Book Review: Joel R. Beeke- Parenting by God's Promises

Parenting by God's Promises

By Joel Beeke / Reformation Trust Publishing

"Many parents today are searching for the secret to successful parenting. In Covenantal Parenting--Raising Children in Dependence on God's Promises, Joel R. Beeke asserts that there is no secret. When it comes to giving children what they need most new hearts that trust in Christ for forgiveness of sins parents are helpless. When children come to faith, it is due to the grace of God.

But while parents are helpless, they are not hopeless, for God has promised in his word to provide all needful things for His people and to bless them and their families. With faith in these grand promises, parents may raise their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord with confidence that God will work savingly in their lives.

Covenantal Parenting is a different kind of parenting manual, one that 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."

Joel R. Beeke has written what is sure to be a definitive book for raising children within the context of historical Reformed Covenant Theology. He begins by laying the theological groundwork and then follows up with a practical application that works out the implications of the theology. The book is divided into four major parts. The contents are as follows:

Contents

Foreword by Derek W. H. Thomas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi

Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii

Introduction: Parenting with a Strong Hope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xv

Part One: Covenantal Foundations for Parenting

1. Encouragement through the Covenant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

2. Children of the Covenant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

3. Rearing Children by Faith . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

4. The Covenant Promise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

5. Bringing Children to Christ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

Part Two: Parenting as Prophets, Priests, and Kings

6. Our Responsibility as Parents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65

7. Teaching Our Children as Prophets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77

8. What Should We Teach Our Children? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93

9. Training in Godly Living . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103

10. Serving as Priests in the Home . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113

11. Sympathizing with Our Children . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123

12. Exercising Loving Rule as Kings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131

13. Preventive Discipline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143

14. Corrective Discipline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153

Part Three: Practical steps for Child-Rearing

15. Help from Our Puritan Forebears . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169

16. Teaching Children Piety . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181

17. Teaching Children to Listen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195

18. Taming Children’s Tongues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207

19. Handling Sibling Relationships . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221

Part Four: Practical Helps for Teenagers

20. Helping Teenagers Discern God’s Will . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235

21. Helping Teenagers Resist Negative Peer Pressure . . . . . . . . . . . 247

22. Helping Teenagers Manage Anger . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .259

Conclusion: To a Thousand Generations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .271

Appendix 1: Cotton Mather’s Parental Resolutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .285

Appendix 2: Children in the Church . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .295

Study Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .303

Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .315

Scripture Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .321

Subject Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 327

Because Beeke is drawing from the distinctives of Covenant Theology to develop his points, the book functions both a parenting guide as well as a mild polemic against other theological perspectives. For example, the following statement regarding Baptist views of the unsaved children of saved parents is typical.

 “One might think that this second view would tend to lead parents to regard their children as heathens, cut off from God and excluded from His church. The good news is that many Baptists, despite their weak view of the covenant, raise their children as if they were covenant children. In fact, sometimes they do a better job than those in Reformed churches. They bring their children to church, pray for and with them, talk to them about their souls, teach them the doctrines of grace, and train them well, offering them all the advantages of covenant nurture (except, of course, for the sacrament of baptism, which the Reformers taught is one of the primary means of grace). I admire the way many Reformed Baptists rear their children, even though I disagree with them at this point in their theology. I believe that they underestimate the power and scope of the covenant.”    (pg. 20)

These critical observations are not provocative but they do include subtle barbs and are common throughout the book. In light of this, I thought it mildly ironic that the book begins with and extended quote from Charles Spurgeon and has endorsements from well known Baptists. My reading resulted in moments of hearty agreement as well as moments of respectful objection to the theological foundation that he builds upon. In fairness, however, I should point out that his understanding of the covenant and its application are completely in line with traditional Reformed Covenant Theology, which is clearly the audience for which the book is intended.

Despite the heavy Presbyterian bias, the fundamental emphasis of the book is correct. Beeke argues that we must parent by grace and that only the Holy Spirit can produce Godly children. The secret to Godly parenting is not to be found in methodology but in faithful stewardship. In our pragmatic age this needs to be said repeatedly and Beeke’s voice in the chorus is well appreciated. The centrality of the Word of God and our relationship with Him in our parenting are well explained and well applied. The practical advice that Beeke provides is solidly biblical and will be helpful even to Christian parents who are not initiated in Covenant Theology. Those in the Reformed Covenantal tradition will no doubt find this book to be excellent.

* I received a free copy of this book from Reformation Trust Publishing as part of their book review program. Reviews are not required to be positive and the opinions I have expressed are my own.