This book lays the foundation for godly child-training. It is an overview of why and how to train your children in righteousness. It begins with an overview of the world in which we live and why it’s important to raise our children in righteousness. The next chapter explains how God demands our full devotion and what this means for family discipleship. The third chapter explains love. Love for God and for one another, as well as myths of love are included. The fourth chapter speaks of the importance of inculcating a biblical-worldview in your children. Chapters five through seven deal with how parents are to teach and live the word of God to our children. The rest of the book prepares parents for the reactions they will receive as they pursue such radical steps to disciple their children. It’s just not normal for a family, even a Christian family, to disciple their children the way God’s word teaches.

We thoroughly enjoyed reading this book as we anticipated our first child. We already believed many of the ideas, but they were stated in such a clear way that it benefited us to rehearse the reasons for bringing up our children in the ways of the Lord. It would be especially helpful for those who don’t know how God instructs us to teach our children. Again, this is a foundations book.

Another helpful resource in the book is the statistics. Baucham does an excellent job of documenting why the present method of bringing up children is not working. He is especially speaking to those of his denomination, the Southern Baptists, but it applies to all. Children are leaving the faith when they get old enough to get away, and it’s across the board. Those of us in the South point to others in the North of other denominations who are falling away, but we have plenty of young adults in the Bible-belt who made professions of faith who are living away from the church and in sin, and most of them are born and bred Baptists (of all stripes). These statistics will explain how deep the problem goes.

The only drawback to this book is that, as with any book that lays a foundation, it doesn’t get into many of the details of child-rearing. If he did, it would be two to three times as long, and most people wouldn’t read it. That being said, he does devote a portion to discipline and how it should be administered.