Protecting His Workmanship

Publisher: Search for the Truth Ministry

This book is an interactive workbook to enable a parent to explain the Biblical purpose and bounds for sexuality to your children.  It is set up as a six session, six week study.  This project began as a work of love, created by a father for his son.  As authors, we pray that it will continue to be a work of love for all those desiring a contemporary, biblical tool with which to begin  (or continue) revealing to their teen or pre-teen the beauty, mystery, and wonder of God’s design and purposes for marriage and sexual intimacy.  This includes Christian families, youth workers and mentors, pregnancy resource centers, and even those who do not yet know Christ, but who could discover His love and holiness in these pages.

As parents, we want our children to take personal ownership of biblical values not just because this is what we have taught them, but because their own study of God’s Word convinces them that His design for human sexuality is truly best.  As our first son reached adolescence, we wanted to build into him a deep conviction of the importance of sexual purity in singleness and sexual faithfulness in marriage so that he would be well-equipped to live out the truths of God’s Word in today’s contrary culture.  To do this, we needed a resource founded solidly on Scripture which would facilitate both  family discussion and personal study by our teen.

We also wanted to share information on sex in a way that would set a pattern for regular, continuing interaction with our children as they grow and develop through their teen years.  Ideally, you will have been leading your child to a biblical understanding of sex and marriage in everyday life from early childhood.  The earlier you lay the foundation for the explicit discussion of these topics in adolescence, the easier it will be for your teen to internalize God’s perspective on these topics instead of the world’s.

If your relationship with your teen is weak or strained, now is the time to seek healing and restoration.  The time you have left with him in your home is quickly disappearing.  And his willingness to listen to and accept your instruction will likely only be in proportion to the strength of your relationship.

Jeff and Pam Koehlinger live in Midland, Michigan and have two sons, Andrew and Ryan. Jeff is a corporate human resources attorney, and Pam is a stay-at-home wife and mother and free-lance writer. Married 28 years, they share a passion for biblical parenting and the unique challenges faced by parents to raise godly children in an increasingly Godless culture. Jeff has a particular interest in encouraging and equipping fathers to train their sons in biblical manhood through study, prayer, mentoring, adventure, and rites of passage. As a family, the Koejlingers enjoy biking, water sports, reading aloud, and listening to Adventures in Odyssey on long car trips.