Charles Swindoll has been ministering and writing for many decades of his life. Among the works that he has penned, several of them are about specific characters from the Bible. One of his most recent works on "Abraham" was given to me for free through the book review program for bloggers, available at www.tyndaleblognetwork.com. After reading it recently, I was made more aware of the details of Abraham's life that, though I knew them before, were brought into clearer focus through this literary work.
While not discussing every piece of Abraham's life with overdone inspection, the book highlights the stories that are found primarily in the pages of Genesis, reconstructing a chronological history of this great patriarch of faith. The text of scripture is covered a section at a time, with applications to our lives found at the end of each chapter. Dealing with a variety of topics throughout the narrative, including failure, lying and death, there is a considerable amount of information relating to many areas of life that we will encounter on our journey on this earth.
One of the things I like about Dr. Swindoll, and it is no exception in this book, is his use of illustrations in his material. He pulls from a variety of sources, with works footnoted and cited at the end. But, while this was one of the positives of the book, I found one of the drawbacks to be some of the conclusions he drew from the text of scripture. On occasions, I felt that he was reading into the verses and pulling out conclusions that were not specifically stated. I still found the book pleasant but not as compelling of a read as I would have initially thought.
Still, this work can be a useful resource for someone wanting to learn more about scripture in general and the life of Abraham in particular. I was glad to see it available and hope that Dr. Swindoll will continue to write more scriptural works about characters and even books of the Bible, so that future generations may learn the lessons of the scriptures.
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