Not try to be copy cats of the secular world. They need to be who they are if they are going to be effective. Like when Christian musical artists try to make music that sounds almost just like a secular song, but not quite and then you just have a ridiculously obvious rip-off that sounds like some Christian record marketing executive had too much of his hands into the production.Ĭhristians need to be real. But all it does is wind up making her sound incredibly cheesy like she is trying much too hard to be cool. It was probably thrown in there by some editor or even by herself to try and reach some group of people they felt fell into the target. First of all, I believe the correct slang lingo phrase is "tru dat," and second of all I highly doubt Beth Moore in real life says such things. For example when she says, "true that," a few times. Another thing I picked up on was her attempt to include current lingo and phrases in her writing. I did not appreciate the inclusion of musical lyrics by Christian artist Steve Curtis Chapman followed by a plug to buy his CD on page 103. Speaking of target audiences, this brings me to another point about target marketing and how the line between marketing and doing ministry have been increasingly blurred. As such, I had a hard time connecting to her. I further felt that the tone and the target audience were definitely aimed at a woman much different from me. Copy work is fine for an elementary school student practicing handwriting, not in a study aimed at adult women. I also did not find the places where she had the reader do copy work to be beneficial. I found it especially annoying when she would ask the reader to answer a comprehension type question and then provide the answer in the paragraph below the space for filling out the answer (perfect example of this on p. Overall though I found most of what she had to say to be simplistic and repetative. For example the part about the time line of this story in relation to the Jewish calendar year. There were some historical and cultural insights offered that I did find interesting. The way it reads and the workbook itself feels very formulaic and reminds me of language arts workbooks that I had to do for homework as an elementary school student. My first impression of this study after doing week one with our small group was that Beth Moore seems to have discovered a formula that she feels works and written yet another study. I was trying to keep an open mind about the whole experience, but at the same time also trying to figure out what all the hype was about. This was my first exposure to one of her studies. Thus the three stars instead of four.I know a lot of Christian women really love Beth Moore and her studies. Which is unfortunate, because that section was basically the last 30 days of the devotional. That section felt repetitive to me (though, in fairness, that could be because I've studied Revelation two previous times), and I frankly couldn't wait to finish it. However, when the devotional went into Revelation, that's when I lost interest. I also liked the daily prayer writing space. I feel that this devotional's strength is its examination of Jesus through John's eyes, as He's related through the disciple's Gospel. I suspect that I stopped because I was finding the book to be too much of the same and needed a break (with longer devotionals, I tend to alternate between two different ones every week or two). I had stopped going through the book about halfway through, and when I decided to pick it back up, I was surprised to see that almost five years has lapsed since I stopped. Although I don't enjoy Beth Moore's works as much as I once did, this devotional has much to recommend about it.
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