11 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Rewarding Faith and Love will come to you..., November 21, 2005
This review is from: The Remarkable Women of the Bible: And Their Message for Your Life Today (Paperback)
EXCELLENT book. I am not the best sometimes at reading nor finishing a book, however this one...I could not put it down. This book was great and she made it very easy to understand. Sometimes the Bible can be a bit hard to understand for some people so they just avoid and don't read. Reading this book will put it all in perspective for you in understanding these great women of the Bible. They all have stories in what you can relate to even in our times now. Its awesome and you will greatly enjoy it and it will greatly strengthen your faith in what God has for you. Its a great book for a womens Bible study group, I highly advise it. Sometimes you don't need all the fancy big books to get what you need out of it....
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12 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Remarkable women - Unremarkable Book, September 22, 2009
This review is from: The Remarkable Women of the Bible: And Their Message for Your Life Today (Paperback)
What am I doing writing a review of a book by Elizabeth George? I was preaching on some of the women in the Bible and came across her book--honest! Since so many people--I mean female Christians--seem to be reading her I thought she might have something worth saying on some of the characters I was looking at. I was sadly mistaken! Apart from her saccharine "Dear friend" and "Precious ladies" approach which grates on the ear, there are several other problems which, if she writes in a similar vein in her other books, are worth noting.
Let me say from the outset that there probably wasn't anything unbiblical in most of what Elizabeth George said. On the other hand, much of what she said was utterly unrooted in the characters she was looking at. It seemed as if she had made up her own mind beforehand what she wanted to say about each, and wasn't going to be perturbed by a little matter like what the passage actually said. For example:
* Sarah is held up as a great woman of faith--despite her laughing at God's promise and seeking her own way to fulfil the promise. Three chapters extol her virtues as an example of faith.
* Miriam likewise is held up as a great example of a godly woman, despite the bulk of what scripture tells us about Miriam relating to her pity-party and grumbling in Numbers 12. Her sin is noted, but only as a closing part of the chapter.
* Esther is held up as an example of faith in difficult circumstances. We are told to seek advice as Esther sought Mordecai's advice in 4:12. But Esther wasn't seeking advice but was being told in no uncertain terms that she needed to act in faith, or she would lose her life. Rather than being an example of faith at that moment she is an example of how not to act.
These examples and others make it look to me as if she is coming, at least mentally, to scripture with her chapter already written, and simply looking for a character to hang it on. The saving grace is that her message is sufficiently biblical, albeit from other parts of the Bible, so that the reader isn't carried away into error.
The problem is that it gives the reader imbalanced impressions of these characters and, more dangerously, a poor example of how to interact with scripture. Instead of teaching us to mine the passage for truth--it being far more helpful to see the error Sarah makes in allowing her circumstances to overshadow the promises of God--it teaches us to superficially read a passage and see in it what we want to see.
Apart from the lack of grounding in the passage one of the other weaknesses was that it simply wasn't very deep--lots of simple biblical common sense, but no real depth, and at times not terribly grounded in reality. I found it ironic that a book on women of the Bible--presumably written to give women a sense that God speaks into their complex and difficult lives--should paint such two-dimensional images of the women.
Part of the problem was that I was also reading "Legacy of Faith" by Lydia Brownback, a book dealing with many of the same female characters. It was rich, provocative, dealt with the passages superbly (in most cases) and got down into the nitty-gritty layers of the heart. Against such competition Elizabeth George fared rather poorly.
In short - its not so bad as to deserve 1 star, but it's shallow enough to be avoided.
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4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Learn how you too can be remarkable as well!, May 13, 2007
This review is from: The Remarkable Women of the Bible: And Their Message for Your Life Today (Paperback)
We can learn alot from their trials and hardships. Though our husbands fail us, or disappoint us God is always there no matter what!
It's easy to say let go and let God, but reading about how Sarah let go and waited on the Lord makes it real and possible.
You can be single, widowed, or married to learn and relate to these women. Putting God first really does make a difference. Hopefully you will have the desire to study His word and truely let God and let God.
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