Tag: books

yarn along

MarthaKimball1 Comment

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I finished the age of brass + steam shawl (photos soon!) and have been working on the Lori Shawl.  It’s my first time working with linen and I enjoy it but I do miss the softness of the madelinetosh.  My friend and knitting guru Jennifer, a friend from middle and high school days who taught me how to knit back in October, is knitting this along with me.  So fun!  My first tiny little knit-along.  She said the drape of this linen yarn will be beautiful and so far, it is!  I cannot wait to see the finished product and to wear it!  It is lovely and peaceful to knit, just garter stitch for miles and miles.

I’m still reading and savoring Ruthless Trust, and boy is it ever timely and needed.  It feels like the Lord Himself put it in my hands for such a time as this.  We have had some serious discouragement hit this week, and trust in the Lord is never more needed, it seems.  I hate the hard times so much but I cannot tell you how near it is causing me to draw to the Lord and how near He has been, how alive His Word has been, and how much it is causing Brandon and I to cling to one another.  All of these, good things.  I guess these are a measure of the sweet gifts, the soft hints and whispers of glory in the midst of a rolling storm.

“So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.”

2 Cor. 4: 16-18
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Joining with Ginny at Small Things and her weekly yarn along to share what we’re reading + knitting!  Hop on over to the link up for some lovely inspiration.

yarn along

MarthaKimball2 Comments

 

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I am almost done with my first kerchief/shawl!  I am on the last section and have three more rows but I’m debating making it a little bigger and using up the rest of the yarn.  I just don’t know if I have enough yarn to do that?  So.. still deciding.  I have so enjoyed working on it, I don’t want to see it go!

I’m still reading and really loving Surviving the Island of Grace, but yesterday the Lord was speaking to me throughout the day about trust.  This book that I read and was deeply impacted by back when I was 18 kept catching my eye from my shelves.  I had a much-needed night alone with Jesus last night and read a lot of this tattered book and have been so thankful to find myself in its pages again.  I forgot how much I enjoy Manning’s writing.  I’m terribly in need of a work of the Lord in my life in the way of trust!

Here are a couple snippets that met me deeply last night:

“Unglued and undone by personal experience of the Messiah of sinners, who searches the noisy streets of large cities and the unpaved roads of small hamlets, the ragamuffin walks the way of ruthless trust in the irreversible forgiveness of the Master.  The defenses he has erected against his own truth as a saved sinner wither in the maelstrom of mercy flashing like lighting across his life.  ‘If the Lord Jesus has washed me in his own blood and forgiven all my sins,’ the ragamuffin whispers to herself, ‘I cannot and must not refuse to forgive myself.'”

“Uncompromising trust in the love of God inspires us to thank God for the spiritual darkness that envelopes us, for the loss of income, for the nagging arthritis that is so painful, and to pray from the heart, ‘Abba, into your hands I entrust my body, mind, and spirit and this entire day — morning, afternoon, evening and night.  Whatever you want of me, I want of me, falling into you and trusting in you in the midst of my life.  Into your heart I entrust my heart, feeble, distracted, insecure, uncertain.  Abba, unto you I abandon myself in Jesus our Lord. Amen.”

Joining with Ginny + her weekly yarn along to share what we’re knitting and reading today!

yarn along

MarthaKimball15 Comments

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I have started on my first shawl and really enjoying it!  It’s my first time knitting with madelinetosh yarn and it is truly lovely to work with.

I started Surviving the Island of Grace this week and am loving it.  It is a memoir, Fields telling the story of her leaving the east coast for a new life in the rugged wilds of Alaska as a newlywed with a husband who commercially fishes salmon.  I’m just a few pages in but she writes so beautifully about the gorgeous landscape of Alaska that you can almost feel and smell the sea and the bite of the cold air.  I plan to read it slowly and drink in Alaska!

Joining with Ginny + her weekly yarn along today.

reading lately

MarthaKimball4 Comments

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These three books have been on my stack lately and I wanted to share them with you today!

Hannah’s Choice by Jan Drexler

I haven’t made much time for fiction lately so this one was a real treat!  I really enjoyed this book, set in 1842 in the Amish Pennsylvania.  The protagonist, Hannah Yoder, comes from a strict and large Amish family, finding themselves battling the lure and sway of the outside culture.  Change is in the air and all around them, and Hannah’s parents want to set out for new territory west where they can raise their children protected from the outside world.  Hannah finds herself torn between two men seeking her hand in marriage–one who offers her familiarity and home, the other seeking to adventure west.  I found myself enraptured with this family, the tragedies and losses they faced, the way they both held together and splintered over the pressures of the outside world.  What I think I enjoyed the most was knowing that the author had done extensive research on her own family’s history as some of the first Amish, Mennonite and Brethren immigrants to Pennsylvania, and that this was her imaginative retelling of their story.  I also found myself familiar with some of the Amish way of thinking, coming from somewhat of a Brethren background myself.  This is the first book in a series and I’m definitely planning on reading book 2 in the fall of this year!

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The Gentle Art of Discipling Women by Dana Yeakley

I was drawn to this book because I’m always hungry to be both discipling younger women and be discipled by older women.  I also think this piece of our Christian faith can often be lacking.  Many times I wish I had an older woman who would walk me through my current seasons and help me wrestle through issues of faith that I can seem to surmount.  I also find myself eager to spend time with younger girls and have been missing that so much in these years with little ones at home.  I also was drawn to this book because Yeakley calls discipling a “gentle art,” which had me both curious and thankful, as “art” suggests something organic rather than something formulaic and staid.  I admit I haven’t entirely read this book, but am definitely going to finish.  Yeakley has been on staff with the Navigators for many years and also spent eleven years in Indonesia as a missionary.  I felt her words carried weight because of her life experience.  The book is structured in two larger parts, the first section grounding the Christian in their own role as a disciple of Jesus first, the second section equipping and encouraging us also to make disciples.  First we must be a genuine disciple of Jesus, then we must go and make disciples.  I appreciate her emphasis on all that Christ won for us in the first section: we are forgiven, we are safe, we have access, and we are becoming.  In the second section she answers these overarching questions: how do we create a life-giving atmosphere?  Whom do we help?  What do we share?  How does discipling one-on-one actually work?

This book comes with a leader’s guide and each chapter ends with a bible study that challenges you both as a disciple and discipler.  This makes it a great choice for a group book study maybe for a group of women who want to learn more about the art of discipleship and be equipped.  It’s also not a terribly long book, and is quite practical.  I am eager to take what I’ve learned and find someone to intentionally disciple and also someone who might be open to discipling me!

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The Life-Giving Home: Creating a place of belonging and becoming by Sally + Sarah Clarkson

This mother/daughter co-authored book is a TREASURE.  It’s one I would want to put in the hands of every woman if I could.  This is not just written for women who are married or who have children, but for any woman who wants to create a home on purpose.

I am familiar with Sally Clarkson’s voice and have loved some of her other books, but her daughter’s writing in this one swept me off my feet!  She is an incredible writer and I found her to be a kindred spirit (even though she doesn’t know it yet).

I think the preface that the Clarkson’s make to the importance and value of making a home and why that matters in the scope of the Kingdom is so crucial for all Christian women to read.  Here’s a snippet about it:

“One of the first obstacles I find in presenting a vision for the importance of home is the almost unconscious assumption on the part of many modern people that home is inherently a sentimental notion and that beauty is peripheral to spiritual formation.  We discount our own homesickness as a form of weakness.  We marginalize the beautiful.  We dismiss the aesthetic as second class.  We think of beautiful spaces and comforting traditions as spiritually unnecessary and underestimate the profound importance of a safe place for growing minds and souls…

We must understand homemaking not as a retreat from the fallen world, not as a retrenchment from culture, but as a profound engagement with it.  We must understand the creation of home as a work of incarnational power and creativity.  “Kingdom come” doesn’t happen on some cosmic scale; the whole point is that it invades the physical at the humblest level.  As Christ was born a tiny human child of Mary, so Christ comes again, invading the human realm in and through our ordinary love of children and friends, spouses and siblings.  His Kingdom comes in the way we celebrate, the shelter we make of our homes, the joy we put into what we cook and eat and create, our willingness to welcome strangers into our midst.  As the Holy Spirit fills us, our families and friendships and the particular physical spaces of our lives become the spaces where Christ is born again and again–growing, ordering, renewing, healing.”

See what I mean?  Incredible.  Important.  I find so many women who feel that spending time making home cozy or warm or decorated is an unspiritual activity, surely less important that discipling others or sharing the Gospel.  I love the Clarkson’s gentle help all throughout the book in seeing that our homes are the very place where we redeem a small plot of this broken, cursed soil and show the world what it looks like to live under the beautiful freedom of God’s rule.  To invite others, both strangers and kindreds, into a place that is warm, inviting and intentional, be it decorated on a dime with thrifted finds, or with a comfortable budget.

I also LOVE the way the book is organized.  The first small section focuses on building an understanding and common ground for why making a home matters, and what exactly matters about it.  Is there a biblical foundation for the value of making a home?  Is it about keeping a spotless home, or having a home that is well-ordered and intentional, but prioritizes relationship over cleanliness?  Is it about owning a home, or can one build a sense of “home” in their dorm room?  Their tiny studio apartment?  Their parent’s basement?

The second portion of the book makes up the bulk of it and is broken down by month into “seasons of the home.”  I love this aspect of it so very much!  Each chapter then talks about the theme of that month generally and then the Clarksons share how this theme was found in their own home with stories and a ton of resources and suggestions.

You will read this book and be so encouraged and inspired to make a home that truly is a space where God’s glory dwells, where love is the common language, where weary souls can find rest and comfort, where growing minds can be inspired and nurtured.  A place where strangers become family, wanderers find respite, where discipleship and worship are everyday realities.

I highly, highly recommend it!

Happy reading, friends!

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Thanks to Tyndale Publishers + Revell for a complimentary copy of each of these books in exchange for my honest review.

Also, this post contains affiliate links.  In other words, your purchase of one of these books via my link above helps support this blog and my family at no extra cost to you!  Thank you so very much!

 

yarn along

MarthaKimball2 Comments

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I’ve been looking for the right yarn to make this shawl/kerchief pattern, and finally settled on this skein from Madelintosh.  I’m aching to cast on but need to wind it into a ball first and also, I have been hardly able to knit for the past week (!!!!) because of crazy pain/tendonitis in my right arm/wrist/elbow/hand.  I don’t know what’s going on, I may have injured it working out but now just everyday activities have been aggravating it and it is so stiff when trying to knit.  I have backed off a bit from knitting but I am possibly going to have to take a total break and rest it completely.  Anyone else ever had anything like this??  I am terrified I have developed something and maybe will always have pain knitting.  Brandon was laughing at me the other night that I was so upset about having to stop knitting for a bit.  He really doesn’t understand how addicting and soothing and relaxing this hobby is. 😉  I literally have had dreams at night about casting on with this yarn.  (I’m a little crazy, I know)

Anyway, I’m trying to finish up some baby socks as a gift for a loved one (so I can’t show them here) and then I want to work on this shawl.  I also just purchased my first interchangeable needle set and am eager to try it out!

I’m still reading The Life-giving Home by Sarah + Sally Clarkson and loving it, as well as a couple others, but this is one the kids and I have been reading the past couple of days. (For more children’s picture books that I recommend, look here).  How appropriate, given that we are expecting some snow tonight!  We always hope for a blizzard even though those are rare for our North Carolina mountains.  We heard on the radio earlier today that there was a tornado watch in effect for our area, and as soon as we got home Phoebe was screaming with glee and searching the house for her binoculars.  She told me the radio said to be watching for tornados and she obediently set up post by the window.  We did have some ferocious rain and wind this morning but it is gloriously sunny outside right now.  Hard to imagine snow coming this evening.

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Hope I’ll be knitting more again soon.

Joining in with my favorite blogger, Ginny, and her weekly yarn along today.

Roots + Sky // These are Still Planting Days

MarthaKimball1 Comment

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Nearly ten years ago we set up our first home together in a freshly-built basement studio apartment, newlyweds with barely a dime to our name.  After our first year of marriage, we followed the Lord’s leading out to Colorado and had quite an adventure, then followed His leading back to the quiet mountains of North Carolina.  We’ve moved a number of times since then, always from rental to rental, and we’ve experienced many financial set backs over the course of our marriage.  Today we are in a bigger home than that tiny studio apartment, and we have three children now, instead of two dogs, but we are still on borrowed ground.

We’ve always longed for a home of our own.  We’ve always dreamed about the day when we can put down roots.  This year we’ve been quietly dreaming and hoping we could possibly buy our first home.  We don’t know yet if God will open those doors for us and provide a place, and we are content with our sweet little rental in the meantime.  So it has been interesting reading Christie Purifoy’s book, Roots and Sky: A Journey Home in Four Seasons.  Of course this book would find its way into my hands as my heart aches with its own dream and hopes to find “home.”  I found myself so often in her words, my heart so often nodding its “yes.”

“Wandering taught me to desire rootedness.  In the wilderness, I began to long for a place where my heart and body could settle, free of striving, free of restlessness.  A place where my feet could touch ground.  A place where I could grow.  Like a tree.

I do not think this is my dream only.  Not everyone longs for life in the country.  Not everyone feels affection for old houses.  But whether we are homebodies or world travelers, we all long for the moment of arrival.  We all dream of the rest and peace we imagine waits for us at the end of a long journey.”  (Purifoy, 19)

Purifoy writes the story of Maplehurst, the name of their old brick farmhouse sitting at the end of maple-lined lane.  It is the story of their first year at “home” after years of “wandering in the wilderness,” as Purifoy calls it, the story of their homecoming and home-finding in those four unlikely walls.

“This is the story of my journey home.  This is the story of a kingdom come.  It begins with a full moon, the birth of a baby, and a September breeze that told us our years of wandering were finally at an end.”  (Purifoy, 14)

It begins in Autumn, with the joyous arrival and acquisition of this beautiful plot of land, a place to tend the soil, to cultivate the hearts and souls of the three children + baby on the way, a place to put down roots and reach out wide to neighbors.  It begins with the fulfillment of a dream and the anticipation of a new baby, born only weeks after moving in.  Autumn gives way to winter, and Purifoy beautifully weaves the story of their family into the story the seasons tell us.  Winter descended with both aching beauty and hardship, a barrenness that cried out for the thaw of spring.

“Gardens are born in winter.  Not only in fireside dreams, but also in the messy work of tending small pots on sunny windowsills.  And in the harsh work of planting early seeds in cold soil…

I long to see the glory of God in this place, to taste it even, but for everything there is a season.  These are still planting days.  These are the early days of small beginnings.  Days to sow, quite often in tears, hoping, believing, that we may one day reap in joy.” (Purifoy, 95, 96)

Winter gives way to Spring, to budding branches and budding relationships with neighbors finding their way through the gap in their split-rail fence.  Spring brings new life, both in the soil and in Purifoy’s own heart, tumbling into Summer’s bounty and abundance.

“The ache of winter and of early spring is the ache of exile.  The ache Adam and Eve knew so well.  Yet it was different once.  Adam and Eve knew what they had lost.  Their beautiful garden.  Their meeting place with God.  Their innocence.  It is not the same for us.  We are born into exile and must learn to recognize what we are missing.

It isn’t enough to know that we yearn for God.  Somewhere along the way we must also learn that creation is God’s good gift.  Its true identity is not the chaos and horror we observe on the nightly news.  We must learn how to walk with God on the ground of our own lives, how to meet with him in our kitchens and neighborhood sidewalks and backyards.  We must become acquainted with the righteousness Christ has made available again.  To recognize and release the nails of our sins.

Only then can we begin to receive the life that is to come, the world that is to come.  Our hunger is the exile’s hunger, but it is also the first step in our homecoming.  We hunger and in doing so learn the shape of our emptiness and the world’s great emptiness in order to prepare room for God’s presence.  We imagine we are cultivating food or friendship or beauty.  But we are, in all of these ways, cultivating God’s glory in our midst.  We spread our tables and fill our plates with glory.”  (Purifoy, 165-166)

More than just the story of finding “home” at Maplehurst, Purifoy teaches us about our longing for heaven, really, for our return to Eden.  She helps to uncover within us the haunt of exile and the longing for Home, showing that this desire is not just about buying a home or owning a plot of ground, but a desire for God’s kingdom come.  A desire to redeem the land, a desire to see God build His kingdom here, yes, even here on this broken sod.  This cursed ground that eagerly waits for the redemption of the sons of God, for its own redemption from corruption.  This terrestrial sod?  He will renew and restore it because what He makes is good, yes indeed, very good.

If you long for home, if you hunger for God’s kingdom come, if you love metaphor and looking for all the ways of God revealed in the moments and the things He has made, in the turning of seasons and the turning of hearts, you will so treasure this book.  Purifoy’s Maplehurst has stirred up my longing for my own “Maplehurst,” but not in a discontented or envious way.  It has reminded me that our longing for a place to cultivate and to redeem is a part of our makeup, a part of God’s design in us.  It is a good thing, a thing of glory.  It is kingdom work.

For my husband and I, and now our three children, these are still-wintry planting days.  These are still days of “farmhouse dreaming.”  These are days of finding home even in the unlikely and often impersonal soil of a borrowed house.  These days are still an important part of the journey Home, not to be missed or grumbled about.  These are days that stir up our anticipation and eagerness over what is to come.

“It is true that we do not yet possess an enduring home, but we are looking for it.  We are watching and waiting and straining to catch a glimpse of the coming of that which John saw: ‘The Holy City. . . coming down out of heaven from God’ (Rev. 21:2).  And I am beginning to see.  Perhaps because it is spring, or because we are still singing Easter hymns each Sunday, but I am beginning to see small glimpses of my forever home.”  (Purifoy, 150)

You can find more from Christie Purifoy on her blog here: http://www.christiepurifoy.com,
or purchase a copy of her book and lose/find yourself at Maplehurst here: http://amzn.to/1PAdPhW.

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Thanks to Revell Publishers for a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

yarn along

MarthaKimball4 Comments

 

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Currently I have a few books on the stack: Roots and Sky, The Life-giving Home, and just starting this one by Tim Keller on the Psalms called The Songs of Jesus.  I’ve been craving the psalms lately.  My soul has been in a bit of a fog and it seems I am finding my way back to my own heart through the psalms.  Sometimes you need to borrow the honest prayers of another, these inspired by the Holy Spirit, when you don’t know what to pray yourself.  I am so grateful for all the range of emotion expressed in the psalms, the permission they give us to be real before our God and pour out our heart to Him.  This is a year’s worth of devotions in the psalms, so I will be in it all year, I suppose.

I finished up my epic sock production and am making a chunky knit hat for one of my cousins, while trying to decide what to work on next.  I’m planning on starting a shawl maybe, and also I’m wanting to work on a baby sweater possibly.  In the meantime, my fingers are itching to knit so I’m just working away on dishcloths when I need some mindless knitting in the evenings.

Joining in with Ginny + so many other lovely knitters and readers in her weekly yarn along!

yarn along

MarthaKimball4 Comments

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Are you tired of seeing socks yet?  I’m probably not a very exciting knitter.  I am on my LAST SOCK after knitting a pair for each family member and I was hoping to have this done by his birthday (today!) but, alas.. only on the gusset.  I secretly knit him a big chunky hat, though, this week, to make up for it, and I hope that is a fun surprise for him.  But I forgot to get a picture of it before I wrapped it.  He requested cherry pie for his birthday dessert, so this is my first attempt at a gluten-free pie.  (I never attempt pies, it seems; I think I am horrible at them.  I pieced together a few different recipes to make this one, so we’ll *see* how it turns out.)

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I am wanting to make my first shawl.  It is a knitter’s rite of passage, right??  So.. comment with your recommendations!  It seems there are a billion options to choose from and I have only been knitting since October so my skills are pretty limited.  I need to try something beyond hats and socks and scarves.

I’ve been reading Roots + Sky the past few days (it just released yesterday!) and I can hardly put it down.  Christie Purifoy’s voice feels like home to me, familiar somehow to my own thinking, and the imagery and color she uses in her prose is so vivid and evocative!  She makes me want to write more and be a better writer.  I love how she has captured her first year living in her home, Maplehurst, in all four seasons, journeying through change and reflecting on our connection to the soil and to the sky, a people both of the earth and yet also a people of a far-off Kingdom.  I highly recommend it!

Joining in with Ginny + all the lovely knitters and readers at her weekly yarn along.

yarn along

MarthaKimball3 Comments

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Joining in with Ginny today to share what I’m knitting and reading.  I finished Hannah’s Choice last night, and I really loved it!  I read Almost Amish a couple of years ago and learned a lot about the Amish lifestyle and how much we can learn and appreciate from their simple ways and values.  Hannah’s Choice was a really engaging novel about an Amish family and their attempt to raise their children apart from an increasingly encroaching world of outsiders.  I grew up in a “Brethren” type of gathering/meeting, and I found it interesting, reading about this family and the way they viewed those outside of their faith.  I found certain aspects reminded me of my upbringing.  Also, the author mentioned that this story, though fiction, was based on her own family’s history, an attempt for her to fill in the gaps after doing a bunch of genealogical research.  So it was definitely a story very rooted in place and history.  It was a really interesting read, I loved being hooked on a story again and unable to put it down.  And it’s the first book in a series, so book two will come out this fall.  Yay!

Anyway, I’ve started The Life-Giving Home by Sally + Sarah Clarkson.  I have read a couple others by Sally Clarkson before and have really been helped by them.  I was surprised to find that this one starts off with her on a writing retreat in my very own town, Asheville, NC!  It’s fun to see her perspective on this little town I’ve grown up in that seems so ordinary to me.  So far, though I’m only barely into it, it reminds me of The Hidden Art of Homemaking by Edith Schaeffer, which is a FAVORITE read of mine.  So I think I will really enjoy this one as well.  I find it super helpful to regularly read things that encourage and inspire me in my role as wife and mother and homemaker.  Creating a home that is cozy, inspiring, happy, and life-giving is a huge priority of mine!

As for knitting, I’ve been working on finishing up some knits this week, but just about to graft the toe of Brandon’s first sock and cast on sock #2 this morning.  He tried them on last night and really liked them, and he’s fairly picky, so I was pleased!  I also need to secretly knit a hat before his birthday next week.  I have a few more gift-y items to finish up and then I feel like I should knit myself something!  I have yet to knit anything for myself.  I’m wanting to try something beyond socks and hats.  I feel like it’s time to attempt my first shawl?  But also.. I want to make some more baby knits.  So many things!

Parables

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“Turn to his teaching, and see if anyone else ever spoke so simply as he did.  A child can comprehend his parables.  There are, in them, hidden truths which are a mystery even to Christ’s deeply-taught disciples; but Christ never mystified his hearers.  He talked to them like a child. . .He never laid aside the simplicity of childhood, though he had all the dignity of fully-developed manhood.  He wore his heart upon his sleeve, and spoke out what was in his mind in such plain, clear language that the poorest of the poor, and the lowest of the low were eager to listen to him.”

C. H. Spurgeon

I’ve been reading slowly, savoring my way through the Gospels for a solid year.  I just finished Luke and am headed into John, the final Gospel account.  I have craved daily life with Jesus, daily walking with Him, to remember where He put His feet, who His hands reached out to touch, who He noticed, who He welcomed, who He rebuked.  I have needed to hear those red-letter words day-in and day-out.  It has been such a rich time just soaking slowly, line by line.

Thus, when John MacArthur’s latest book, Parables: the mysteries of God’s kingdom revealed through the stories Jesus told, came up for review, I was drawn instantly toward it, hungry to read more about the parables, the stories Jesus told.  The ways He taught about the Kingdom, the way He always came with stories, stories, stories.  The way He unveiled the mysteries of the Kingdom to us, to His listeners, in the stories He told.  The way He showed us that the Kingdom is not merely some high and lofty religious ideal; it meets the ground of our earth, our dust.  The way He showed us that we can best understand the Kingdom by observing mustard seeds, pearls, soil, the ways of the farmer, yeast and dough, the beggar, the downcast sinner versus the upright Pharisee, a wayward child.  The way He revealed to us that this world He formed and fashioned and set in motion, this world that He even today upholds and sustains down to the smallest detail, is rife with truth, with His meaning, His character, hints of His kingdom and ways.

“Jesus’ parables had a clear twofold purpose: They hid the truth from the self-righteous or self-satisfied people who fancied themselves too sophisticated to learn from Him, while the same parables revealed truth to eager souls with childlike faith–those who were hungering and thirsting for righteousness.  Jesus thanked His Father for both results: ‘I thank You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and have revealed them to babes.  Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Your sight’ (Matt. 11:25-26).” (MacArthur)

MacArthur begins by explaining what parables are, and why Jesus used these as His main teaching method.  He corrects some sloppy thinking about Jesus’ parables.  Then he spends the rest of the book studying 10 different parables.  As a result, you find yourself learning about the intricacies of the Pharisees and their Sabbath observance, the farming techniques of the day, the way soil and seed interact, the cost of discipleship, justice, grace, the conflict between Jews and Samaritans, justification by faith, and so forth, and what each of these things has to teach us about the Kingdom of God.  You realize how much ground Jesus covered in these simple stories He told.  How much He has given us to chew on, how richly He extended the beauties of the Kingdom to those who would have ears to hear.  I have thoroughly enjoyed spending this time with MacArthur’s perspective on each of these parables and have been so encouraged and edified.  His book is a happy read, clear exposition and fascinating, a great accompaniment to a study of the Gospels or just to familiarize oneself with Jesus’ parabolic form of teaching.  For the seasoned student of Scripture, it will bring new light to all the dearly-loved parables.  For the newer student of Scripture, it gives a treasure trove of insight to what can, at first glance, seem so simple.  For those hungry for more of Jesus, to spend more time in His footsteps, to know more of who He is, to experience and see His Kingdom, you will find food for you soul in these pages.

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Thank you to BookLook Bloggers for a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.