Customer Reviews

How to Get the Most from God's Word

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For a book that seems to indicate it will help the reader learn how to study God's Word, How To Get The Most From God's Word contains very little teaching on that subject. That is not to say, though, that it is not an excellent book. I read this book in the hopes that it would coach me on methods for more fulfilling Bible study. It turns out, though, that the bulk of this book is dedicated to why I should study the Bible with only minimal emphasis on how I should study it. Though at first I was disappointed, I came to see that this book is full of truth and may be one of the best books I have read about truly understanding the Bible. I have little doubt that the emphasis on what the Bible is will prove more valuable to me than a book filled with advice on how to study Scripture.

First I am going to state my complaints with this book. Primarily, I felt the title misleading. The book seems to say it is a "how" book but in reality is more of a "why" book. Second, it seems that the book's publication coincided with the publication of The MacArthur Study Bible and How To Get The Most From God's Word sometimes seems to be little more than an advertisement for it. There are at least 12 references to The MacArthur Study Bible and that not-so-subtle advertising cheapens the book, making it feel more than a little self-serving.

Complaints aside, this book speaks of some awesome truths about God's Word. The author evidently believes that the Bible can only be truly appreciated when the reader understands its value, beauty and necessity. To that end he first explains how and why we can trust the Bible. He speaks about the Bible's origins and inspiration and how we can have comfort in the fact that the Bible is true. He then turns to an exploration of what the Bible can do for us. He shows that it can change us, make us free, reveal God's will, help us grow spiritually and prepare us for spiritual battle. Building on this foundation, the final section, which unfortunately is only a few pages long, provides practical tips for studying the Bible.

The highlight of this book is the chapter on spiritual warfare. Through a careful exposition of Paul's teaching about the sword of the Spirit in Ephesians 6, MacArthur shows the power and necessity of the Bible in defeating Satan. He shows that it is not only a defensive weapon, but also an offensive weapon - the only offensive weapon in our arsenal. Another important section is the one dealing with proper Biblical interpretation. The author's teachings about how not to interpret the Bible are important today when so many Christian teachers are using the Bible in any way they want with little regard to its true meaning and with even less regard for proper methodology.

This book left me with a greater appreciation of the Bible and certainly with a greater love for it. The author's long list of reasons for why I should love it, study it and rely on it left me with a greater understanding of the priceless treasure God has given us in His Word. I highly recommend this book.

This book was inspiring. If you have ever tried to read the bible, and felt that you were not "getting" it, you will find this book invaluable; if you read the bible daily, but are finding your relationship with God is not deepening you will find this book refreshing; and if you are deep in God's word everyday, you will recommend this book to others.

This is an everyday guide to enrich your study of the Bible.It has a wonderful handy guide to help you develop a Bible reading plan. It is a great discipleship book. You will be trained and then encouraged to live it out!

In unfortunately typical MacArthur fashion, the tone of "How to Get the Most from God's Word" is often abrasive, condescending, and sarcastic. The overall message of the book is that the Bible is good and should be read--which I agree with. But there are just so many faults with his presentation that the good things about it were crowded out by the negative.

Starting with the good, he offers many helpful insights and recommendations about the Christian life--particularly in Part Two (Chapters 10, 11, 13). His section on how to study the Bible (Part Three) I also found well-explained and most likely very helpful for many people, despite many of his suggestions sounding much too extreme and regimented for many. Additionally, I can only commend his commitment to wanting to follow the scriptures wholeheartedly.

The negatives outweigh the positives and, though I did take some good away from this book, they really spoiled it. 2 things, which others have pointed out, are the title and MacArthur's shameless self-promotion. Nothing about this book is "An Everyday Guide to Enrich Your Study of the Bible." This is classic MacArthur theology; it reads almost like a manifesto. Calling it a guide is deceptive at worst, misleading at best. Next, 13 times we are told to consult the MacArthur Study Bible. Thirteen times! After about the second time it was annoying, then by the sixth it became comical--as if it was an intentional self-parody or something. He either thought people would only be reading single chapters from this book so he didn't want to miss the chance at promoting his book at least once per chapter, or he is truly the self-absorbed egotist that his writing makes him comes across as. Either way, I found it truly disgusting--not to mention distracting--that an author would self-promote so explicitly and incessantly.

Aside from the critiques already mentioned, "How to Get the Most from God's Word" does not give us very clear definitions of terms such as "word", "inspired", "authoritative", and "scripture"--which are obviously very critical for such a 'guide'. Yet, the author slams anyone and anything that uses these religious words 'incorrectly'. There is ambiguity to many of his arguments and reasoning because of insufficient explanation and/or definitions, but it feels as though we are already supposed to understand what he is talking about. For the reader, this is frustrating because he is basically calling those who disagree with his conclusions heretics. Kinda makes you wonder if he's more excited about getting to his point and then refuting 'heresy' than he is with thorough explanations. I hope not, but it's hard to think otherwise.

The general feeling I got from this book was that MacArthur, in his classic paternalistic manner, is preaching to the choir and is not really interested in having a discussion with those from other theological traditions or acknowledging to those from HIS tradition that these Christians are even out there. It's his way or the highway, it seems. I think this is precisely why Christians seem to either love him or hate him, as is reflected in the reviews here and elsewhere on the Internet. If you are expecting or hoping for something different out of this book you will not find it, unfortunately.

Yes, I agree that MacArthur is promoting his study bible. I find no fault with that. It is up to the reader to decide whether to buy it or not. But I will say that I found this volume helpful.

As with many of John MacArthur's books, he seemingly takes an awful long time to get to the subject matter of the titles to his books. I feel that he takes far too long (10 Chapters out of 17 total) in giving background issues about the Bible and its history and much too little time in teaching about "How to Get the Most from God's Word". Once again I am very disappointed with his method and content in dealing with the subject matter. There are many more excellent books available which deal with this subject far more realistically than MacArthur does.
He is also guilty of accusing others of being "people who want to remove this verse or some other verse from Scripture", when he himself is a Cessationist and deletes whole chunks of 1Corinthians to suit his particular viewpoint. In my book that's biblical hypocrisy!

I thought potential readers might be intrigued to hear a few excerpts and observe John MacArthur's incredibly subtle self-promotion techniques.

Chapter One: "...Man's search for God must begin and end in the Scriptures because that is where God has revealed Himself. A personal resource, such as the MacArthur Study Bible, can help you learn more about God and what His plan is for your life."

Chapter Two: "This becomes clear in the next aspect of our study. (Consult a Bible reference tool, such as the MacArthur Study Bible, for more on how God inspires the Scripture.)"

Chapter Three: "One way to tell a saved person from an unsaved person is that one listens to the Word of God and the other doesn't. Are you listening? Are you studying the Bible with resources like the MacArthur Study Bible? The effort is well worth it, for the Bible is God's Word to you."

Chapter Four: "Our minds should be a tablet on which the Word of God is written. We are to read it and study it with the useful Bible resources available to us, such as [can you guess?] the MacArthur Study Bible and other Bible commentaries."

Charitably, I think, John refrains from mentioning the MacArthur Study Bible for a few chapters, but by Chapter Nine he is starting to itch again: "...every aspect of living is covered in the pages of the Bible. References [sic] tools, such as the MacArthur Study Bible and topical analyses of the Bible, can easily point you to verses on various subjects."

Chapter Ten: "But in order to own the truths of the Bible and apply them, Christians must continue to hold onto the Word and to study it. [But how are we supposed to do that?] Resources like the MacArthur Study Bible and various Bible dictionaries can assist in this process. [Aha! Thanks, John!]"

Chapter Twelve: "If we want to change our diet, we should start with the sincere milk of the Word of God. We need to spend time reading the Bible. We need to study it with the assistance of Bible helps, such as the MacArthur Study Bible, Bible dictionaries and various commentaries."

By now, you may be wondering just how to set about all this Bible reading John proposes. Is there any particular avenue we ought to go down? What exciting resources might be available to help us on our way? Luckily, John foresees this, and provides us with our answer in Chapter Thirteen: "Unless we are in the Word, reading it, memorizing it, learning what it means by reading study Bibles, such as the MacArthur Study Bible, and then finally, truly knowing it, all our talk about abiding and fruit-bearing is just hot air."

("All our talk...just hot air," a very interesting turn of phrase from California's Prince of Preachers.) Obviously, one of the key questions first-time Bible readers will by now be asking is, "How is the Bible organized?". This question, fortunately for us humble seekers, provides the heading for Chapter Fifteen, in which wise John shouts us to some very profitable advice: "This story is from God to you; and it is all about you. Read it. Study it with Bible study tools, such as this book, the MacArthur Study Bible, and various commentaries."

In case we didn't hear it the first time, the increasingly thoughtful John drops us a veiled reminder in Chapter Sixteen: "The second step [after finding out what the Bible says] is finding out what it means. We'll discuss that in the next chapter. That is when Bible study tools, such as commentaries, Bible dictionaries, and study Bibles, like the MacArthur Study Bible, become useful to your study of God's Word."

Finally, lest we read the Bible and think we can rely on our own interpretations for its meaning, Chapter Seventeen gives us a clue as to how we should evaluate our interpretations:
"Here is where you stop to check what commentators and other scholars have said about the passage--from what I have said in the MacArthur Study Bible to what various biblical scholars have said in The Nelson Study Bible."

I used to be cynical about the health and wealth preachers and applaud John MacArthur. Here you'll find the standard fundamentalist defense of Scripture (which I by no means agree with) is merely a thin disguise for two hundred pages of unabashed self-advertising.

Good luck as, with the help of the Holy Spirit, you delve into the treasures of John's Word (*Oops!*--God's Word!).