Lucy and the Saturday Surprise
Author: Melissa Kruger; Illustrator: Samara Hardy
Crossway, 2023

This is the fourth in a series of beautifully illustrated Crossway books for 3-7 year olds dealing with covering up sin, church family, screen addiction and now envy. The authors vary, but the quality of the series is pretty consistent. Our 2-year old loves having the books read to him – it must be the pictures! The lessons taught are at a good level for our 4 and 6 year olds. The books are all standalone, but there are nice ‘easter eggs’ in terms of characters from the other books in the series appearing in the background, which the kids love too.
This particular book deals well with one child regretting which treat they chose and envying their sibling’s. It’s believable and relatable.
It looks like there’s one more book in the series currently in the pipeline, due in January.
A highly recommended series!

God, You Are: 20 Promises from the Psalms for Kids
William R. Osborne (author); Brad Woodard (Illustrator)
Crossway, 2023

What is God like? The psalms contain many “you are” statements. For example:

“You are holy”
“You are my help and deliverer”
“You are very great”
“You are with me”

In this hardback book (though not a board book) aimed at kids 4-8, William Osborne has pulled twenty of them together.
Each “You are” statement gets a page, with a full-page picture beside it.
The selected verse is followed by an explanation of a few paragraphs, usually finishing by pointing us to the Lord Jesus. Each section ends with a New Testament verse and a prayer.

A further ten ‘you are’ statements are listed in an appendix.

Although each day starts with an illustration, our experience was that they’re still a bit hard for a 4-year old to grasp. I would put the lower age range at more like 6. Though obviously, like any sort of Bible story book, the parent will want to try and rephrase parts of it to make it easier to understand.

While the aim of the book is for parents to read it with their children (and also give scope for memorisation), it’s actually a resource that could be used in a whole variety of situations – children’s addresses, psalm introductions in church, even the outline of a sermon series.

Overall this is a great concept, well executed. The illustrations (both verbal and pictorial) are helpful, and there are no pictures of Jesus.

I keep going back to Sinclair Ferguson’s statement that ‘In 55 years preaching, I’ve hardly ever been asked to preach about God’. Here is a book to help both young and old think about what God is like.

Creeds, Confessions & Catechisms: A Reader’s Edition
Chad Van Dixhoorn (editor)
Crossway, 2022

This is a beautifully produced collection of some of the most significant creeds and confessions in the history of the church, printed alongside introductions by Chad Van Dixhoorn which originally appeared in the ESV Bible with Creeds and Confessions.

Westminster Seminary Press have actually just brought out something very similar edited by Lillback & Aubert, though without the Augsburg Confession, the 39 Articles or the London Baptist Confession – but with the Second Helvetic Confession. Sadly neither compilation includes the Irish Articles of Religion (1615), which had a significant shaping effect on the Westminster Confession.

The Crossway compilation (I assume the Westminster Seminary version does the same) uses the 1788 American revision to the WCF which ‘proposed certain amendments to the constitution of the Presbyterian church in light of the new relationship between church and state in America’. According to Lee Irons, these amendments constituted ‘a fundamentally new understanding of the teaching of the Word of God on this subject’. Thankfully, for those of us who still use the original Confession, footnotes indicate where the text has been changed and note the original wording. This includes the Larger Catechism, where a footnote alerts us to the fact that the revisers believed ‘tolerating a false religion’ was not forbidden by the Second Commandment.

These creeds and confessions are all free to read online of course, but for an enjoyable reading experience, this compilation from Crossway will be hard to beat.

A good concept, well executed, and they got there ahead of the competition!

The Existence and Attributes of God: Updated and Unabridged
Stephen Charnock
Crossway, 2022

A. W. Tozer famously said: ‘What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us’. One of the all-time classic Reformed works in that regard is Stephen Charnock’s The Existence and Attributes of God. Crossway have recently brought out a beautiful 2-volume edition that is both ‘updated’ and ‘unabridged’. The updates are in terms of long sentences and paragraphs being split up, subheadings added, certain archaic words modernized, Scriptural references added or corrected and Greek & Hebrew translated.

The editor, Mark Jones, has also added short summaries at the beginning of each chapter. As minister in his old church, I’m delighted that the Life of Charnock that’s included is by William Symington (rather than the one by James McCosh, Professor at my alma mater and later President of Princeton, which prefaces Charnock’s collected works).

In terms of reading level, Jones describes Charnock as more sophisticated than Watson but easier to read than Owen. This edition makes his classic work more accessible than ever.

Polly and the Screen Time Overload
Betsy Childs Howard, Illustrated by Samara Hardy
Crossway, 2022

This is one of a growing series of Crossway children’s books aimed at 3-7 year-olds. One of the books in the series – Meg is not Alone – is our 2-year-old’s favourite book of all time. This book addresses a vitally important issue for parents today, through a story of a girl going to her grandparents’ farm for the holidays and wasting a chunk of it by playing on a tablet given to her by a childless aunt. The message definitely connected with our girls, aged 6 and 4. This is a tremendous series from Crossway and I’m looking forward to seeing future offerings.

Andrew S. Ballitch (ed.)
Crossway, 2023

It’s fair to say that in the circles in which I move there’s been a fair bit of negativity surrounding Crossway’s decision to publish new editions of John Owen’s works. After all, the nineteenth century edition by my RPCS predecessor William Goold is still available to buy thanks to its republication by Banner of Truth. Yes that edition missed a few bits, and didn’t include his Latin work, but it’s still pretty much complete.

I beg to differ however. Editions of Owen’s works were produced in 1721, 1826 and 1850. Why should the 1850 edition have to be definitive for all time? The Banner editions were produced over 50 years ago and have never so much as been retypeset. There are no explanatory footnotes, and the Latin quotations remain untranslated. That’s not necessarily a criticism – but neither should Crossway be criticised if they feel there is scope for improvement.

For my part, if someone is starting out, it would be a no-brainer to get the new edition. Yes Crossway’s edition has almost twice the number of volumes, so it would be expensive to buy the lot at once, but Owen must be the most owned-but-unread set on ministers’ shelves. So just buy the ones you’re going to read and get the Goold set in Logos for searching.

Is the new edition perfect? Almost. It is beautifully presented, which seems to make Owen easier to read almost from the off. I do find it strange that their footnotes to Owen’s other works don’t reference which volume of Crossway’s edition they are (or will be) in. A reference to his Latin work even directs you to the edition by Soli Deo Gloria, which will seem particularly strange once the Crossway set is complete. Overall the footnotes are very helpful, though I found it strange that Owen’s referencing an alleged comment from the Pope about the Bible being a fable (p. 109) didn’t contain an explanatory footnote, and had to use google to learn what he was referring to.

I also found the introduction to this volume to be a bit partisan, particularly in its claim that baptists simply took the regulative principle to its logical conclusion. We are also told that unlike the radicals, the Reformers and Puritans saw the ‘need for the safeguards of tradition’. Owen would beg to differ, speaking as he does about ‘the unfaithful repository of tradition’ (p. 86).

Overall though it’s a very promising first volume in the series, and is so beautifully produced that it pretty much tempts you to read Owen.