This week's special offer for our blog readers has two parts. The first part is to purchase Hints for Parents by Gardiner Spring.  This book is a 19th century classic, republished by Shepherd Press. To help with application to the modern day, Tedd Tripp has written a series of gospel encouragements throughout the book. Glean timeless truths about parenting from Pastor Spring, with Dr. Tripp's expert commentary to guide you. 

But this is just the first part of the offer. If you purchase Hints for Parents and enter the coupon code JYHINTS1 before you check out, you will receive 40% off your entire order! What a wonderful opportunity to get the Shepherd Press materials you have been wanting at a great discount. This offer will expire February 13.  The coupon may be used once per customer.

Enjoy shopping, and thanks again for reading the blog.

Snow is blanketing the East Coast this weekend in record amounts. Hundreds of thousands of homes are without power. Work will be disrupted for companies, small businesses, schools, and even the government. Thirty inches of snow simply cannot be ignored. Once again, the power of man quickly pales in comparison to the power of God. The scientific explanation of how snow occurs is not complex. The right combination of moisture, temperature, and a low pressure system will result in snow. However, small deviations in any of these three variables can result in ice or rain instead of snow. The convergence of just the right factors results in major storms like the one occurring now. For some this is a random convergence, occurring with all the certainty of a roll of the dice. But for those who believe in the God of the Bible, weather is not random at all. The Book of Job makes this statement:

The Super Bowl is a major cultural event. Today's post contains thoughts about this year's game.  I'll also include links to previous posts about this game. It is important to think biblically about this highly visible part of our culture. Take a look at this post and the previous ones and let us know your thoughts!

                The Super Bowl and Proverbs 4:23 part 1 & part 2

                The Super Bowl and Your Heart's Orientation

Greg Doyle is a writer for CBS Sports. He is a good sports reporter and I enjoy his work. I also believe that he represents what many think about the role of sports in our culture. As you may know, Tim Tebow and his mother are going to be featured in an ad sponsored by Focus on the Family during this year's Super Bowl. Mr. Doyle provides this description of what he thinks the ad will be like:

The final point that needs to be covered concerning talking to your children about sex and marriage is the joyous pursuit of sexual purity. Sexual purity is the eager and aggressive commitment to trusting God's parameters for sexual conduct. This should be a pursuit of joy. Sexual purity must not be defined only as a negative. The pursuit is of sexual purity is not only to avoid what is wrong but to eagerly pursue what is right. In this case, what is right is a passionate commitment to engage in sexual matters as God has instructed in his Word. Such purity leads to an active worship of God in all of life. That is something that you can talk about without hesitation with your children. Trusting God with their sexuality is the absolute best thing that anyone can do. You do not have to discuss every area of sexual perversion in order to prepare children for combating sexual sin. To be sure, you should be prepared to discuss questions about the sexual sin that is rampant in our culture, but even this must be in the context that God's ways are superior to the natural practice of this world.

This week we are pleased to offer another special offer for readers of our blog. These offers serve both to thank you for your support of the blog and to make you aware of the wide variety of products that Shepherd Press carries.

This week we are having a yard sale!  There are three pages dedicated to this sale on the Shepherd Press site. Just click here to take advantage of this sale.  This sale has titles in the following categories:  Practical Christian Living, Children's Books, Culture/Worldview resources and  Counseling. 

Here are the particulars:

            Most of these titles will be 75% off the regular price

The special discount will not appear until after you have logged in and put the book in the shopping cart

You may order just one copy of each title for this sale

Quantities are limited - it is possible some of the titles will sell out

Remember there are 3 pages of sale items - check out all three

This offer will be available through Friday, February 5^th

To take advantage of this sale just click here.

In the last post I suggested following an incremental approach when beginning to talk about marriage and sexuality; this approach would then culminate in a series of intentional, more structured discussions. These intentional discussions would be the basis for ongoing conversations about marriage and sexuality throughout the teenage years and beyond. The talk that the father in Proverbs 7 has with his son is example of the incremental approach. He took advantage of a situation when it presented itself. The more formal, intentional discussions have their basis in passages like Genesis 1-2, Psalm 139, Song of Solomon, and Ephesians 5:25-33.

This post continues our series on talking to your children about marriage and sex. As we discussed in the previous post, specific topics that need to be addressed should be introduced incrementally.

One way to begin this incremental process is to talk about modesty. Granted, each family will likely have its own particular view of what is modest, but all families interested in following biblical principles will be concerned about modesty. Modesty, like all other guidelines, must be rooted in biblical soil to effectively point your children to Christ. In I Timothy 2, modesty is tied to a lifestyle that is appropriate for those who worship God. Paul is, in effect, stating that modesty is consistent with moral purity and marriage. Thus, when you instruct your young children to dress and act with modesty, you should also connect this standard to loving God and preparing for marriage. Even with very young children you can explain that there are certain parts of the body that are special and reserved for one's husband or wife alone.

The theme of this series of posts is talking to your children about sex and marriage. As I indicated in the first post of this series, I deliberately keep sex and marriage linked because that is how the Bible presents them. Sex is not designed or intended for self-pleasure.  Sex does bring pleasure, but engaging in sex for the primary purpose of fulfilling personal desires is the gateway to lust. As Ephesians 4:17-19 teaches, sensitivity to others (the biblical motivation for sex) is the opposite of sensuality (the self-serving pursuit of pleasure). Sensuality leads to sexual perversion and to God's harsh judgment of abandoning people to their own desires, condemning them to the ultimate consequences of their desires (Romans 1:18-32). Thus, when you teach your young children to prefer others above themselves and to find joy in sharing their toys and time, you are already preparing them to enjoy and honor God in marriage and sexual relationships.

One of the more dreaded of parental responsibilities is telling children about sex. This conversation is often so awkward that both parent and child wonder what good could come from it. Sometimes, there is no actual conversation. A parent might hand a book to his or her child and say, "Read this and let me know if you have any questions." There is a degree of irony in this awkwardness. On the one hand, it is almost impossible to avoid being confronted with sex.  Movies, billboards, commercials, songs, news reports, casual conversations, TV programs etc., form a cultural bombardment of sexual themes that invade daily life. On the other hand, at least in most Christian households, sex is not talked about as a part of regular family conversation. So as soon as your children have unsupervised access to the world outside your home, they will begin to hear of affairs, gays, oral sex, liaisons, people being "hot," people being "turned on," masturbation, and any number of references to sexual activity, ranging from subtle to crude. Witness one of the headlines in today's USA Today (Jan. 20, 2010) - "Sex on TV: it's increasingly uncut and unavoidable." So what is not talked about at home is confronted with regularity outside the home. The reality is that your children will likely hear about sexual activity and sexual perversion long before you actually sit down to talk with them about what sex is. You know this and your children know this. As I said--it's awkward.