Musings of a Snickerdoodle

This Bible is very beautifully bound.  It is one of the prettiest cloth bound books I've ever seen.  With a green edge (or "sage"), and a stitching pattern dividing it from the floral design set against a white background.  The cover also seems quite durable.  Of course, the prettiness of this Bible doesn't amount to much if the translation isn't very good, but I can assure you that the translators did a pretty good job.  It lies flat easily and has a ribbon marker. The pages are a bit thin for writing, a bit transparent too (you can see the writing through the page) it would be nice if they would a bit thicker.  I also wish that the font for the Biblical text would be a bit bigger, it is very small and I'm a bit afraid that one's commentary and notes would  be more prominent than the text itself.  But I think it still serves its purpose quite well.  It also includes a concordance and some full color maps. This is a very pretty v...

Fiction Polycarp: a destroyer of our gods  - By Rick Lambert This book will work even for those who don't normally read novels, as it's not just fiction, it is also instructive and edifying, it's like a book on spiritual growth only in the format of a novel. Most novels are entertaining, carrying you along by the emotions and imagination and, although they are certainly enjoyable to read, it is a bit discouraging that, when one is done with them, one is left with the feeling of having catered to oneself rather than having grown in any way. This book is an edifying novel, wherein you learn along with the main character rather than merely being an observer of him and the different events in his life. You are carried along by a desire to learn, not merely a desire to be entertained. While most novels inspire you to read more novels, this one inspires you to read God’s word. Instead of making you want to live in a different time, a different pl...

The Spurgeon Study Bible is a very neat idea.  As most people somewhat acquainted with Mr. Spurgeon know, he was not a verse-by-verse through a book of the Bible kind of preacher.  He usually would choose a verse (or portion of verses) for one Sunday and would preach on that and then preach on another (non-related, often from a whole different book)verse the next week. And also, some may also notice that his preaching was not always very exegetical. That being said, this  commentary is a great compilation!  It sort of gives a glimpse of how it would have been if Spurgeon went by a more verse by verse preaching style, and it focuses on snippets from his sermons that are more exegetical. The version that I have is the brown and tan cloth over board Bible.  It is very nicely bound and seems quite durable.  The spine has some fancy looking ridges on it and the front has Spurgeon's signature printed on the bottom left. There is a lot ...

What is God's purpose for Christian women? Do women have a unique roll to fulfill or is it exactly the same as men's'?  In our Christian circles, which seems to be infected by our feminist focused society, this book is quite a refreshing breath of reaffirmed biblical truth (rather than reaffirmed worldly cultural preference). In her book Eve in Exile: And the Restoration of Femininity,  Rebekah Merkle writes an excellent exhortation to Christian women of our day. There are four sections in the book,  I'll give a description and  perhaps some comments on each one. Section one: Two Distractions.  The chapters within this section deal with two ways that will NOT fix the problem of ascertaining how Christian women can fulfill their purpose in life. I found it fascinating that one of the 'distractions' Merkle critiques is the way some women try to deal with the problem by looking to the past, a particular period of history, the Austen era, for example, a t...

How could Hudson Taylor have imagined, for example, that the robbery that left him in such distress upon this journey was to result in the deliverance of the entire mission he was yet to found, during a period of financial danger?  How could he suppose that the upset of all his plans and the severance of a partnership in service more precious than any he had ever known was to prove the crowning blessing of his life on the human side, bringing him into association and at last union with the one of all others most suited both to him and his work?  But so it is God leads.  His hand is on the helm.  We are being guided even when we feel it least.  The closed door is as much His providence as the open, and equally for our good and the accomplishment of His own great ends.  And one learns at last that it is not what we set ourselves to do that really tells in blessing so much as what He is doing through us when we least expect it. - Dr. and Mrs Howard T...