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92 of 95 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Many Strengths, Several Weaknesses, July 15, 2011
This review is from: Give Them Grace: Dazzling Your Kids with the Love of Jesus (Paperback)
Elyse Fitzpatrick and Jessica Thompson explain what makes Christian parenting unique: it isn't merely about turning out "good" kids; it's about pointing all of our kids to the Savior. While rules are a necessary part of parenting, Elyse and Jessica say, they aren't the primary theme, the work of Christ is. The law doesn't transform the heart...It only hardens them in pride (because they're successfully obeying it) or despair (because they aren't pg. 68). One of the strengths of Give Them Grace is that it not only encourages the parent to give grace to his/her children, but it also gives a good measure of grace to the parent. Here are a few quotes to whet your appetite: We must trust in His "ability to transform hearts, not in our ability to be consistent or faithful...Freedom to love and enjoy our children flows out of the knowledge that God saves them in spite of our best efforts, not because of them. Salvation of the Lord" (pg. 53). It's not up to me; it's a work of God. "When we're quietly resting in grace, we'll have grace to give our children, too. When we're freed from the ultimate responsibility of being their savior, we'll find our parenting burden becoming easy and light" (pg. 55). Elyse and Jessica touch briefly on idolatry and unbelief as it pertains to parenting: "We have far too high a view of our ability to shape our children and far too low a view of God's love and trustworthiness. So we multiply techniques and try to control the outcome" (pg. 57). In Give Them Grace, Elyse and Jessica also make much of God. This book is encouraging, Gospel-centered, and grace-filled through and through. In spite of all of the strengths of this book, I do have a few reservations. 1.) The authors don't make children apologize unless they are truly sorry (pg. 67, 101, 104) lest they be hypocritical. "If we encourage our children to ask for forgiveness when their hearts haven't been stricken by the rod of the Holy Spirit's conviction, we are training them to be hypocritical. We are inadvertently teaching them that false professions of sorrow will satisfy God. God is never pleased with outward proclamations of devotions when the heart is far from him (Isa. 29:13; Matt. 15:7-9); in fact, he hates it. The truth is that we can never know with any certainty whether proclamations of repentance are true, because only God knows the heart (Jer. 17:5)...Rather than insisting on an immediate show of repentance, you should give your children time to respond to the prompting of the Holy Spirit" (pg. 104). Although this looks good at face value, I could easily use this same logic to say that my children need not obey, attend church, sing praises to God, etc. unless they truly desired to, however, I don't think that this should be the case at all. John Piper has a very helpful article on this subject: "Why Require Unregenerate Children to Act Like They're Good?" @[...] 2.) The authors repeatedly assert that obedience results from a heart of gratitude for all that God has done for us in Christ without providing any Scripture references to support this notion (ex. pg. 48, 54, 83, 106, 108). Again, I have found Biblical teaching from John Piper helpful on this subject. It has been a few years since I have looked over that material, but I need to review it again. An initial article that might help one begin to consider this topic is: "Is Gratitude A Bad Motivation for Obeying God?" @ [...] 3.) The authors make an unhelpful distinction between regenerate and unregenerate children (ex. pg. 48). A "Chart of Common Problems and the Gospel" includes suggested conversation for the child who isn't a Christian and the one who is. Dan Cason articulates this concern quite nicely in his review for Westminster: "I found the attempt to separate children into "regenerate" (Christian) and "unregenerate" (non-Christian) categories somewhat confusing. Presumably you determine what category your child is in based on his or her public profession of faith. They believe that, until you're able to discern that your child is a Christian, you cannot expect her or him to obey. Thus, you should only present the gospel." This brings us back to reservation number one. ;) I am still weighing the above matters and have not had sufficient time to ponder them in-depth. As a result, my thoughts are not well-articulated and severely lacking. However, my review is due, so I've treated the matters as carefully as I can at this time. I hope the links will help you to begin to study these matters for yourself. Overall, Give Them Grace is an encouraging and thought-provoking read. I am still processing much of the material. While there is much to commend, there is also much to ponder and carefully weigh. I don't agree with others who have said that it is THE BEST parenting book, but God has used it as a means of grace to me and for that I am grateful. *Many thanks to Crossway for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinion!
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46 of 49 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Written by Imperfect Parents to Imperfect Parents, May 27, 2011
This review is from: Give Them Grace: Dazzling Your Kids with the Love of Jesus (Paperback)
In the forward to Give Them Grace by Elyse M. Fitzpatrick and Jessica Thompson, Tullian Tchividjian says it's "the best parenting book [he's] ever read, because it takes the radical, untamable, outrageous nature of the gospel seriously and applies it to parenting." And the authors do take the gospel seriously. The difference between their book and other Christian parenting books, they say, is that theirs emphasizes grace rather than law: "Most of us are painfully aware that we're not perfect parents. We're also deeply grieved that we don't have perfect kids. But the remedy to our mutual imperfection isn't more law, even if it seems to produce tidy or polite children." These two experienced mothers don't pretend that they are perfect, that their children are perfect, or that they have the secret key to perfection. They don't give readers a formula for parenting; there are no "three steps," or even specified rod dimensions (though they do say that an open hand is okay, regardless of what other parenting books have said). Instead, they remind us that it is God, and not parents, who determines a child's destiny in this life and the next, and that we need His grace as much as our children do. They also give lots of encouragement to weary, imperfect parents: "[God] doesn't treat his dear children as `disappointments' whose disobedience and failures take him by surprise or shock him. He does not suspend his love until they get their acts back together. He already knows the worst about you (in yourself) and loves and approves you nonetheless (in Christ)." If applying the gospel can be overdone, these authors do it proudly: "We've encouraged you to dazzle [your children] with the message of Christ's love and welcome, and then when you think that surely they must be tiring of it, go back and drench them with it again." The only problem with this is that when we apply the gospel to every event in life, and especially when we use it to correct, children will tire of it. Not every moment needs to be a "teachable moment." Do we need to bring up Jesus' agony on the cross every time our child acts like a child? The authors give an example of how we might apply the gospel to a child who pouts after losing a baseball game: "Yes, losing is difficult....Jesus Christ understands losing because he lost relationship with his father on the cross....He's using this suffering in your life to make us both look up and see his love." Besides the superficial view of suffering in the above quote, this loose way of applying the gospel, especially when often repeated, takes the power out of the message and can weary the children. Something sadder than a child growing up never hearing the good news is a child who grows up hoping to never hear it again. Besides overdoing the application of the gospel, the authors are also guilty, like the authors of many of our Christian books and blogs, of overwriting. Some of their words have become so popular (peruse, enjoin, facets, eventuate), that I expect to see them in half the Christian books I read, though I've never heard them in real conversation. Add a few phrases like, "radical message of grace," "soul-satisfying repast of grace," and "construct a methodology," with extra doses of drama and intellectualisms, and an over-all good message becomes unpalatable to readers who prefer a simpler style. Still, the most important things to be said about this book are that it leaves room for failure, emphasizes the superiority of the gospel over the law, and is primarily about imperfect parents glorifying a perfect God (rather than themselves or their children). These things put Give Them Grace above many other Christian parenting books. I received a complimentary copy of this book from Crossway in exchange for an honest review.
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23 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Is Raising "Good Kids" the Point?, May 23, 2011
This review is from: Give Them Grace: Dazzling Your Kids with the Love of Jesus (Paperback)
Elyse Fitzpatrick would answer "no" and so would I. In her latest book from Crossway, written with the help of her daughter Jessica Thompson (also a mom), Fitzpatrick argues convincingly that, "Christian children (and their parents) don't need to learn to be 'nice,' They need death and resurrection and a Savior who has gone before them as a faithful high priest, who was a child himself, and who lived and died perfectly in their place." In Give Them Grace: Dazzling Your Kids with the Love of Jesus, Fitzpatrick, a highly respected author and biblical counselor, confesses that she, like many of us, often employed the "Oh, yes, you will - or else!" approach to parenting when Jessica was a child. Granting that "initial, social, civic and religious" obedience is absolutely necessary to impart to our children, the authors are clear that obedience and law-keeping morality are not the goal of parenting that intends to be distinctively Christian. "If not rooted in gratitude for God's love for us in Christ," say the authors, "morality is deadlier to the soul than immorality." Instead of, "Oh, yes, you will - or else!", Fitzpatrick and Thompson devote Give Them Grace to unpacking a paradigm more deeply rooted in gospel truth, something more akin to, "You're right, you can't. Not without a Rescuer." I've spent most of my adult life in youth ministry, discipling and counseling teenagers and their parents, but was a relative latecomer to the world of marriage and parenting. For many years I, like Fitzpatrick, would have to confess to teaching more morality than gospel, more law than grace. Although I believed the gospel and taught the gospel, I taught it more as something that one receives and believes and then moves beyond - to faithfulness and obedience. I had not yet grasped the fact that there is no moving beyond the gospel. I did not yet see that the minute we try to move beyond the gospel, we fall right back into legalism and negate the gospel. As Paul said to the Galatians, "Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?" (Galatians 3:3) What I didn't see when I would encourage a teenager in my youth group by saying something like, "you're a great kid," was how devoid of the gospel my well-intentioned encouragement was. I squandered many opportunities to tell those kids, "You're right. You are a mess and so am I. Let's pray right now and thank God that Jesus died for messes like us and then ask him to help us love Jesus better and follow Him more closely." It wasn't until I became a parent myself (at age 40), that the Lord began to show me my daily need for the gospel of grace in order to have any hope of living out it's beautiful implications. Every Christian parent who desires to raise their children with gospel intentionality must read this book. Give Them Grace is saturated in the truths that salvation is of the Lord, the gospel is for sinners, we are all hopelessly incapable parents, and we serve a Savior for whom nothing is impossible. These are the truths that we must pray over ourselves and our children if we want to see their hearts transformed. If you are a parent, or interact with children or teenagers on any level, please read this book and give them grace!
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