The Bible Lessons of John Quincy Adams for His Son (Training Boys to Be Men of God)

This book is comprised of a series of letters written by the author to his ten year old son as an encouragement to study the Bible. John Quincey Adams is perhaps the greatest statesman in the history of America. At the age of eight he did musket drills with the Minutemen of the revolutionary war. At the age of fourteen he was Secretary to the Embassy in Russia. He served as a Diplomat to several European countries. He was Secretary of State and he was the son of our second President John Adams. He served as our sixth President from 1825 to 1829. He served as a Senator and as Congressman in the House of Representatives. He was a devout Christian and read the bible in Greek, Hebrew, and several other languages. He was a strong abolitionist and authored the Monroe Doctrine and many volumes of historical importance and many spiritual poems. He believed it is the duty of parents, not state sponsored surrogate teachers, to train their children in a system of academic excellence, spiritual wisdom, character training, covenant keeping, and multi-generational faithfulness. In these letters, he instructed his son to read the Bible from four general views. He said, "Consider the Scriptures as Divine Revelation, as Historical Records, as a System of Morals, and as a Literary Composition."

This collection of nine letters was written by John Quincy Adams to his son while the former was serving as the American ambassador to Russia.

His goal in writing the letters, as he explains in Letter 6, “was to show you [that is, his son] the importance of devoting your own faculties to this pursuit [that is, studying the Bible].” As he notes, “No book in the world deserves to be so unceasingly studied, and so profoundly meditated upon as the Bible…. To read the Bible is of itself a laudable occupation and can scarcely fail of being a useful employment of time; but the habit of reflecting upon what you have read is equally essential as that of reading itself.”

Adams recommends approaching Bible study in four ways: first, as divine revelation; second, as historical records; third, as a system of morals; and fourth, as literary composition. Scattered within the letters are glorious insights about the Bible. For example, Adams explains that one of the strongest proofs for the divine origin of the Mosaic law is that the laws of nearly every other society have “perished entirely [from history] and been obliterated from the memory of mankind.” By contrast, the Mosaic laws — sneeringly characterized by Tacitus as “the laws of a paltry tribe of shepherds” — “not only have survived the wreck of those empires, but remain this rules of faith and practice to every enlightened nation of the world.”

My favorite aspect of this collection of letters is Adams’ fatherly concern for the spiritual well-being of his son. Consider: “Endeavor, my dear son, to discipline your heart, and to govern your conduct by [the example of Christ; be meek, be gentle, be kindly affectionate to all mankind, not excepting your enemies; but never be tame or abject; never give way to the pushes of impudence, or show yourself yielding or complying to prejudice, wrong-headedness, or intractability… build your house upon the rock, and then let the rains descend, and the floods come, and the winds blow and beat upon the house—it shall not fall, it will be founded upon a rock. So promises your blessed Lord and Master, and so prays your affectionate father.”

Although a couple of theology issues present themselves in this volume, there are good thoughts that President John Quincy Adams from this volume. I'm that he cared about his children so much as to teach the Bible to them.

Interesting read. A short book to pad my numbers for the year.

Great advice to be found here.

This is my 5th bk that I have read relating to JQA, but the most I'd ever read of his actual writings. I had to read each pg 2x & restate some passages cuz the words he uses just aren't used much today. A lot to reflect on. Can't wait to reread