"A Year with God" by R.P. Nettelhorst

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R.P., Nettelhorst, A Year with God: Daily Readings and Reflections on God's Own Words. Thomas Nelson, 2010. 399 pages. 

Disclaimer: This book was provided by Thomas Nelson for review.  

As I am sure you can guess from the title, this is a book of daily devotionals.  It is organized topically with antonymous pairs as "Hope and Fear" and "Love and Hate."  Within each topic, the reader will find several dozen entries which move from the beginning of the Old Testament to the end, roughly speaking.  There is no attempt to hit every verse, or chapter, or story, just that each days reading, within each topic, move sequentially through the OT.  

I began this book thinking that, for a daily devotional, it seemed fairly good.  However, by the end I was thoroughly disappointed.  It quickly became clear that while the title of each days entries were chosen to be provocative, the content was rather poorly thought out.  About half way through I started to wonder if the author actually realized what he was doing (i.e. being intentionally ironic and vague) or if it just happened by accident.  For example, in an entry entitled "Punishment from God" Nettelhorst makes the statement: "God's judgment is selective... He never just 'kills them all.'"  Then, four days later, he has an entry entitled "Kill Them All" in which he discusses God commanding just that.  This would be fine if there was even the slightest indication of attempting to grapple with this issue... but there isn't.  This is only one example of many, which makes me sad.  

2 of 5 Stars.  Not Recommended.  Shallow, pithy, and provocative in all the wrong ways.  


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