Paul David TrippParenting: 14 Gospel Principles That Can Radically Change Your Family (with Study Questions)

Such a great book. Well worth your time.

I highly recommend this book!! It's not just another child training book, how to raise kids, but focuses on the parents.

This book is absolutely insightful and helpful. Highly recommended.

When I bought this book I wasn’t quite sure if I should read it or not. But in a place where I was, I bought it and began to read it. I can’t recommend this book enough!It isn’t your average parenting book like the “how to’s” that’s all out there. No! It’s better! You’ll begin to feel the conviction to better become the parent God entrusted you with with your children. It brought me to a place with ABBA Father to heal from inside wounds I didn’t know I had or roots to see that I didn’t know had. I have underlines and writings and highlights throughout the book.I’ve already recommended it to a few friends and family members.This book is a keeper to run back to.

Good parenting principles

Pro: Excellent emphasis on parental priorities—“The most important thing that a child could ever learn about is the existence, character, and plan of God.” Excellent emphasis on the need for God’s grace—“Good parenting lives at the intersection of a humble admission of personal powerlessness and a confident rest in the power and grace of God.”Excellent emphasis on worship—“Worship is that inner desire for wonder, amazement, and awe that every human being possesses. It is that craving to be fulfilled. It is that constant search for life. It is wanting personal meaning and purpose…. It’s that universal hunger for inner peace. It’s that life-long hunt for God…. It’s the reality that no one is godless. We all give our hearts to the one true God or to some created God replacement.” Excellent use of humor—“It’s so easy in the middle of any day of parenting multiple children to lose your mind.” Lots of wisdom—“Parenting is not a series of dramatic confrontation-confession events, but rather a life-long process of incremental awareness and progressive change. The four-year-old will not say after you confront him, ‘I am a self-centered, self-ruling idolater in need of redemption.’ ”Con: Repetitive; Organization; The book was sometimes confusing and sometimes left me feeling overwhelmed and weighed down. For example, the book is structured around 14 big-picture principles, but each chapter is full of minor principles and tips. Also, the book uses many rhetorical questions. Sometimes, the minor principles, tips and questions illuminated practical wisdom, but the clarity provided by the big-picture principles was sometimes muddied by the shift to a little-picture perspective. Also, the 14 big-picture principles are referred to as gospel principles. Sometimes, the relationship between the principle and the gospel is very clear, but sometimes it isn’t as clear (e.g. the Identity principle).

I could spend a book writing about how good this book is! When it has accolades from someone like Francis Chan, I don’t know why you need my opinion. But here it is. I took so many pages of notes about ways this book revolutionizes the philosophy of parenting based on the Gospel. My son is an infant, and I praise the Lord that I discovered this book at the beginning of my parenting journey. The way I live out my faith IN RELATIONSHIP is how my children will understand faith! As daunting as the calling is to be an ambassador of our heavenly Father to our children is, Tripp gives us so many encouraging Scriptures that remind us that we are not alone and that we have the power through Christ to fulfill this calling. Also, it is such an encouragement to remember that my children are in His hands ultimately, not mine. I can be faithful, but I cannot sanctify them. That is a relief. Tripp did such a good job at helping me see my sanctification journey with God as my Father in a way that will give me grace and compassion and patience with my children, because I am no different from them. Also, parenting seems so much more important when you realize that your responsibility is to help your children see themselves and their behaviors in light of Jesus and his love and sacrifice, not to force them to be obedient - God is more concerned about who we are, than what we do. My child and I are working together against the enemy of sin in both of our lives; I am not my child’s enemy, nor is my child my enemy. I as a parent, and as a child of God, am forever changed by this book.One other comment that I have about it is that the book is about very large philosophies, and doesn’t have almost any practical examples of how to carry out these philosophies. It was best read in the context of a group of other Christian parents, so we could discuss how to live out of these philosophies as parents.I am an adoption specialist and I have read very many parenting books. This is the best one and the most important one.