I made the mistake of writing the blurb before the review (the one- or two-line summary that shows up on the Tweet, Facebook Post, etc). And now I find myself in the position of having to write a good enough post to justify claiming to review God, Jesus, and The Gospel… I do not promise to accomplish this.
But just to be clear, the subjects of this review are three board books in the “Big Theology for Little Hearts” series by Devon Provencher and Jessica Provencher called God, Jesus, and The Gospel. I’m not actually going to try to review ‘God.’ We can’t all be Harold Bloom…
Overall, these three books are excellent and worth adding to your kids’ bookshelf.
I’ll admit that I’m not much of a judge of illustrations. But from what I can tell the simple and plain images match well with the themes and content of each book. For example, the ‘punishment’ aspect of the Gospel is summarized with “Those who sin must be punished because sin is breaking God’s Law” with an illustration of a few headstones on lightly rolling green hills, the prominent headstone engraved with “The Wages of Sin is Death.” That is both theologically accurate and age appropriate for the wee ones.
The same is true of the other two books. In a few words each, we learn about God as Creator, King, Trinity, Holy, Eternal, Unchanging, Just, Good, Loving, and Glorious. We also learn that Jesus is God, Incarnate, King, the Son of God, the Savior, Sinless, the Prophet, the Priest, provided Atonement, and was Resurrected. Again, each of these fairly deep theological concepts is clearly and simply explained.
I especially appreciate that simple clarity. In a time when everyone and their dog wants to write a children’s book, these three volumes provide a quiet and soft alternative to the chaos of the board book world. So grab these for the kids in your life (or for your church library) and relish the plain and simple truths explained in a way that children will appreciate and enjoy.
Dr. Coyle Neal is co-host of the City of Man Podcast and an Associate Professor of Political Science at Southwest Baptist University in Bolivar, MO
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