Twelve Unlikely Heroes

I love the Bible and I love to read about men and women in the Bible to see how God used them and to learn from their stories.  So I was excited to read John MacArthur’s book “Twelve Unlikely Heroes.”  MacArthur is a good author and I was intrigued to see his take on some Bible characters… and he didn’t disappoint.

The twelve people that are highlighted aren’t obscure Bible characters and there isn’t some new outside source of information that has been used to dive deeper into the hearts and minds of these men.  These are characters that I would honestly hope all Christians are familiar with.  Macarthur takes men and women who I would say were more reluctant than others.  Men and women who if they had had their druthers would have lived a quiet and simple life, but God meant them for more and they answered the call.

I enjoyed MacArthur’s approach of simply taking what the scriptures say about these men and then meditating on them.  Going beyond dry words on a page and delving deeper to ruminate on what they may have written down in their journals.  Then to correlate this with other scriptures in an easy to read application so we as readers can connect with them.    I would recommend this book as a fine addition to a character study of these men and women in the Bible.

I received this book free from the publisher through the BookSneeze®.com book review bloggers program.

Les Misérables audio book

My latest review is of the Focus on the Family Radio Theatre production of Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables.  I find myself listening to more and more books as I find I have less leisure time to read.  Focus on the Family retells this story with a marvelous cast and superb sound and effects.

I have read this in the past, but it has been some time.  I was looking forward to seeing how Focus on the Family would bring it to life and I was very satisfied with their production.  Simply put, it was amazing.  I don’t remember being this engaged in the story the last time I read it.  But this time I was fully engrossed in the tail and it held my attention to the very end and left me wanting more.  I would highly recommend this series.

I received a complimentary copy of the book for review purposes from Tyndale House.

Two New Great Adventures in Odyssey Imagination Station series

The latest books in the Adventures in Odyssey Imagination Station series that I read with my now 5 year old son were Battle for Cannibal Island and Escape to the Hiding Place by Paul McCusker and Marianne Hering.  The books continue to follow the cousins Patrick and Beth and their adventures in Mr. Whittaker’s imagination station.  These books are more independent of the other books as individual adventures.

My son really enjoys these books.  He was very excited to get some more and since reading them he was disappointed there weren’t any more available.  We have encouraged him to write a letter to the author for more.  He really likes their adventures and gets into the places they go and things the cousins do.   I enjoy the adventures and the topics they bring up.  We have had some great times talking about how we could make wise choices in similar situations.  My son has a vivid imagination and these help give him some focus.  I look forward to reading more as they come out and would highly recommend them to others.

I received a complimentary copy of the book for review purposes from Tyndale House.

Has God Spoken by Hank Hanegraaff

Has God Spoken by Hank Hanegraaff is his final book in a series meant to address questions that Christians face regarding the Bible.  It is laid out with the acronym MAPS to assist the reader in assimilating the massive amount of information that Hank offers the reader.

This book is thick and meaty and will take some time to get through versus other apologetic type books that I have read.   Hank has done his research and does his best to put it out in a manner that it easy to consume, but it does take a while to get through.  I appreciated the material in the book and found myself learning a good deal.  I felt like the book went beyond simply providing evidence to specifically address the prevailing lines of thought against the Bible currently and even pointed towards specific people who lead those arguments.

I appreciate books like this as I like to know why I believe what I believe.  I find them most useful in strengthening a believer’s faith in Christ by showing the complexity of our Lord, but less to convince a skeptic.  And I found this book good to equip believers so they aren’t ignorant of the prevalent criticisms in our culture today.

I received this book free from the publisher through the BookSneeze®.com book review bloggers program.

Life Application Study Bible Devotional

I recently received the Life Application Study Bible Devotional from Tyndale Publishers.  This devotional is setup slightly differently from others that I have.  Instead of dates it uses weeks and days.  This may seem like a minor change, but it really does promote a daily reading schedule  as it can be difficult to find your day if you only pick it up occasionally other than just reading randomly.  Each week has a theme centric to Jesus in some manner bases on scripture and accompanied with devotion and questions.

Overall I found this to be a decent devotional.  I love reading scripture, so having that on each page was good.  Personally I felt the devotional portion to be a bit lacking.  The inferences read into the scripture with these were overreaching.  That being said I did enjoy the questions portion.  I found them to be thought provoking in a manner that would really make one think of how to apply the scripture to one’s life.  I would simply put in more scripture from the New and Old Testament and less story telling.  All in all I found it to be a good book and one that would encourage the daily reading and application of God’s Word.

Tyndale House Publishers has provided me with a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for a review.

My First Hands on Bible

I recently received a copy of My first Hands-On Bible from Tyndale. We have a variety of children’s Bibles and as they each have only selected stories from the Bible it doesn’t take long to go through them several times. That being the case I am always on the lookout for some good new options that will bring some new stories or have some fun ideas of things to do with the kids.

After reading through some of the stories there are several things I enjoyed about this Bible. One is that the stories aren’t just summations of what the Bible says, but actual sections of scripture. I enjoy how they make the focus of every story to be on Jesus. I truly enjoy finding Jesus in every passage of my Bible as I read and I like to emphasize this with my kids. So to have a children’s Bible that helps in this is something that I appreciate. I like the effort put into the activities they include with each story, but I do find some of them to be a bit on the cheesy side.

Overall I have enjoyed this Bible and I look forward to reading through more of it with my kids.

I received a complimentary copy of the book for review purposes from Tyndale House.

Billy's Quotes

Billy Graham in Quotes is a collection of personal and published quotes edited by his son Franklin Graham and Donna Lee Toney. I have enjoyed reading some of Billy Graham’s books over the years and so I was looking forward to reading a compilation of quotes from him. I thought it would be a great get to read quotes that spanned his lifetime. It is kind of like getting a “best of” compilation.

The book is broken up into chapters that consist of quotes focused around a variety of topics. It is really interesting to read his thoughts around different topics that we all have to deal with in life. I appreciate that Billy focuses himself on Jesus Christ and his quotes reflect that he knows Jesus is the answer for the world today. He has years of experience and many lessons learned. I appreciate learning from men who have walked with the Lord for years.

I enjoyed reading through the quotes and I would recommend this book to others as well.

I received this book free from Thomas Nelson Publishers as part of their book review bloggers program