Through his concise, engaging book Crucial Clarity: Simple Truth in a Complicated World, Jim Turrent presents a helpful handbook for youth concerning the questions and answers that matter most in life. This book helps youth to realize that we can know and be changed by the truth because God has revealed what is true through the Bible and through His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Turrent’s book is perceptibly organised into three-page-long chapters that include a brief lesson, a memory verse, and discussion questions. The chapters cover the topics of who God is, God’s act of creation, what sin is, God’s plan to redeem a people (and how the Old Testament, including the prophesies and sacrifices, points to Jesus), who Jesus is, what the church is and why it is important (and what baptism and communion are), and how Jesus will one day return.

These chapters are a helpful guide to children around 10-13 years old who are exploring Christianity, and it can be used both as a handbook for those who are from a Christian background as well as for those who have never heard of the Gospel before. For youth who are from Christian homes, this book will help them realize that they must think through for themselves what it means personally to be a follower of Jesus; this book will also give them the tools to graciously defend their faith in a world that mocks the truths of the Bible. For youth from non-Christian backgrounds, this book is also a wonderful tool that will help them to explore the core beliefs of Christianity and what it means to be a follower of Jesus. In this case, Turrent’s book would probably be best used with a discipleship partner or a teacher since some of the discussion questions may be confusing to youth who have never read the Bible or heard of the Gospel before.

Whether used to disciple youth from either Christian or non-Christian backgrounds, then, Jim Turrent’s short book will help point young people to God’s Word as the basis for truth, and it will give them the tools to be able to ponder and defend the Gospel in the midst of a confusing, chaotic world that denies the life-giving truth of the Bible.

This book is available to purchase from Mound Books.

Claire Hall, Merkinch Free Church, Inverness