rule with Our Children.”

The second half of the book focuses on practical steps and helps for child-rearing and teens. The seven chapters in these two sections are worth the price of the book. Especially noteworthy are the chapters on teaching children piety, teaching children to listen, handling sibling relationships, helping teens to discern God’s will, and helping teens to resist negative peer pressure.

After reading this book, I recommend that parents read and study it together and implement many of the God-glorifying, practical ways to teach your children, lead them to worship God, and lovingly discipline them. As Derek W. H. Thomas said so well in the foreword of this book, “Now, turn the page and allow a pastor-father-husband to help you with gospel grace and love.”

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