In the Beginning

The decision to have a baby is one of the most life-changing choices any of us will make. More demanding than getting married, more irrevocable than a career change, few of us quite appreciate what it will really be like until we have done it. This book enables people who have recently become parents to hear what the Bible has to say about raising children. It aims to help and encourage first-time parents and more experienced ones, biological and adoptive. It focuses on the joy and wonder of children, and the trials and challenges that they bring. It can be read by one parent alone or both together, in the first days of parenthood or later on. The book comprises six weeks of readings, taking Scripture passages from across the Bible and finding the simple lessons they teach for this challenging time of life. Each day's reading concludes with a reflection and a prayer, and offers a way of doing daily Bible study when time is necessarily short.