“The
Christian family was the bulwark of godliness in the days of the puritans, but
in these evil times hundreds of families of so-called Christians have no family
worship, no restraint upon growing sons, and no wholesome instruction or
discipline. How can we hope to see the kingdom of our Lord advance when His own
disciples do not teach His gospel to their own children?” ~ Charles Spurgeon,
Morning and Evening
It
may be that of all the spiritual disciplines that fell into decline throughout
the decades of so-called “cultural Christianity” in the American church, that
none has had such disastrous a consequence on culture in its absence than the
demise of family worship.
In
answer to this desperate situation among households across denominations, Dr.David Prince along with Jon Canler (General Editor) and his Ashland Avenue
Baptist Church family, of which Dr. Prince is senior pastor, have provided the church
at-large with a valuable resource that promises to re-introduce, re-engage, and
re-ignite the practice of family worship with their publication of the book,
“Jesus the Hero Family Devotional” (JTH).
JTH
is a paperback volume published by Ashland Avenue Baptist Church and is
available for purchase online at Amazon.com. While Dr. Prince is the primary
author, one of the unique qualities of this family devotional is the
contribution made by members of the Ashland church body. This means that the
reader has the joint benefits of a devotional written and compiled by a
teaching professor at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and material
provided by lay authors who possess a variety of life and educational
experiences. In this way, JTH is truly a devotional by the family and for the
family.
The
material design of JTH is intended to foster consistent family devotion throughout
the week, with five concise units of study with two “off days” built in. The
benefit of this is a clear commitment to family discipleship with a fair amount
of grace for those unexpected intrusions to the family calendar. In addition,
each unit of study is concise, and does not require large amounts of time to
successfully complete. This is encouraging for larger families in which any
twenty-minute exercise naturally turns into thirty or forty, and for those
families who are just getting started. In short, JTH is a logistically
accessible devotional for families of all sizes and backgrounds.
Saving
the best for last, no review of JTH would be complete without a mention of the
actual material. In the opening quote from the great Baptist preacher, Charles
Spurgeon, he wrote of concerns for instruction, discipline, and the impartation
of Gospel truth to the family and in particular, the children of any household.
If these issues presented the church with a dilemma in Spurgeon’s day, how
concerning must they be now?
The
content of JTH may be the most exciting feature of the book. Dr. Prince wrote
in his foreword, “Christ is the one in whom God will ultimately sum up the
entire cosmos (Eph. 1:10) … The Jesus the Hero Family Devotional is an attempt
to help followers of Christ in the task of summing up all things in Christ
right now” (p.5). As the title makes explicit, JTH is a Christ-focused work
that seeks to connect the biblical storyline in both Old and New Testaments to
the reader’s life in such a way that application is true to Scripture with
material suitable for all ages. In this way, the reader can be confident that
what they are receiving is a biblically faithful aid along the road of family
worship.
JTH
is a book that any pastor, biblical counselor, or small group leader should be
familiar with and prepared to recommend to any family under their care. There
can be no doubt as to the spiritual growth that families stand to experience as
they pursue Christ together. New families with little ones or teenagers ought not
be discouraged as they implement this discipline for the first time, but should
trust that as they gather in the living room or around the dining table, that
God will honor their time in his word and Jesus the Hero will be among them.
A
review copy of "Jesus the Hero Family Devotional" was provided to the reviewer
(Joshua Waulk).
