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I’m so excited to have finally read Give Them Grace by Elyse Fitzpatrick and Jessica Thompson. It’s been on my to-read list for a couple years now but I just never got around to reading it until now… maybe I finally did because my adorable two year old has been reminding me that I need as much help in the parenting department as I can get! 😉
Anyway, I read it and I liked it! Here is an excerpt from the back cover:
All of us want to raise good kids. And we want to be good parents. But what exactly do we mean by “good?” And is “being good” really the point?
Mother-daughter team Elyse Fitzpatrick and Jessica Thompson contend that every way we try to make our kids “good” is simply an extension of Old Testament Law–a set of standards that is not only unable to save our children, but also powerless to change them.
No, rules are not the answer. What they need is GRACE.
We must tell our kids of the grace-giving God who freely adopts rebels and transforms them into loving sons and daughters. If this is not the message your children hear, if you are just telling them to “be good,” then the gospel needs to transform your parenting too.
The book starts out asking the question “Are you a Christian parent?” Of course many of us would say yes, we are! But what about our parenting makes it distinctly Christian? Don’t all parents want to teach their kids to behave and have good morals?
Give Them Grace explains that if we are not constantly pointing our children to Jesus and the truth of the gospel, then our parenting truly is no different than an unbelievers’.
Ephesians 6:4, one of only two verses in the New Testament with a direct command about parenting, says this: “Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.” The last phrase of the verse could also be read “in the discipline and instruction of Jesus Christ.”
The authors explain that it can feel much easier – and safer really – to raise our children “in the discipline and instruction of the law” but that when we do that we miss the whole point of the gospel!
The book is divided into two sections: Foundations of Grace and Evidence of Grace. The first section, comprised of four chapters, lays out the authors’ premise and the second, the remaining six chapters, fleshes it out with more examples and explanations.
Some readers may find Give Them Grace to be a bit repetitive. The authors are clearly trying to drive home their point – which is a good thing – but you could argue that it could be done more concisely. It didn’t bother me, but I just thought I’d throw that out there.
I also think that the example conversations in the book need to be taken with a grain of salt. Many of them sounded a bit forced and unrealistic to me. BUT, I think the examples are beneficial when taken as just that – examples. Read them, chuckle a little if you want, but then take the main point – sharing the good news about Jesus – and incorporate it into your own conversations with your kids.
Give Them Grace was both challenging and encouraging to me. It was challenging because it made me evaluate the goal behind my parenting – is it to glorify God by teaching my children to love Jesus, or is it just to produce “good” kids? Do I give grace to my kids like God has given grace to me?
It was encouraging because I was reminded over and over again of God’s grace. I have failed at parenting and I will fail again. I will not always point my children back to Jesus like I should. But thank God, my children’s salvation does not depend on me.
“The disciples couldn’t hinder the children from coming to [Jesus] even though they tried…. So, even though we desire to be the ones who place our children in the lap of God’s mercy and even though we stumble so badly trying to do so, Jesus is strong enough to pick each of us up and carry us all the way. Parents, too, are weak but Jesus is strong.”
I’m so glad that God’s grace is for parents too, aren’t you?
