Book review: The Little Book about God (2013)

Book Review:  The little book about God (2013) by Ron Rhodes

Understanding God, and his will in our life is an ongoing quest. The author pulls the bible apart to highlight 28  things we should know about God including, God is the father, the son, the holy spirit. God is eternal, everywhere, all-powerful, all-knowing. God is love, true and merciful.

The format for each chapter is easy to understand. The author start out with a main idea "e.g. God is, by nature, love. His grace is limitless". Then goes through the needs to know and verses in the bible to think about. The author then provide ideas/quotes to think about which bring out the main idea. The structure of these chapters is a great way to teach kids/teens but the content maybe a bit abstract for children without explanation. 

Just as the author recommended, it's got 28 chapters (2 pages each) which makes for a great one month devotional. I think it's a useful resource to have on hand. It's like a quick desktop reference guide. 

My psychological perspective:

Suitability for children: 

I believe this book is targeted at older adolescence to adults. The complexity of ideas would require explanations for younger adolescences. For adults, this book allows for room to expand your understanding of who God, according to the bible, is. 

For children:

As you personally go through this book, you may want to share some simple ideas/snip its with your children. However, you will need to judge whether some concepts are too difficult for them to understand and simplify these for them. The easiest way for children to understand these concepts is to use examples.

For teens:

Although they maybe able to grasp the content of these chapters for themselves, the application and the importance of these ideas may warrant further discussion with parents/peers. 

My Christian Perspective:

In Sunday School, we learned that God is love. It wasn't until when I grew up when the importance of righteousness came to me. So on one hand, God needs to punish us for our sins, but on the other hand he loves us. When my students ask me about other elements of God, I find myself dusting off knowledge in my brain. I find that I am unable to adequately describe and back up what I have said. This book is a helpful resource to read through at least once, then keep on hand for when a question comes up about who God is.

How can we teach what we do not understand? 

My overall rating: 

Excellent

Overall, I believe this is a great little resource to have on hand to remind us of the many qualities of God. However, it's not a resource I would be encouraging children to read alone. 

The Little book about God will be released October 2013.