The Faithful Parent: A Biblical Guide to Raising a Family [Paperback]

Martha Peace & Stuart Scott (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1, 2010

Parents and children need a lot of help from the One who is perfect and who understands our need God himself. Peace and Scott emphasize your family's most important relationship: your relationship with God.

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: P & R Publishing (June 1, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1596382015
• ISBN-13: 978-1596382015
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.4 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #245,027 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Valuable Parenting Resource, July 1, 2010

By 

P. Shirley "P.S." (Tampa, FL) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Faithful Parent: A Biblical Guide to Raising a Family (Paperback)

Those of you who are familiar with The Exemplary Husband, by Stuart Scott and The Excellent Wife by Martha Peace will be interested to know that Scott and Peace have teamed up to come out with a third volume. The Faithful Parent: A Guide to Raising a Biblical Family is the title of this new volume. As helpful as the previous two titles have been for marriage and family issues/counseling, this latest book is just as helpful.

The purpose of the book, as the title indicates, is to provide a guide for raising a biblical family. If this was the goal, then Scott and Peace accomplished the goal. This book is filled with biblical principles as well as practical examples of how those principles are played out in everyday life. This is a book that, as a parent, I benefitted from. And it is a book that, as a pastor, I will recommend to parents.

Scott and Peace set the tone for the book by providing the biblical basis for faithful parenting. maybe the most important point made in this section of the book is that "The goal for the Christian parent is to be faithful to God's Word by his grace and for his glory. You see, in Christ we have the great hope that we can be faithful whether our children are faithful or not." (4) They also point out that "faithfulness, not perfection, is rewarded by the Lord." (5) This is a helpful reminder for parent, myself included. Theologically we would frown upon pragmatism, however we often become pragmatist looking for results in the realm of parenting. The authors do a good job of helping the reader to focus on faithfulness to God, and then to trust God with the results.

After providing the biblical basis for faithful parenting the authors spend the bulk of the book focusing on "the everyday life." (chapters 3-8) In this section the authors dedicate a chapter to each stage of development in a child's life, and provide very reasonable advice for each stage. For example, speaking about disciplining an infant, the authors point out that

Just because babies cannot talk does not mean they cannot learn to listen and obey. They are always able to comprehend more than they can express verbally. Because of this, parents need to teach their babies "no" from the beginning. (44)

This is just one example of the age appropriate advice that is found throughout the book.

There were not a lot of weakness in this book. However, two small items did stand out to me. First, the authors gave some excellent advice on the specifics of spanking, however they did not speak much on the issue of spanking (i.e. why you should do it). Not a big deal, but I thought it might have been helpful for those families trying to work through the issue. Second, and this is really "nitpicky", at times the two author dynamic made the writing style a little clunky.

The strength of this book lies in its ability to deal with biblical principles and how those principles play out in everyday life. Some book are really good at bringing out the principles of Scripture, but they don't provide much in the area of how those principles should change our lives. Other books are really good a providing lots of helpful tips, but don't do a good job of using Scripture (these are more dangerous). However, this book did both, and did it well.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great Biblical Resource for Parents, November 30, 2010

By 

Justin Eason (Texas, USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Faithful Parent: A Biblical Guide to Raising a Family (Paperback)

Scott and Peace do a wonderful job of showing the biblical principles of parenting. The job of a parent is to be faithful to parent as God directs us to. Nothing more or less. Particularly helpful is the help given with concern to different age groups. There is much help and hope with this resource. Easy to read. Very useful. You will want to keep it close.

Three word description:

Simple

Biblical

Practical

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Going to become a go-to book for my ministry, October 4, 2010

By 

justin - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Faithful Parent: A Biblical Guide to Raising a Family (Paperback)

This is just solid biblical advice for parenting. But it's not just theory - Peace and Scott get practical by walking through the development stages of the child and giving specific biblical advice as well as personal suggestions in dealing with that stage. And the resources toward the end of the book are priceless.