Book review and Bible Study Reviews

As usual, MY TAKES are at the end of each section for each book.

The Friends We Keep/40 Minute Bible Studies
by Sarah Zacharias Davis/Kay Arthur

The Friends We Keep

Author: Sarah Zacharias Davis

Summary for The Friends We Keep
During a particularly painful time in her life, Sarah Zacharias Davis learned how delightful–and wounding–women can be in friendship. She saw how some friendships end badly, others die slow deaths, and how a chance acquaintance can become that enduring friend you need.The Friends We Keep is Sarah’s thoughtful account of her own story and the stories of other women about navigating friendship. Her revealing discoveries tackle the questions every woman asks:• Why do we long so for women friends? • Do we need friends like we need air or food or water?• What causes cattiness, competition, and co-dependency in too many friendships?• Why do some friendships last forever and others only a season?• How do I foster friendship?• When is it time to let a friend go, and how do I do so? With heartfelt, intelligent writing, Sarah explores these questions and more with personal stories, cultural references and history, faith, and grace. In the process, she delivers wisdom for navigating the challenges, mysteries, and delights of friendship: why we need friendships with other women, what it means to be safe in relationship, and how to embrace what a friend has to offer, whether meager or generous.

Author Bio:
Sarah Zacharias Davis is a senior advancement officer at Pepperdine University, having joined the university after working as vice president of marketing and development for Ravi Zacharias International Ministries and in strategic marketing for CNN. The daughter of best-selling writer Ravi Zacharias, Davis is the author of the critically-acclaimed Confessions from an Honest Wife and Transparent: Getting Honest About Who We are and Who We Want to Be. She graduated from Covenant College with a degree in education and lives in Los Angeles, California.

MY TAKE:

As someone who has always needed to be surrounded my friends, I found this book interesting to see WHY I feel like I must need friends at all times. I enjoyed reading about differences within friendships and how to handle those differences and why they happen. One point I found humorous was about men and their "friends". "They have work friends, friends for playing weekly pickup basketball games, golfing friends, and friends forced on them by a significant other. Seldom do they see these friends outside their category of identity, yet they would call them friends." Women on the other hand..."go beyond the circumstances that brought them together and meander into their lives through both the valleys and the peaks, eventually ending up in the women's souls, where they can both restore and destruct." She also mentions, "What becomes so clear is how much we need one another, not in a codependent way but rather to bring to light what we cannot see or perhaps do not want to see. And when we finally recognize our own reflection, we are greater for having done so." Finally, I have realized that "Service to one another does not only look like washing the bare feet of those who have given up their footwear. It also looks like a frozen casserole dish, a late-night phone call, a last-minute errand, and ultimately sacrifice for another." I think of all of my friends both past and present. Some are only here for a season, but for that season we needed eachother, and God knew that. I think of growing up...I had Kristy, then Beverly and Michelle, Dawn, Ann, Carrie (Tator Tot), Nicole, Caroline, another Michelle, Susie, Gina, Christina, Gloria, Jane, Tammy, Emily, Deana and Allyson. Lots of best friendships, but like I said, God knows WHO we need and WHEN we need them. Thank you God for all of my wonderful friends both past and present! Now the book itself, does have a lot of insight, but it is a bit wordy and long for the simple subject of friendship. However, if you are a good skimmer (which I am not), then you won't have any problem with this book!
If you would like your own copy of this book, please say so in the comments. I will draw a winner at the end of the week!!!

40 Minute Bible Studies

Summary for 40 Minute Bible Studies
The 40 Minute Bible Study series from beloved Bible teacher Kay Arthur and the teaching staff of Precept Ministries tackles important issues in brief, easy-to-grasp lessons you can use personally or for small-group discussion. Each book in the series includes six 40-minute studies designed to draw you into God’s Word through basic inductive Bible study. There are 16 titles in the series, with topics ranging from fasting and forgiveness to prayer and worship. With no homework required, everyone in the group can work through the lesson together at the same time. Let these respected Bible teachers lead you in a study that will transform your thinking—and your life.

Author Bio:

Kay Arthur, executive vice president and cofounder of Precept Ministries International has worked with her teaching staff to create the powerful 40-Minute Bible Studies series. Kay is known around the world as a Bible teacher, author, conference speaker, and host of national radio and television programs.

Titles Include:
•The Essentials of Effective Prayer •Being a Disciple: Counting the Cost
•Building a Marriage That Really Works •Discovering What the Future Holds
•Forgiveness: Breaking the Power of the Past •Having a Real Relationship with God
•How Do You Walk the Walk You Talk? •Living a Life of Real Worship
•How to Make Choices You Won’t Regret •Living Victoriously in Difficult Times
•Money & Possessions: The Quest for Contentment •Rising to the Call of Leadership
•How Do You Know God’s Your Father? •Key Principles of Biblical Fasting
•A Man’s Strategy for Conquering Temptation •What Does the Bible Say About Sex?

MY TAKE:

The bible studies they sent me are the ones in bold above. I haven't done the walk one yet, but I am in the middle of the Building a Marriage that Really Works. It is an AWESOME study. Very easy and very knowledable. It is teaching me a lot, that I am then able to turn toward Jeff and teach him. It has been helpful in our marriage thus far, and I am the only one taking it. I would highly suggest these studies. They seem to be really great!