"Thoroughly covenantal, consistently biblical, and beautifully Christo

Book review by Lael Griess. Lael is the wife of Rev. Cory Griess, and mother to their six children. They are members of First Protestant Reformed Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

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Thoroughly covenantal, consistently biblical, and beautifully Christo-centric, Jehovah’s Mighty Acts chronologically highlights stories from Old Testament history for the elementary-aged child, explaining how each story displays a wonder of God’s grace toward his people. As a mother of several children falling in this age group, I especially appreciated Rev. Langerak’s accessible language and simple sentence structure, while at the same time maintaining the depth of spiritual truth contained in each biblical story. In fact, Jehovah’s Mighty Acts both encourages and instructs both the child listening and the adult reading aloud as well!

It is refreshing to use a Bible story book that doesn’t require the Reformed believer to weed out false interpretations or inaccurate accounts of biblical events. And though God has blessed the Reformed church with several lovely classic children’s Bible story books, a fresh recounting of these stories and a creative new format powerfully cements biblical history in our children’s minds anew.

Each chapter not only recounts the factual history of the Bible story, but also provides a brief explanation to help children “make sense” of biblical events. The chapters also include a brief summary at the end linking the story to the grand narrative of God’s covenant throughout history centered in the cross of Jesus Christ. I look forward to seeing how these summaries help train my own children to search for the cross throughout all of scripture. Rev. Langerak also approaches each chapter pastorally, seeking not only to fill the heads of children, but also to feed the hearts of the little lambs. His applications are not belabored, but they are adequate to instruct and comfort the heart of a child of God’s covenant.

Included with each chapter are vivid and engaging illustrations. Not cartoonish or low-quality, these illustrations enhance a child’s understanding of the account and provide a natural place for an adult to pause and discuss the truths learned while the child examines the picture.

I can easily imagine Jehovah’s Mighty Acts becoming a mainstay of family devotional times, bed-time stories with a grandparent, independent Sunday-afternoon reading for a child, or classroom Bible instruction with a teacher. I look forward to reading and making use of this book and the rest of the series yet to be released!