Book Review: The Promised One

Click on image to purchase at Amazon.comSeeing Jesus in Genesis by Nancy Guthrie.

The Promised One is intended for use in a study for group of women. It’s purpose is to help us see pointers to Christ in Genesis, the first book of the Old Testament. “You search the Scriptures,” Jesus said to the Jewish religious leaders, “but the Scriptures point to me!” He was, of course, referring to our Old Testament. So we should expect to see Jesus in Genesis, and this study was written to help us do that.

Guthrie’s goal is an important one. The Jewish leaders missed the Messiah because they did not see that Scripture was pointing them to a redeemer who would suffer. They were familiar with Scripture, but failed to see the big picture. We don’t want to be like them, and yet, too many of us read the Bible piecemeal (if we read it at all), and don’t have a good grasp of the whole storyline. 

Included in The Promised One are ten studies made up of three parts each. First, each study has a workbook section with questions on the section’s passage to be filled out by each participant in preparation for the group study. Then there is a teaching chapter to explain and apply the passage, including, at the end, a few paragraphs that show us how the themes in the passage that point us to Christ will be fulfilled completely at his second coming, when all the threads that begin in Genesis are tied up into a perfect whole cloth. Finally, there is a discussion guide with questions for use in group discussion.

I’ve not used this book in group study, but I have worked through each section, filling out the questions, reading the teaching chapter, and thinking about the discussion questions. I asked myself, as I worked through it all, how it would work in a group of the women I know. 

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Sunday's Hymn: See Amid the Winter's Snow

See amid the winter’s snow,
Born for us on earth below,
See, the gentle Lamb appears,
Promised from eternal years.

Refrain

Hail that ever blessèd morn,
Hail redemption’s happy dawn,
Sing through all Jerusalem:
Christ is born in Bethlehem.

Lo, within a manger lies
He who built the starry skies;
He who, thronèd in height sublime,
Sits amid the cherubim.

Say, you holy shepherds, say,
Tell your joyful news today.
Why have you now left your sheep
On the lonely mountain steep?

As we watched at dead of night,
Lo, we saw a wondrous light;
Angels singing ‘Peace on earth’
Told us of the Savior’s birth.

Sacred Infant, all divine,
What a tender love was Thine,
Thus to come from highest bliss
Down to such a world as this.

Teach, O teach us, holy Child,
By Thy face so meek and mild,
Teach us to resemble Thee,
In Thy sweet humility.

—Ed­ward Cas­wall

Other hymns, worship songs, sermons etc. posted today:

• Update: Praise Our God the Gen’rous Giver at The Heidel-Bible Blog
• Update: Hark! The Herald Angels Sing at Alabamenagerie
• Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus at Hiraeth
• How Sweet the Name of Jesus Sounds at Daily On My Way to Heaven
• On Jordan’s Bank, the Baptist’s Cry at Rosemary at Home
• Hark, Hark—the Notes of Joy at Whatever Things
• The Story That Never Grows Old at The Happy Wonderer
• How Firm a Foundation, Ye Saints of the Lord at Fieldstone Cottage
• Ere the Blue Heavens Were Stretched Abroad at Tried With Fire 
• Lord’s Day 49, 2011 at The Thirsty Theologian
• Voices of the Past - December 4, 2011 at The Upward Call
• Update: Your Weekly Dose of Spurgeon at Pyromaniacs: Spurgeon on Evolution

Have you posted a hymn (or sermon, sermon notes, prayer, etc.) today and I missed it? Let me know by leaving a link in the comments or by contacting me using the contact form linked above, and I’ll add your post to the list. 

Back Again

The cable that brings our internet and television into the house snapped on Thursday. It had stretched and wound it’s way through a tree that grew up around it and the wind on Thursday morning was the end of it. But now they’ve run us a new cable and we’re good to go.

I have a book review of Nancy Guthrie’s The Promised One: Seeing Jesus in Genesis, a bible study for women’s groups, that I was going to post on Thursday, but I think I’ll hold off until Monday now. Who reads blogs on Saturday, anyway?