Let´s be honest. Family is so hard. Russells writes: "Family is awesome. Family is terrible. Family is spiritual warfare" oh yes it is, I totally agree. I have a lot of respect for Russell D. Moore, I like to listen to his conferences, and the objective, deep, and intelligent perspective he has on cultural, political and social issues. That is why I wanted to read this book. Don´t expect an ABC list with steps to implement in your family. I like Moore talks about issues we all face and then talks about the gospel and makes a connection. What I embrace about the book is that it reminds me Family is tied to the cross, we need the gospel to live family as God wants. Read this wisdom gem: "We will find joy and peace and wholeness in our marriages when we stop expecting marriage to meet all our needs" oh... so true... "Family is not the gospel. If you think that family is the source of ultimate meaning in your life, then you will expect your family to make you happy, to live up to your expectations". It took me so long to read and review this book. It actually won some prizes because it is so good. If you love material about family, this book is for you.

The Storm-Tossed Family is not just another book about some practical steps to having a perfect family. It's not full of how-to advice, or even personal success stories. Instead, it is a book that is painfully real about the struggles that we all have with our families while living in a broken world. Beyond that, it focuses on how our families can be redeemed by the gospel. Rather than focusing on having great marriages, kids, or families, we should focus on living the truths of the gospel, thereby allowing the gospel to change us, and by extension, our families. Moore argues that we often actually damage our families by attempting to make them central in our lives when the gospel should be central instead. Moore's book is challenging and helpful, whether you are a parent, a child, a spouse, or a single person.

Some of my favorite quotes:
"If family were easy, we could do it in our own fleshly self-propelled willpower. If we could do it on our own, we would not bear a cross. And if we are not bearing a cross, then what we are doing would not matter in the broad sweep of eternity. Family matters. That’s why it is hard."
"Family is meant to teach us, among other things, that we are creatures, that we cannot, ultimately, provide for and protect ourselves."
"I sometimes want a gospel just natural enough to let me run my own life but just supernatural enough to give me what I need to get there."
"God’s ultimate goal is not to make us “real men” and “real women” so much as it is to drive us away from the self and toward one another, toward the cross."
"Headship is not about having one’s laundry washed or one’s meals cooked or one’s sexual drives met, but rather about constantly evaluating how to step up first to lay one’s life down for one’s family."
"We will find joy and peace and wholeness in our marriages when we stop expecting marriage to meet all our needs."
"Family is not the gospel. If you think that family is the source of ultimate meaning in your life, then you will expect your family to make you happy, to live up to your expectations."

Regardless of your personal family situation, I think that you will find this book thought-provoking and refreshing. I received a digital copy of this book for free from the publisher and was not required to write a positive review.

Though the theme of The Storm-Tossed Family is a good one; how Christ working God's purpose in our lives can also calm the stormy seas of our families, it is not as well delivered as I believe that it could have been accomplished.

Russel D. Moore knows his scripture and he relates it well to the topic. The problem though feels that he is showing off. As a reader, when you provide with with an image or question and then wrap around a scripture verse or two around it as you guide me towards a conclusion, I find it wonderful. However Moore wraps not one or two but three, four, five or more; a constant barrage of scriptural connections that this reader never felt he had the time to steep in the imagery before something else was added.

A good attempt, and an otherwise good book, but it failed for me for the reasons stated above.

At times hilariously funny, and at times so insightful that I was brought to tears, this is a valuable book about issues that I have seldom read about before. I spent much of my time reading out little bits to my long-suffering husband, which is perhaps my definition of a memorable, thought-provoking book.

Russell Moore speaks honestly and directly about a wide range of topics relating to family – marriage, children, divorce, and caring for older family members. His comments are perceptive and nuanced. Some of my favourites included:
“Family is spiritual warfare.”
“Family is awesome. Family is terrible.”
“Weakness is, remember, not a negative characteristic in a cross-shaped perspective.”

But my favourite, laugh out loud, passage was the author’s description of his favourite festival of the year. “No one slammed a door and cried out, through tears, “You’ve ruined our Halloween.”

I would recommend this book to anyone who belongs to a family – that is to everyone.

All of those topics about the family we get a little nervous about, Moore talks about them in this book. Making kids too high of a priority, divorce, caring for the elderly, to name a few. He backs his points up well with Scripture. I especially appreciated the way he showed our marriages, our families, to be witnesses for the God we serve.

While the author has some useful things to say, I find the memoir-type of writing a bit boring and without clear point toward which it is moving. I wouldnt read this again, and it was hard to get through because of that, which is a shame because Moore has many useful things to say.

The value that I took away from Dr. Moore's book cannot be understated. This book was a slow burn; a deliberate read where I took notes, frequently paused to ponder, and deeply considered how each chapter spoke richly into my family. The deep richness in its pages takes readers far beyond the normal discussions of topics like the Biblical mandate for marriage or parenting. Moore delves into conversations about how to plan marriage conflicts and enjoy the arguments; how God's design for sex is spiritual warfare and so much bigger than the singular act; and how the mindset of children as a blessing (not a burden) changes everything about how you approach family life (if you're married), the church as family (if you're single), and—most of all—Moore shows throughout the whole book how true Biblical discipleship must be present in and through them all.
The Storm-Tossed Family has so much to offer Christians in all walks of life; while it speaks into specific facets of life like parenting, its overall approach to the Christian life as a family journey is wonderful, encouraging, and enjoyably instructive. Highly recommended.

Russell Moore’s newest book (which releases September 15th but is available on Kindle now) is nothing short of life-changing. His 2015 book, Onward: Engaging the Culture Without Losing the Gospel, changed the way I thought about culture, politics, and God’s kingdom while also becoming my favorite book of 2016. Now his newest release has changed the way I think about my family and given me even more to dwell on and change in my life for, well, the next few decades.

Family is spiritual warfare.
This is where Dr. Moore’s analysis of the family begins, and this theme continues throughout the book. We as Christians tend to give a half-scoff to spiritual warfare sometimes because of the ideas it evokes in our minds, but Jesus is clear that our war is not against flesh and blood. Our war, led by Jesus himself, of course, is against spiritual forces. And the family, as a symbol of the Jesus’ gospel, is an important front of that war. Notice that I did not say it is the important front, and neither does Moore. It is simply one that cannot be ignored.

The family is a symbol of the gospel because a husband’s love for his wife is supposed to show God’s love for the church. Likewise, a father’s love and discipline (notice the root word disciple; this is not synonymous with punishment) for his children is supposed to elicit the image of our heavenly Father’s relationship with us. I am using the roles of husband and father because those are the roles that speak most closely to me, but you get the picture. God did not create the family by accident. He created man from the dust of the ground, then created woman from man’s rib and told them to be fruitful and multiply. He established the family for a reason, and that reason is to bring Him glory.


When reading The Storm-Tossed Family, I was overwhelmed with a feeling of tremendous responsibility. This sounds bad, but it wasn’t. It wasn’t bad because at almost the exact same time came a feeling of purpose and direction that is simply thrilling. Reading and listening to Dr. Moore is like that sometimes. When I first heard him talk about how everyone’s relationship with God is affected in some way by his or her relationship to an earthly father, I first psychoanalyzed how that might be true in my own life before quickly realizing the inevitable: I am currently shaping my children’s relationships with God in very real ways. My screw-ups could affect their view of God, yes, but I also have the opportunity to provide a tangible picture of what their Heavenly Father is like. If that’s not responsibility, I don’t know what is.

It’s not that I haven’t heard most of these theological and personal statements about the family before, but being immersed in this teaching on the family and its importance to eternity… God uses that prolonged focus to do some deep excavation. And God did that on me. He did it through encouragement and he did it through unearthing my fears about my family. My fears are the same as Dr. Moore’s as he shares them early in the book:

I’ll be scared of a different sort of skeleton, my own, of what will happen after all my life of perpetual motion is over. Will my wife know that I loved her? Will my children see something in the way that I fathered them to point them to the Father God who always loves, who never leaves, who comes with both authority and mercy, both truth and grace? My son will be afraid the skeleton on the porch will eat him. I’m afraid that the skeleton in my future casket won’t measure up to the image I project right now, even on this very page. And that my family will know it.

With that description I trembled, but I also found purpose. In reading Moore’s book, you will do the same. You will tremble at how you have messed up and how you will mess up, but you will find joy in the God who covered your mistakes with His blood and now sets you on the path to bring Him glory. There is no greater purpose than that.

The Storm-Tossed Family is about marriage, children, your own mother and father, all of it. It is about finding your part in God’s story (trademark Jared Wellman) through your family and using that as one way to bring war to the gates of Hell. I could not recommend it more forcefully.

I received this book as an eARC courtesy of B&H Books and NetGalley, but my opinions are my own.