4 hours ago
Sharpening Shares is a long-neglected series on the blog in which I share various Christian resources I have found spiritually edifying lately. These are some of our family's recent favorites!
Paul Washer's Studies In Proverbs Lessons - Paul Washer leads a proverbs Bible study for children and young adults and up through this podcast - there are 89 lessons covering the first four chapters of Proverbs (at least so far). These lessons are so thorough and offer so much wisdom to my kids - and me too! I would recommend this as especially helpful starting in 4th grade, but my younger kids listen in with some Bible verse coloring sheets. You can also watch video versions here, and I was excited to see that Paul Washer just recently started recording lessons again starting in Chapter 5!
Catechism Music from Brian Sauve - The kids and I have been working on memorizing the Westminster Shorter Catechism for years now (it's a marathon, not a sprint). We recently starting listening to Sauve's catechism songs on Spotify, and I like how easy these are to listen to - they'd even be nice to just play in the background around the house.
Chapel Library - I was recently made aware of Chapel Library, a ministry that will send you FREE Christian literature each month. You just sign up for an account, select which books or pamphlets you want them to send to you, and checkout for free! I tried them out last month and selected several tracts, some catechism booklets for my kids, and a few pamphlets from authors such as Charles Spurgeon, A. W. Pink, and J. C. Ryle. They have a whole lot more available to request and also a great free app where you can listen to audio versions of alot of the literature!
Loving The Lost Prayer Guide - A friend of mine from our church recently made me aware of this handy little booklet from the International Mission Board. This guide gives information and prayer prompts for 52 unreached people groups around the world. We use a curriculum that teaches world history and geography with an emphasis on praying for different countries around the world, and it's been a really meaningful part of our homeschool lessons. I love that this prayer guide is so compact and will hopefully help us continue that habit through the summer months! Also, I forgot to mention, you can order the booklet for free.
To Seek And To Save by Sinclair Ferguson - This is a devotional for the weeks leading up to Easter, and I am enjoying it - each day has reflections on Jesus's own travels toward Jerusalem leading up to His sacrifice on the cross for us. Ferguson pulls out great points of personal reflection, but I really appreciate how this devotional concentrates on pointing us to Jesus, not ourselves. I'm sure it'll make an appearance when I eventually write an April book roundup, as I'm on track to finish it by Easter Sunday! Bookmark it for next year.
Facing The Cross: A Homeschool Morning Time And Family Worship Guide For Holy Week - Since we are currently in Holy Week, let me remind you of this free guide to reflect on the cross and the Resurrection this week as a family! We haven't worked through this before, but I'm planning on using it with my kids this week.
As someone who watched the Duggars way back in the day, I was curious when I saw Jinger on Allie Beth Stuckey's podcast recently, talking about why she now disagrees with the teachings of Bill Gothard that her family followed growing up. I had never even heard of Bill Gothard, so I was interested to read what she had to say.
I was hoping for a couple things from this book. First, I hoped to see a biblical examination of the teachings of this Gothard guy. Second, I was keeping an eye out to see if Jinger was going to be throwing her parents under the bus, which I hoped she wouldn't do, since I do think that even as adults we are called to honor our parents, albeit in a different way than when we are children.
I thought this book lived up to my hopes in alot of important ways, and didn't in a few small areas. Though I think Jinger did give a good amount of scripture in addressing why she now disagrees with alot of Gothard's teachings, in some areas she did not do a thorough job of it, or her current positions didn't seem well thought-out.
The best example of this is in Chapter 3. Gothard's most infamous teaching is against any type of preventing of pregnancy, and the "quiver full" verse in Psalms 127:5 is often quoted to support this. Jinger briefly says that "not everyone's quiver is the same size, therefore birth control is a gift from God to wisely regulate the size of your family". I put that in quotes because that is almost exactly what she said, though there may be a slight variation because I had to type it out while listening to the audiobook - please excuse any slight mistake.
I think that phrase I italicized above is definitely a jump. I wouldn't necessarily agree that birth control in general is a gift from God, and I can't think of anything in the Bible to support that statement. The morality of the birth control pill and IUDs in particular is questionable at best. The pill's affects on society have been quite mixed. If we are talking about trying to wisely plan the size of a family by abstaining, natural family planning, barriers, etc, I don't personally see anything wrong with that biblically, but hormonal, abortifacient birth control is quite a different story. Jinger makes no distinction in what she means by "birth control". Unlike most of the book, this is one position she takes that she really doesn't explain scripturally at all, which makes it seem like more of a reaction against Gothard and the way this teaching has harmed people, rather than a well researched position. I agree with Jinger that Gothard’s stance that people should have as many babies as possible is not what the Bible indicates, but it doesn’t follow that all birth control is automatically good. These are tricky issues that can’t be reduced to one statement. The section on this in her book was very short. Perhaps she will clarify in future books.
Aside from the few issues that I feel she should have explained more or clarified better, I thought this book did a pretty good job of explaining why alot of Gothard's teaching are false biblically. Alot of this was addressed in the context of Jinger's own memories and experiences, so I wouldn't call it a thorough or systematic addressing of the problems with Gothard, but it was interesting nonetheless. As someone who used to watch the show, I appreciated getting an inside look at Jinger's process of escaping a legalistic mindset to finding freedom to rest in Christ and His righteousness.
As far as whether Jinger throws her parents under the bus, I can say that the answer is a resounding "no". I thought she did a great job of talking about some of the problems she sees with Gothard without portraying her parents in a negative light. Every story she shares about her parents is a positive one, and though they may likely disagree with some of the stances she takes in this book, she takes extra care to honor the positive impact they have had on her life and not air any dirty laundry. It was very well-done on that front, and a great example of still choosing to honor her parents into adulthood with how she speaks about them.
One thing that Jinger does very well in this book is explain the subtleties of a legalistic mindset as opposed to obeying out of love for Jesus. It was sweet to read about her relationship with her husband and how he helped to gently point her away from her religious to-do lists and toward Christ. Even though Jinger does know that alot of nonbeliever's are going to be picking up this book, she does not shy away from taking a strong stance on the authority of God's Word over man's word and sharing the true gospel throughout.
So much of her story she uses to point to Christ and His work to save us on the cross, and encouraging others to rest in that. I also appreciated that she seemed to be gearing parts of the book toward people she knows who are still entrapped in Gothard's teaching and relying on their own works to be pleasing to God. She appeals to them to look to Jesus and find their rest in the salvation that He offers through His sacrificial death and resurrection. I think that was very encouraging and well-done. I also had to appreciate that Jinger says herself that she is still in the process of sorting through her own false beliefs and grounding them in Scripture instead, so it will be interesting to see how this ends up looking for her in the future.
Definitely an interesting book if you were ever a Duggar viewer, and overall this was a book that points to Christ. Even though it seems like alot of Jinger's journey out of legalism is very fresh and still in process, it was nice to read this book and see that she hasn't abandoned her faith and seems to be on a biblically sound track.
Note: I can provide more information on the problems with the birth control pill and it's abortifacient effects upon request, but you can also read this post from WAY back in the day for more information to get you started if you want to research it on your own.
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