A Year With God by R.P. Nettelhorst

Book description:

A 365-day devotional featuring the actual spoken words of God as presented in the Bible.



Too many times the impact and grandness of the actual words God spoke, as recorded in the Bible, are lost in the telling of the story. In A Year with God, the primary focus is to allow the scriptures that contain God's dialogue and the revelations of himself to uniquely speak to the reader. The author follows each reading with insights and applications to help explain the context and nuances of the text. The unique titling of each meditation and the nontraditional themes and organization help bring God to our daily lives. Topics include:


Hope and Fear Love and Hate Perseverance and Quitting Faith and Doubt Loyalty and Betrayal Companionship and Isolation Mercy and Judgment Forgiveness and Anger Joy and Sadness Peace and Conflict.

My review:
I like a good devotional, and since we are nearing the end of this year, I thought that I'd review this in case someone is looking for a new devotional for next year.

This one is a bit different than some. It does not have months and dates in it, just day 1-365. Each day has several verses, followed by a sort of commentary on the verses. Several different Bible translations are used for this devotional, which adds variety.

The devotional is split up into a few different topics, and each devotional also has a title. This is a deeper kind of devotional, not intended for a light "dessert" type read. They are fairly short, with the Scripture and devotional taking up one page daily. Everyone needs to read a good portion of Scripture aside from what is in a devotional, but I like the fact that there is more Scripture in this one than the typical one verse found in most. I would recommend this for people wanting a somewhat deeper devotional.

About the author:
R.P. Nettelhorst’s latest book, The Bible’s Most Fascinating People was published by Reader’s Digest Books in January, 2008. It has since been translated into 13 languages. His academic articles have appeared in Biblical Research Monthly, the Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, and the Quartz Hill Journal of Theology. He writes a weekly column for Ridge Rider News, a newspaper in northern California, and a monthly article for Passion Magazine, the newsletter for the High Desert Baptist Association. He is also the founder and Academic Vice President of Quartz Hill School of Theology where he serves as Professor of Bible and Biblical Languages.


He is married, with three daughters between the ages of fifteen and twelve. He resides in Lancaster, California.

A Year With God is available from Thomas Nelson Publishers. Thanks to Thomas Nelson for the review copy.