Helping Them to Choose

by Samuel Philips

The process of getting and staying married is severely malfunctioning in our land. With the divorce in the church statistically indistinguishable from the unbelieving world, it would not be considered hyperbole to say that today's marriages in the church are a moral disaster. As we have slowly adopted the ways of the world in nearly every area of life in order to maintain our respectability, at the same time, we have lost our ability to properly join our children in marriage. Our children have been left with unworkable methods in a broken, godless system. However in 1859, a pastor wrote a book on home life that included instructions to Christian parents on how to help their children marry. The Reverend Samuel Philips brings his counsel to us from 1859 as a timely reminder of the wisdom of God for all family life. This book contains that sage godly counsel from another century.

Genres: Marriage

67 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1859

Reviews

[Amethyst · Rating 3 out of 5]

At first it was a bit hard to read but as I moved farther on I felt spoken to.
This book has many wonderful points that are relevant and should be considered in one of the most important decisions you will ever make. Philips goes through both the pros and cons, weighing out each principle before trying it against the Truth.
Written for both men and women, even if marriage is far from your mind, it is good to think about and have a solid foundation for if or when it does come.

[Becca Beard · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this short read. The title makes it sound as if it’s going to be a legalistic treatise on courtship, but instead, it is encouragement for the Christian parent to raise their children to love God, serve Him, and be productive members of society.

Concerning marriage, Rev. Phillips wrote that parents should encourage their children to choose wisely, but that, “when the child reaches legal maturity, the coercive authority of the parent ceases.” Agreed. :-)

[Rachelklara of YHVH · Rating 1 out of 5]

The ORIGINAL~ The Christian Home, as it is in the Sphere of Nature & the Church, by Samuel Philips, A.M. is a much better read & intellectually stimulating of the spirit of home life.

[Vaughn Ohlman · Rating 2 out of 5]

There is a famous story in the Bible about a man who built his house upon the sand. While not a book on engineering the Scriptures make it clear that this was a technical error and, when the environmental circumstances became unfavorable, the house lost its structural integrity. In a word, it fell.
This should be a lesson for us to examine the premises from which we do our writing. The author here seems to have a premise that it is the job of the parents, Biblically speaking, to ‘help’ their children ‘choose’ a spouse. Unfortunately for the author, this is not a Biblical premise. Thus, like the poorly foundation house, this book ‘falls’.
Just as there is not a single Biblical character that dates or courts, so there is not a single Biblical teaching that tells them how to do it. The role of the Biblical parent is not to ‘help’ their child ‘choose’ a spouse, but to take wives for their sons, and give their daughters to husbands. ‘Take’ and ‘give’ not ‘help’ and ‘them choose’.