Then Came Jesus: the Light of the world by Lara Williams

Then Came Jesus: the Light of the world Reviews

• 
  Nicole

  I read this with a group, and I enjoyed the group discussions, but I admit, I didn't love the book. I think a Bible reading plan would have accomplished the same benefits, and would have done so in a less cumbersome manner.
  
  Each day of the study includes a time of opening prayer, and then a mix of reading scripture, commentary on scripture, questions to answer, then closing in prayer. (And then an optional family time section, which did not apply to me.) In theory, this should be a good format. However, this study hit one of my major pet peeves, and then created a new, albeit lesser, pet peeve.
  
  1) The vast majority of the questions were regurgitation than meditative. For example, you read, "All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation" (2 Corinthians 5:18), and then the following question is, "What did the father do through Christ?" It's just a fill-in-the-blank; you could literally copy and paste the scripture into the answer. The question doesn't prompt reflection or challenge you to apply the scripture. It's like a teacher giving a pop-quiz to make sure you did your homework. Similarly, a lot of the commentary summarized the scripture you just read.
  
  So basically I read scripture. The book summarized the scripture. And then I regurgitated the scripture back.
  
  I am trying to tell myself that this may be an effective strategy for remembering and/or better understanding the scripture, but honestly, I feel like people remember and understand things better when they're forced to think about them.
  
  2) My second issue (which is something I didn't even know I took issue with) is that the scripture is not actually included in the book. This book has you read a lot of scripture (which is great!), but since the text isn't included, that meant I spent a lot of time flipping through trying to find what I was supposed to read. And sometimes it has you read something, then read something else, then go back and answer questions about the scripture you were reading earlier. And since the book already had kind of a rote, mechanical feel to it, this made it even harder to try to maintain some kind of reflective mindset.
  
  So why three stars? First, because it did have a lot of scripture, which is fantastic. It was theologically sound. And I suppose the format might be helpful for people whose brains work differently from mine? Maybe? I don't think it was a bad book. I just think an advent reading plan would allow the same engagement with scripture, and maybe be a little bit easier to navigate.