Give Them Grace - New Book on Parenting

J.D. Greear:

I’ve been working on an endorsement for Elyse Fitzpatrick’s new book on parenting, Give Them Grace. Elyse’s book is all about applying the Gospel to how we train our children, how we are instructing them to love God and grow in godly character. 

At the risk of sounding overly-dramatic, this book has been a real game-changer for Veronica and me. It’s not that we didn’t apply any of these principles before, but the profundity and clarity with which Elyse writes has helped us bring our parenting “strategy” up into line with what we know to be true about the Gospel. 

For example, the chapter I read last week really challenged my nearly-constant affirmation of my children as “good kids.” Whenever I’ve said that, there has always been a  rub because deep down I know, theologically speaking, that they are sinners, and, like all of us, not “good.” Affirming their goodness does more to affirm their inherent Phariseeism than it does to teach them to hope in God’s grace.  At the same time, no parent wants to walk around saying, “You’re depraved, you were born in sin.”  So I haven’t really quite known what to do with that. 

What is the solution? Elyse says it is much better to affirm the grace of God at work in them than it is to point them to their own goodness. Barnabas did that to the adolescent church in in Acts 11–when he “saw the grace of God at work in them,” he encouraged them in that.  I’ve started to say to my kids, “Allie, when I saw you share that toy with your sister, it was a reminder to me that I see God’s grace at work in you and that makes me very happy.”  When Kharis does an excellent job at her schoolwork, I say, “Kharis, your diligence in doing so diligently your assignments are a sign to me that God’s grace is at work in you, and I am very encouraged by that.

Read the rest.

Click here to look at this new book soon to be released from Crossway.