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In order to understand the greatest difficulty in Motherwise: Freedom for Mothers, one must be clear that it presumes to present the Gospel to mothers. It is a primer on the Christian life. It presents itself as instructing mothers how to live out the Gospel. If the Gospel is then not sufficiently present, it is not enough to answer that the Gospel was assumed to be understood. If someone asks a believer how to be free from there sins, what ought they to answer? The Gospel! Denise Glenn is very clear that she is teaching how we as mothers can be free from sin and to abide in Christ. The whole of the book presumes to teach the Gospel, the good news of the freedom from sin and the eternal life we have in Christ by faith, as a daily reality for mothers. The book follows the following basic outline. Glenn appeals to mother’s felt needs for redemption in life, she shows the sickness of sin and the flesh and then says she will teach you how to be free of it. That is what Christ came to do, correct? That is the Gospel, correct?

I first consciously noted trouble with the study in Unit 5, beginning on pg 132. However, as I have poured back over the study, Glenn had clearly established what I hope to show is a misguided pattern for spiritual life beginning in Unit 1. Consider the sentence from pg 24 “If you will come to God hungry and ready to be filled up with what He can give you, you’ll be amazed at what He will do.” At first glance this sounds ok, right? However, it is imbedded with a subtle form of legalism. Note that I bring myself, hungry and ready, to God. The Bible is clear that it takes a miraculous act of God to make our stony hearts hungry for God. If you are hungry for God, He has already been with you long before you came to Him. The entire study follows the formula “If I do, then God can”. The focus of this formula is my work. My work in sanctification is prior to God's work. Glen very often repeats that it is Christ doing all things through me, but after she makes that affirmation, much of the rest of the study negates it. The focus of the study is what I do to get free. I align myself with the life of Christ so that it can flow through me. The Bible focuses more on grasping by faith what Christ did to make me free. What I see significantly lacking in Glen's study is a focus on the grace and mercy of God which works in us through faith, so that the Giver is glorified. I am a totally undeserving blessed recipient. The formula of God’s revealed Word is “What did God do. Respond with living faith.” It is a Gospel of Grace. The words "grace " and "mercy" are hardly ever mentioned in the entire study.

If Paul had to publicly rebuke Peter for falling into legalism, than we too, in our self-sufficient American culture, ought to tread carefully and not be arrogant in thinking that since we are not Catholic, therefore we are immune to the heresy of works-righteousness. Indeed, I would say that our culture is more than ripe for this error. However, I do not have the time or space to make social or ecclesiastical commentary, I only say that we ought not to be surprised at all if a legalistic teaching slipped into an Bible church. It is more of a generational disease in evangelicalism than the average church attendee ever imagined.