Book Review: His Loving Law, Our Lasting Legacy

Living the Ten Commandments and Giving Them To Our Children by Jani Ortlund.

Jani Ortlund has written this book with mothers who are raising children in mind. Her purpose is to help women learn to delight in God through his law and to help them pass on that love for God  to their children.

What do you think about the Ten Commandments? Many of us, I’d say, tend to think of them in either of two ways, both of them wrong. We think of them as a list of very demanding rules that we need to keep in order to become righteous, or we think of them as a list of very demanding rules that no longer, since we are new covenant people, have any relevance for us.

Jani Ortlund argues that God’s law has three purposes for us today. First, it leads us to the Saviour because it shows us our sin. Second, the law helps us understand who God is. And third, the law is a guide to those who are being saved through Christ, because it shows what living the like-Christ life looks like.

His Loving Law has an introduction, a conclusion, and ten chapters, each chapter examining one of the Ten Commandments. The chapters end with two sections of study questions and activities. One section is for the woman herself, to help her consider how she might live out each specific commandment, and the other contains suggested questions and activities for children to help mothers give each commandment to their children.

In the chapter on the sixth commandment, for instance, we learn that the command “You shall not murder” prohibits us from taking human life, but also includes positive expectations of us along with that prohibition. At its core, it’s a call to value and protect human life, or using Jani Ortlund’s words, “we obey this command by being life giving to others, rather than life depleting.” We must “cherish and honor and care and protect this life we have received from God…”  And of course, those who are truly obeying this commandment will show this honor for human life by their words and actions. The study section for adults asks, among other things, what “it means to be made in the image of God.” In the second study section, one activity for children given is reading Romans 13:8, which says “love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law,” and writing down a concrete plan for giving “life-giving love” to someone who needs it.

Let me let you in on a little secret: It’s only in the last few years that I’ve begun to understand how much is rolled up in the summary words of each commandment. I’ll admit that I haven’t paid as much attention to the Ten Commandments as I should. That’s why I’m enjoying the part of the Westminster Larger Catechism that I’ve been posting lately, even though there are parts there I’m not sure I agree with. That’s why I enjoyed this book, too, even though I’m not teaching young children anymore.

If you are the mother of children younger than mine (or if you teach children), I’ve going to doubly recommend this book to you. You’ll probably learn from it, like I did, but you’ll also learn, from someone who’s raised four children, practical ways to pass your new knowledge and love for the law to your children. As I read it, I kept thinking that it would make an excellent book for a group of young mothers to study together. And I couldn’t stop wishing there were more books like this one, books that are both theological and practical, geared to mothers who want to teach their children.

Comments

[Staci at Writing and Living]

Thanks for the review!

[Judy]

Maybe you should write that book.
I have every confidence that you could.

[Sandra Peoples]

Thanks for the review. I also love the theological and practical!