The Book of God

by April Oursler Armstrong

Brighter Winter challenges readers through a calendar lay-out of prompts for the months of January and February.  

Some of them are easy: 'tell someone what you are reading for Brighter Winter'.  😊  But some are harder.  Like 'read a book that intimidates you'.  😶

Some of the books I choose are easy breezy to read through, being just over a hundred pages or just under two hundred.  The fact that they are so short coupled with a good story line, and zip! I am through it.  

But some...some take me all month.  I combined two of the prompts for this choice: 'read a book with an author that has three names' and 'read a book that intimidates you'.  Initially I had chosen a different book for each prompt, but as I was digging through my books looking for a copy of Shakespeare I needed for our homeschool schedule, I came across this and pulled it out.  

This was a book that apparently my grandparents gave my mom, aunts, and uncles when they were children one year for Christmas.  It was published in 1951 from excerpts of stories from the Old Testament - and apparently some of them are included in another series by the author.  

I have never read anything by April Oursler Armstrong.  She passed away in 2006, and I believe all of her books are out of print.  

In this book, I found her to be a delightful, unpretentious author.  

This book didn't intimidate me because it is particularly challenging to read (like Martyn Lloyd-Jones) and although it is just under 450 pages, it doesn't feel like it is a long book that is going to take me forever to make my way through like The Father's Tale by Michael O'Brien did.  It intimidates me because I get caught up in a good story very easily.  I love to read.  I bring a book to appointments and if I am tempted to stay up late or forget a load of laundry or a batch of tater tots in the oven, it is almost always due to a book.  

Since it is so easy for me to get caught up in a story, I was afraid I wouldn't realize when the author crossed the line and changed the Word of God to say or imply something that it was never meant to do.  But, I am currently reading through the Bible and am in the Old Testament almost the entire time right now, so I felt like it was a good time to give this one a try.  

This is written for children.  And admittedly, I LOVE children's literature!  I whole heartedly agree with C.S. Lewis who said something to the effect of :  Children's books that are only enjoyed by children are not great books.  (that is not an exact quote...to get his exact quote you can feel free to google it!)  But even so, I have really enjoyed this book. (In fact I suspect this is going to be my favorite read for January)   I have found it hard to put down so that I could read other books - even favorite books - like Anne of Green Gables (which I am reading to complete one of the challenges 💖)

I have marked several passages that I would like to share here:

This is an imagined conversation, not included in the Word of God, but I marked it because of the beautiful example of sacrifice that it fleshes out:

"He stirred the fire with a long stick, and, looking at Abel, he said, "Your idea is a good one.  We shall make a special fire for the Lord, a fire of sacrifice, of giving up the things most valuable to us, as a sign that we remember that nothing is truly ours, except as a gift from God..."  " quoted from page 27 of The Book of God.

 I love this explanation of God's name:

"So it was that the Lord God came to be called Yahweh - I Am Who Am - which means that God is the One Who was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, and Who make everything else that is." quoted from page 113 of The Book of God.

And this - this tells of how quickly the nation of Israel was to doubt God after He brought them out of Egypt and it left me asking...'do I do this?':

"He had freed them, even led them with fire and cloud.  Yet in each new danger they forgot how powerful the Lord was!"  quoted from page 129 The Book of God.

And finally, as the author lays out the Ten Commandments, she italicizes The Words of God and then includes an explanation below of each one and this one is my favorite:

"This was the first commandment, the great truth on which the whole world is built, that there is only one God, Who is the Lord.  We must obey Him, and honor Him.  We must believe in Him, and trust in Him, and love Him above all things.  And we must never think that any other power is greater than God, Who made all things." quoted from page 143 The Book of God.

I am so glad I took a chance on this book, I will write another post when I finish it (probably more towards the very end of the month).