Unto You and Your Children: The Promises of the Covenant

109 pp; Paper

This book defines and illustrates the covenant as it appears in the Bible, and then demonstrates how the covenant affects our children as we raise them in the church.  It also develops a justification for infant (covenant) baptism.  

However, before the writer examines the idea of the covenant in the Bible, he first covers a number of other topics that a person needs to understand before he can understand the covenant.  He spends at least one chapter revisiting the gospel.  What is the gospel?  He then establishes the meaning of such words as regeneration, conversion, election, and salvation. He is convinced that before a person can properly understand the covenant and covenant baptism there must be some agreement on the definition of these other terms.

After giving a testimony to his personal struggles in understanding his own conversion, he describes various types of conversions in the Bible.  Not everyone will have the same conversion experience.  Timothy’s conversion was different from that of the Apostle Paul. 

From there he goes on to define the covenant, and this leads to an overview of the administration of the signs of the covenant, specifically infant baptism.  

Finally, he exhibits how understanding the covenant makes a difference in how Christian parents both view their children and how they raise them. Covenant baptism is not an end in itself, but a beginning as Christian parents raise their children in the faith looking to the promises of the covenant as hope for the conversion of their own children. 

Larry E. Ball holds a B.S. degree in mathematics and physics from West Virginia Institute of Technology.  He holds the M.Div. from Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia.  He is a charter member of the Presbyterian Church in America and retired from full-time pastoral ministry after thirty-one years of service at Bridwell Heights Presbyterian Church in Kingsport, Tennessee.