An episodic but warmly welcoming Christian daily devotional.
A writer offers a daily devotional for Christians.
In his nonfiction debut, Griffith presents his fellow Christians with a series of short meditations on a broad spectrum of topics. Some of these brief segments deal with real-world concerns like adoption, “worry,” and the significance of holidays like Mother’s Day or Memorial Day. But many of them are more intensely religious in their concentration, usually with the author raising a subject and illustrating it with a story from the Bible. When writing about times when readers must face seemingly insuperable odds, for instance, he invokes the biblical character of Gideon, who once led Israel against the Midianites. “Gideon’s story is an example of what God can do with a small group or an individual who will follow his instructions,” the author writes. “We may face many difficult situations and treacherous people, or philosophies that go against God’s word, but if we will believe God and follow his instructions we can be victorious people today.” This combination—extensive scriptural literacy matched with an undaunted optimism—makes Griffith’s little sermons uniformly uplifting, even when focusing on dark subject matter. The book’s form of a traditional daily devotional makes it inherently inviting; readers can pick any section regardless of its place in the whole work. “Do you really know God today?” the author asks at one point, and this is essentially the question underpinning virtually all of the volume’s entries: the immediacy of the faith encounter day to day. “No matter how much time we have wasted or how much time we have left to live,” Griffith writes, “we can ask God to make up for the wasted time and help us use our future time wisely.” This episodic quality is of course the strength of a daily devotional, but in this case, it’s also a slight weakness. The author is an insightful, companionable commenter on Scripture, but the format never gives him room to expound.
An episodic but warmly welcoming Christian daily devotional.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4908-6518-8
Page Count: 208
Publisher: WestBowPress
Review Posted Online: Aug. 18, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Worthwhile reference stuffed with facts and illustrations.
A compendium of charts, time lines, lists and illustrations to accompany study of the Bible.
This visually appealing resource provides a wide array of illustrative and textually concise references, beginning with three sets of charts covering the Bible as a whole, the Old Testament and the New Testament. These charts cover such topics as biblical weights and measures, feasts and holidays and the 12 disciples. Most of the charts use a variety of illustrative techniques to convey lessons and provide visual interest. A worthwhile example is “How We Got the Bible,” which provides a time line of translation history, comparisons of canons among faiths and portraits of important figures in biblical translation, such as Jerome and John Wycliffe. The book then presents a section of maps, followed by diagrams to conceptualize such structures as Noah’s Ark and Solomon’s Temple. Finally, a section on Christianity, cults and other religions describes key aspects of history and doctrine for certain Christian sects and other faith traditions. Overall, the authors take a traditionalist, conservative approach. For instance, they list Moses as the author of the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Hebrew Bible) without making mention of claims to the contrary. When comparing various Christian sects and world religions, the emphasis is on doctrine and orthodox theology. Some chapters, however, may not completely align with the needs of Catholic and Orthodox churches. But the authors’ leanings are muted enough and do not detract from the work’s usefulness. As a resource, it’s well organized, inviting and visually stimulating. Even the most seasoned reader will learn something while browsing.
Worthwhile reference stuffed with facts and illustrations.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2005
ISBN: 978-1-5963-6022-8
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
This a book of earlier, philosophical essays concerned with the essential "absurdity" of life and the concept that- to overcome the strong tendency to suicide in every thoughtful man-one must accept life on its own terms with its values of revolt, liberty and passion. A dreary thesis- derived from and distorting the beliefs of the founders of existentialism, Jaspers, Heldegger and Kierkegaard, etc., the point of view seems peculiarly outmoded. It is based on the experience of war and the resistance, liberally laced with Andre Gide's excessive intellectualism. The younger existentialists such as Sartre and Camus, with their gift for the terse novel or intense drama, seem to have omitted from their philosophy all the deep religiosity which permeates the work of the great existentialist thinkers. This contributes to a basic lack of vitality in themselves, in these essays, and ten years after the war Camus seems unaware that the life force has healed old wounds... Largely for avant garde aesthetes and his special coterie.
Pub Date: Sept. 26, 1955
ISBN: 0679733736
Page Count: 228
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1955
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