Bible Review: ESV Prayer Bible

ESV Prayer Bible. 2019. Crossway Books. 1920 pages. [Source: Review copy]

I was so excited to be able to review one of Crossway's newest Bibles, the ESV Prayer Bible.

What makes this one unique? It includes over four hundred prayers--spanning the centuries of Christian thought--linked to specific passages throughout the Old and New Testaments. It also includes an introductory essay by Donald Whitney. (I absolutely loved, loved, loved his book How To Pray the Bible.)

I found the quality of the quotes--the prayers--to be excellent. This would be a GREAT way for readers to learn about new theologians. I love that there's a resource at the back that gives you a bit more information about each author/theologian included.

The size of this one mostly worked for me. I found it small enough and light enough to read in bed. The font of the Scripture text allowed comfortably for this. The font of the quotes--or the prayers--was a bit too tiny.

It was also light enough that one could read it while sitting in a chair--and having tea. But I found myself squinting more when I read this way. (I still did it. I love, love, love having tea and reading the Word.)

As I mentioned before, the font size of the quotes--or the prayers--was small (7.25). They were also printed in GRAY. I think both the smaller size and the lighter font made it more difficult on my eyes for long periods of time. The text of the Word itself was 9.25. (And, of course, it was printed in black.)

 The ESV Prayer Bible is single column paragraph.

There is ghosting or bleed-through. I found this to be most noticeable in the wisdom books--like Psalms--where you could "read" several psalms without ever turning the page. It was also more noticeable with the quotes--or prayers. Sadly this is because the prayers are in gray--as is the ghosted text.

If the pages had been thicker, if the the font size of the prayers had been slightly bigger, if the the color of the prayers had been slightly darker, then I think I would have absolutely loved this one. It is oh-so-close to being ideal.

I would recommend this one. Many people have better eyesight than I do and don't struggle with strained eyes. The quality of the quotes--as I mentioned--is absolutely wonderful! So there's definitely substance here.




© Becky Laney of Operation Actually Read Bible

Week in Review: July 7-13

Bible Reading

Did I read Revelation this week? Which translation? Yes. KJV.

Am I keeping up with the Daily Chronological Bible Reading Plan for the Growing 4 Life reading group? What have I read so far?  Some Isaiah. All of Micah. Some from 2 Kings and 2 Chronicles. 

What have I read in the Old Testament this week? 

What have I read in the New Testament this week?

ESV Prayer Bible

• Luke
• John
• Acts
• Romans
• 1 Corinthians
• 2 Corinthians
• Galatians
• Ephesians
• Philippians
• Colossians
• 1 Thessalonians
• 2 Thessalonians
• 1 Timothy
• 2 Timothy
• Titus
• Philemon
• Hebrews
• James
• 1 Peter
• 2 Peter
• 1 John
• 2 John
• 3 John
• Jude
• Revelation

NASB 1977

• Matthew
• John
• 1 John
• 2 John
• 3 John
• Jude
• Revelation

Other reading: 

Imagine...The Miracles of Jesus. Matt Koceich. 2019. [October] 112 pages. [Source: Review copy]
Imagine...The Giant's Fall. Matt Koceich. 2019. Barbour. 112 pages. [Source: Review copy]

© Becky Laney of Operation Actually Read Bible

Book Review: Imagine...The Miracles of Jesus

Imagine...The Miracles of Jesus. Matt Koceich. 2019. [October] 112 pages. [Source: Review copy]

First sentence: No light. No sound...except for the beat of his heart.

Premise/plot: John Le is on his flight back home. He's dreading it...big time. His father isn't such a nice guy. His home has a lot of stress, tension, discomfort. When the plane encounters turbulence due to a storm, John flees to the bathroom where he finds a strange note. In a flash, it seems, John finds himself far from home--and in Bible land. He's in a BOAT of all places, fishing with Jesus and his disciples. Jesus has a special message for him, John Le. Jesus also has a super-big hug for him. Will being with Jesus in Bible Land make John be the stuff of dreams or nightmares?

My thoughts: Imagine...the Miracles of Jesus, in my humble opinion, is strongly influenced by The Twilight Zone. If I approach this children's book with that in mind, with the voice of that narrator, I find I like it better. John Le is on a TRIP. And it's a strange, disorienting, odd, crazy, over-the-top TRIP. He'll be chased by a dragon, a snake, a lion, a lying man, a demon masquerading as an angel of light, a 'thief' wearing his own face, etc. John Le finds Jesus--or Jesus finds John Le--in between some truly discomforting encounters.

Jesus gave John a hug and told him a second time not to worry. "I am calling you to do great things. There is an enemy that will try and stop you. He will come at you in different ways. Don't worry about anything. Say no, and trust that I am with you. Stand up, and with My power you will defeat his plans!" 

"Precious child, I need you to know that in My eyes, you are a miracle too. Please have faith that what I say is true. While you are in the world, the dragon will always be there in the shadows lurking. But he has no power over you, John Le."

John Le does have to return to a reality, a reality where his father does not believe in Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior.

I definitely liked this one a bit better than the previous title in the series that I read earlier in the week.

This one felt like a nightmare and not an attempt at a fantasy novel. If that was the intent, then it succeeded. If it wasn't the intent, well, I guess the series probably isn't for me. Nightmares have their own crazy logic and vague-fuzzy segues. When you're dreaming...you go with the flow. It's only when you're awake that you realize how weird or bizarre it really was. Emotions matter more than being realistic.

© Becky Laney of Operation Actually Read Bible

Book Review: Imagine...The Giant's Fall

Imagine...The Giant's Fall. Matt Koceich. 2019. Barbour. 112 pages. [Source: Review copy]

First sentence: The giant grabbed the girl and lifted her high into the air. He yanked her up so hard and fast she thought she was going to pass out. Her struggle to get out of the monster's powerful grip was over. Despite the way the Bible story ended, it appeared the girl was not going to be as lucky as the young shepherd boy.

Premise/plot: Wren Evans is a young girl--mourning the loss of her mother AND her home--who finds herself transported back in time. The good news is that she gets to meet David before he was king, when he was just a shepherd boy. She also gets to FLY AROUND on the back of an angel named Josephine. Josephine is there to tell her that she's super-special to God and that she's needed to fight in God's army. The bad news? Well, she won't just be a witness to Goliath threatening the Israelites, to David's epic showdown with Goliath...she'll BE IN GOLIATH'S FIST DURING THE EPIC SHOWDOWN SCENE. During her time in the past, she'll learn that God is trustworthy and maybe just maybe things will be okay even though her house burned down, even though her mother is dead, even though her super-awesome-special MANUSCRIPT which already has a publisher was "lost" in the fire.

My thoughts: I am an adult. Would my opinion of this one be vastly different if I was eight years old? If I had read less widely? I don't think my issue was with the time travel. (I love time travel. Always have. My favorite Star Trek episodes growing up were the ones with time travel.) I think I had issues with several things.

First, the focus wasn't on the Bible story itself. The book wasn't so much giving readers a behind-the-scenes glimpse of David, the plight of the Israelites, the culture of the Philistines, or Goliath himself. The book seemed to rely more on King Kong or possibly Jack and the Beanstalk than Scripture. I could easily imagine this giant going around saying Fe-Fi-Fo-Fum and mumbling. And why would Goliath pick up a child and carry it around in his fist and stomp around? Yes, Goliath was a giant. Yes, he was a soldier. But seriously?!

Second, the focus seemed more on the angel Josephine (who's able and willing to give piggy-back-flights to young children) and symbolic butterflies appearing as signs than on God the Father, God the Son, or God the Holy Ghost. It's not that I don't believe in angels. There was just something very Touched-by-an-Angel-ish about this one.

Third, I find it difficult to believe that a child (fourth grader) would write a book, find a publisher, get it published, sell copies, touch lives, change the world. We're led to believe that Josephine has a large part to do with the book's success--BUTTERFLIES--but still. The stories that fourth graders write can be super-precious and charming and wonderful to parents, grandparents, uncles and aunts, their own teachers. But ready to publish a real (not vanity press) book?!?!

If I was eight, if I was looking for an incredibly happy ending, if I didn't give much thought to how silly it was...would I find it a compelling read? I just don't know.

© Becky Laney of Operation Actually Read Bible

Week in Review: June 30-July 6

Bible Reading

Did I read Revelation this week? Which translation? Yes. Living.

Am I keeping up with the Daily Chronological Bible Reading Plan for the Growing 4 Life reading group? What have I read so far?  Amos. Hosea. Some Isaiah.

What have I read in the Old Testament this week? 

ESV Prayer Bible

• Ezekiel
• Daniel
• Hosea
• Joel
• Obadiah
• Jonah
• Micah
• Nahum
• Habakkuk
• Zephaniah
• Haggai
• Zechariah
• Malachi

What have I read in the New Testament this week?

NASB 1977 

• Acts 13-28

ESV Prayer Bible

• Matthew
• Mark

Other Reading:

• Untangling Emotions: God's Gift of Emotions. J. Alasdair Groves and Winston T. Smith. 2019. Crossway Books. 240 pages. [Source: Review copy]
• How God Grows a Courageous Girl. Carey Scott. 2019. [October] Barbour. 192 pages. [Source: Review copy]

© Becky Laney of Operation Actually Read Bible

Book Review: Untangling Emotions

Untangling Emotions: God's Gift of Emotions. J. Alasdair Groves and Winston T. Smith. 2019. Crossway Books. 240 pages. [Source: Review copy]

First sentence: Emotions are strange. They’re strange in that they can make us behave in ways we don’t want to. Strange in that they can flood through our bodies whether we like it or not. Strange in that they can help us see and do things we would never have done without them. Strange in that most of us don’t know (or even stop to ask) why we are feeling what we are feeling most of the time. We want to help you understand what your emotions are (and aren’t) and what you can do about it. The reality is that, while we might be slow to admit it, we’re all troubled by our emotions.

Groves and Smith approach emotions from a Christian perspective in their new book, Untangling Emotions. Can understanding and appreciating what the Bible has to say about emotions--the good, the bad, the ugly--help Christians live life better?! Perhaps. Why should it matter to Christians...why should Christians take the time to understand or unpack what the Bible has to say on emotions? There are many, many reasons why. One reason, for example, is that believers can fall into the bad habit of associating negative emotions with sin AND also associating positive emotions with sin. But ultimately, "The way you respond to your emotions, including how you feel about how you feel, is of vital importance to your relationship with God and others in your life....A careful study of the Bible can help us discard faulty assumptions so we can engage our emotions rather than be ruled by or flee from them."

This one has three parts: "Understanding Emotions," "Engaging Emotions," and "Engaging the Hardest Emotions." The first part serves as an introduction, a beginner's course in emotion. What are emotions? What is the connection between mind and body? Is there a connection between mind, body, and spirit? Why did God give us emotions? The second part continues examining emotions from a biblical standpoint. It is all about giving readers tools to engage, explore, dissect their emotions IN LIGHT OF THEIR RELATIONSHIPS. The third part addresses in greater detail the darker, more negative emotions: fear, anger, sorrow, guilt and shame. All three parts offer readers practical advice; the goal is always to put tools into the hands of readers.

I found this one to be well organized and super-practical. Most of the examples--especially in the second section--are focuses on marriage, a husband and wife and the ways they communicate or fail to communicate which lead to fights and arguments. This may be incredibly helpful for many readers; but it would have been helpful if a few of the examples used other scenarios since not every Christian is married.

Quotes:

• God so loved the world that he made himself vulnerable to it, even to the point of losing his beloved Son, of sending him among us to take on our pains, weep our tears, and ultimately die the death we should have died. God loves, so God grieves. God cares for us, so he hates the sin that separates us from him. God is perfect, so he hurts when his beloved creation and precious people hurt each other and are hurt by the hurts of this hurtfully broken world.
• The basic reason we need negative, unpleasant emotions is that we live in a fallen world. God made us to respond to things as they actually are. Human beings should be distressed by what is distressing, horrified by violence and abuse, deeply concerned (we’d call it “anxious”) about the possibility of injury to someone or something we love, angry at arrogant injustices. To not feel grief when someone we love dies, to not feel discouraged when we find ourselves falling into the same pattern of sin yet again, to not be upset when our children lie or hurt each other would be wrong.
• You were made in the image of God himself, and that means you were made to see the world as he sees it, to respond as he responds, to hate what he hates, and to be bothered by what brings him displeasure.
• Our emotions—all our emotions—give us the chance to share God’s heart, purpose, and perspective and so to truly be his “friends,” as Jesus calls the disciples at the Last Supper (John 15:15).
• Only those who love the Lord enough to open their hearts to the pain in his world will be able to enter into his joy as well.
• The Bible places the focus on how emotions facilitate (or impede) our role as God’s image bearers, helping us love him and one another (or hampering us from loving). Our emotions, in all their dimensions, body and mind, are meant to function together in a way that serves his purposes. And in that context, the Bible speaks to us as essentially unified persons, who were created with minds and bodies designed to work together seamlessly in our image-bearing tasks.
• Perhaps one of the most important things the Bible tells us about our emotions is that they are an expression of what we value or love.
• Your emotions are always expressing the things you love, value, and treasure, whether you understand them or not.
• Every emotion you ever feel reflects your loves, or what you worship. This is easy to see in terms of joy, thanks, and awe. But it’s equally true of sorrow, guilt, and distress! Where godly joy, for example, flows from a heart that treasures what God treasures and sees God’s purposes advancing, godly distress come from a heart that treasures what God treasures and sees his will being violated. Godly distress is the cry of a heart that honors God’s desires as good ones, honors God’s will as right, and is so personally committed to seeing God’s will being done on earth as it is in heaven that it causes anguish of spirit to see the opposite.
• The counterintuitive reality is that joy and sorrow really can deeply mingle. You are allowed to feel deep grief and deep joy at the same time. Christians are called to grieve with hope (1 Thess. 4:13). Compassion and anger, joy and sorrow, various kinds of grief and a hundred more emotions need to be able to flow together, as they often did for Jesus.
• First, we want to understand as much as we can about anything in our emotional buckets. The more we know about what’s going on in the swish and swirl of our feelings, the better we’ll be able to understand what is going on in our hearts and our loves. Every little bit helps. Second, however, we need to remember that we will never exhaustively understand all the streams from our hearts into our emotions, and we don’t need to! Instead, all we need to do is bring whatever we do manage to understand to God and entrust him with all the hidden corners of our hearts, loves, and feelings that we can’t see into but he knows perfectly. 
• The problem is not that your body has emotions. The problem is that your body, like your mind, soul, and strength, has been affected by sin and has a skewing effect on your emotions. In short, while we are going to focus on the problems our bodies cause for our feelings, we want you to keep firmly in mind that our bodies are not an embarrassment, nor are they fundamentally a problem.
• A shy, reserved introvert may be sharing more openly in three brief sentences acknowledging a personal struggle than a boisterous extravert who talks for an hour about the highlights and lowlights of the week.
• God gave us emotions that are actually designed not to change unless what we love changes or what is happening to the thing we love changes.
• Scripture is adamant on this point: our biggest need is for new hearts with new loves and reoriented worship, not for more comfortable feelings. Deuteronomy, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel all underscore our need for hearts that are softened from stone, made clean, brought to life. Since we have seen how our love and worship produce our emotions, it makes sense that when our hearts are reshaped, our emotions follow suit.
• Are your emotions really the most important thing about you? We’re writing a whole book on emotions, so obviously we do think they are important! Further, we’re going to spend significant time arguing for the value of talking about your emotions with God and others. But to place your feelings ahead of the quality of your character, ahead of the faithfulness of your obedience to God, ahead of the depth of your relationships with God and others—even to place your feelings ahead of the feelings of others—is the opposite of what Scripture calls us to!
• Our culture’s overemphasis on the role of emotions constantly trains us to be ruled by our emotions. This, in turn, inevitably slides toward an increasingly frantic pursuit of emotional highs and escaping from emotional lows. Such an approach leans away from the richer and ultimately more satisfying “long obedience in the same direction” as Eugene Peterson, a Christian author and thinker, once described the Christian life.
• Just as cookies are a terrible nutritional center for your diet, so emotions make a terrible central priority for your life.
• The Bible’s model of engaging emotions means something very simple: when an emotion comes on your radar, you look at it, see what you find, and then (not before!) decide how to respond.
• When you know that you are feeling, have named what you are feeling as best you can, and have decided which aspects of the feeling are good and which are bad, you are finally ready to act. While options for action are endless, proper responses to emotions fall into two fundamental categories. On the one hand, we want to embrace and nurture the loves of our heart and the behaviors that are good. On the other hand, we want to resist and even starve loves and actions that are bad.
• We left prayer out of the four steps of engaging emotions for a very good reason though: engaging God in your emotions and about your emotions is not a step in a process! Instead, every single nuance of every aspect of each step must involve engaging God as well. Engaging our emotions does indeed mean identifying, examining, evaluating, and acting, but engaging our emotions also means engaging the One who made them.

© Becky Laney of Operation Actually Read Bible

Book Review: How God Grows A Courageous Girl

How God Grows a Courageous Girl. Carey Scott. 2019. [October] Barbour. 192 pages. [Source: Review copy]

First sentence: God has big plans for you! And you can be confident in His plans for you because every day He is growing YOU into a courageous girl. He will be your constant companion and will give you just the strength you need to choose faith over fear. These devotions and prayers were written with you in mind. They are lovely reminders of the power you have because you’re God’s girl. Touching on topics that matter to you, like family, friendships, trust, hope, and prayer, these inspiring readings will help you grow a deeper relationship with God as you also grow into the courageous girl He designed you to be.

How God Grows a Courageous Girl is a devotional book with 180 readings. Each reading opens with a text of Scripture--a verse...or two--and closes with a short prayer. The Scripture texts that inspired the devotions come from the Old and New Testament. The prominent themes of the readings are fear, courage, faith, and trust. The translation of the Bible they use throughout is incredibly simple, perhaps too simple so that some verses are bordering on losing their actual oomph.

Expect a LOT of exclamation marks in each reading.

Expect the use of the word COOL and its variant (COOLNESS) throughout.

At times this one did come across as condescending. (Not every reading, not every paragraph but here or there.)

It does seek to speak Scripture directly into the lives of its reader, to offer application advice. This is what the Bible says and this is how you can apply it to your life in situation a, b, and c.

It makes some assumptions along the way. One that all readers are genuine born again believers. Two that they know the ins and outs of the whole gospel message and they don't really need refreshing in that area. To be fair, this devotional book does seem to have a theme of FEAR/COURAGE. So perhaps they didn't want to work the gospel into that theme? Three that all readers have body image issues or low self esteem.

The theology of this one can be very light and somewhat iffy. (I'm thinking of two or three out of the one hundred and eighty readings and not fifty. So I don't want this concern to be taken out of proportion.) But for example, when it talks about "listening to the gut feeling that warns you..." they could have talked about the HOLY SPIRIT DWELLING WITHIN YOU or THE CONSCIENCE THAT GOD HAS GIVEN YOU. Either one of those or both would have been better than the vague not specifically Christian idea of "a gut feeling." The author may have had the Holy Spirit in mind when she wrote the word "gut feeling" but will readers pick up on that?!?! There are dozens of Scripture passages about being taught by the spirit, guided by the spirit, walking with the spirit, the Spirit living in you, being transformed by the spirit, etc.

Another reading that didn't quite sit right with me was the one inspired by Philippians 4:13. This shouldn't surprise me--or you. Adults--even adults that should know better--often get this wrong and pull the verse way out of context.

Have you ever walked away from a challenge because you felt weak and vulnerable? It’s common to look at the things life throws our way and say, “Um. . .no thanks. I’ll pass.” Sometimes it’s just too hard. But when we let those tests and trials scare us away, we’re forgetting one very important truth: you have Jesus on your side. That means with His help, you can do anything you choose to do.

The approach at times seemed to be: you can handle most things on your own in your own strength; you've got this, no worries; BUT when you do find yourself in trouble, you can go to God with your needs. Perhaps the author's intent was good. Perhaps she didn't mean it come across that way?! "God is ready to fill in the gaps that need filling. " But the truth of the matter is that we need Jesus all the time, every single day, every single hour of the day. There's never a time when we don't need Jesus--HIM but also HIS grace, HIS love, HIS redemption, HIS strength, HIS presence, HIS promise, HIS faith, HIS compassion, HIS comfort. I could go on and on. Perhaps this is the kind of wisdom that comes with age? Or that only age can appreciate?

But for the most part, most of the readings were good. There were plenty of entries that I liked.

© Becky Laney of Operation Actually Read Bible