Twelve Extraordinary Women: How God Shaped Women of the Bible, and What He Wants to Do with You

An Inciteful, Biblical Approach to Womanhood & the Women of the Bible

This is a Biblical approach to examining various women in the Bible. John MacArthur does a character study of these women within the context of the Bible & God's purpose for women within the church & within the home. Instead of pandering to the popular secular & 'Christian' culture of today, he takes a close look at the godly, scriptural characteristics that makes these women extraordinary. No doubt, he will come under attack by the feminists that are represented within & outside of today's modern church. I highly recommend this book to those who truly desire to see Biblical womanhood through the principals in the Bible.

10 out of 10 people found this review helpful.

A wonderful read

John MacArthur goes into much detail about each of these Biblical women, and gleans from their lives the secrets of their walk with God. The beauty of it, is that these women were all living their lives as normal in their time, and He describes how God fulfilled His purpose for them. The result is a lasting legacy written in His Word. A wonderful read!

5 out of 5 people found this review helpful.

A reviewer

I loved it I couldn't put it down. I love relating to women in the bible and feeling like, 'God used her? then he can use me.' and how exciting it was to see what a vital role these women played in Gods divine plan.

3 out of 3 people found this review helpful.

Great Book!

I was very surprised when I read the reviews for this book. I actually found this book to be very inspirationsl and helpful. I've actually started reading it for the second time. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion of course, but when you find a book that works best for you I say you use the information presented to benefit you in whatever way you can.

2 out of 4 people found this review helpful.

A church friend invited me to join their study group and this wa

A church friend invited me to join their study group and this was my first book with them. If you have been reading this blog, you know I read a few Christian base books. Reading the Bible has not been part of my life yet. But I like reading about what people think about God. After a few meetings about this book, I got interested and learned some things about some women in the Bible and their faith in God, even under the circumstances and situations they were in. How God used them and how we as women of today could learn from them.

Then the chapter about Mary the Mother of Jesus came and all I can say is if you are a devout Catholic, you will not like this chapter. The whole chapter was difficult to read for me since it basically tells us what the author thinks about Catholicism. He thinks that Mary was extraordinary but consider the Catholics' devotion to her as a cult practice. The whole chapter is very anti-catholic.

John Macarthur is obviously a respected pastor who wrote a lot of books about people in the Bible. These are his own versions, his assumptions and interpretations of what people in the Bible time was like. Who am I to say otherwise, I have not read even the whole book of Genesis, I don't have a degree on how to teach about God.

But the more Christian books I read, the more I understand why my first blog about God was being received badly. Not everybody wants to believe in One God. Each of us interprets our God our own way. If a person is intelligent, have backers with money, is a great speaker and charismatic enough to have followers, then you can start your own church, translate and interpret the Bible in your own way and grow your church.

I think that ancient times when travelling was difficult, God may have come to Earth, showed himself at different times and different parts of the world in a way that people of that era and place will understand HIM. When travelling was made possible, people who thought they were superior starts conquering other groups of people which started changing people's traditions, views and even about how they pray to God.

Now with phones, internet, boats and airplanes. The World is getting smaller, we can reach anybody anywhere, but morality and our perception of God is getting wider and far apart even more. Church leaders are wondering why people going to church are getting fewer. For me, I think it is because of too much churches claiming to bring the truth and that only their church and their interpretation of God will save us. Now if you are young, wanted to go learn about God, which church will you go to? How do you know that the church you are attending is really teaching the truth? Or do we just go to the church where most of our family and friends go, if they don't go, then we don't go.

1 out of 4 people found this review helpful.

Anti-Catholic Rhetoric

This books Anti-Chatholic comments regarding Mary, The Mother of God is completely false and misleading as to Catholic Doctrine and Tradition, so all Catholic Faith Study groups avoid at all costs as well as anyone who wants to hear the truth. Protestant's please be aware that this chapter is incorrect and misleading. The chapter has nothing to do with the books subtitle...'How God Shaped Women of the Bible and What He wants to Do with you'. The author's comments from page 108...'Various extrabiblical religious traditions and many superstitious minds have beautified Mary beyond what is reasonable....A long tradition of overzealous souls throughout history have wrongly exhalted her to godlike status.' He then refers to the extreme gullibility about apparitions of Mary sometimes rise to comical proportions and then makes a reference to the Grilled cheese sandwich on e-bay with was described as having an image of Mary etched into it. Not exactly a quality book.

1 out of 12 people found this review helpful.

i can only hope this is the worst book i will ever read.

i cannot fathom there being another book in existence that is worse than this one. ... i can sum up the vast majority of this book in one word: UNSUBSTANTIATED. as far as geographical and archaeological facts, and church ritual and history, i have no disputes. however, in my opinion, the remainder of the book [i.e. THE TOPIC] is by and large a fanciful extrapolation of what macarthur THINKS and ASSUMES what these extraordinary women SHOULD be. macarthur has extracted the biblical accounts of these twelve women and created twelve chapters of fabricated nonsense, with no citations, no research, no evidence, and nothing remotely resembling a concrete reason for his blatant assumptions. he has attempted to fit these beautiful women into a box that exists only in his own mind. ... macarthur takes away the respect and the power and the beauty of these women, and leaves the reader with nothing but a superficial shell of these heroes of the faith. you get the feeling he is writing [and i use that term loosely] with either an air of contempt that God would dare use the 'weaker sex' in his kingdom or with a condescending pat on the head to women everywhere, a sort of 'there, there, now, isn't this a nice little book for you girls? now go off and play in the kitchen' air. ... and the writing. OH, THE WRITING. the editors, the publishers, the typists, the people in the mailroom, EVERYONE was sleeping on this one. i lost count of the times the words 'of course,' 'obviously,' 'naturally,' and all derivatives thereof were used before i finished the first chapter. grown adults writing publishable material should not have to rely on such sad measures to prove their points. ... obviously. ... this book is a disservice to women, to the Church, to Christendom. the only positive comment i have about this horrific piece of writing is that it certainly creates discussion for our women's small group.

1 out of 10 people found this review helpful.

This book is amazing , It's not about catholics as some people h

This book is amazing , It's not about catholics as some people have written about.
The Love of God is everywhere and in every corner!
Our heavenly father is not a religious one.
The love of God is for all in this world and people should stop labeling religious groups.
If you have the Lord in your heart and you are hungry for his word, then you should just read the Bible,
obey the Lord and try to do your best everyday.

I will buy it again and read it because I loved it so much that i gave away the first one to some friends and they loved it too.
Again, It's a bout extraordinary people, not naysayers!!!

This is a very encouraging book, so be ready to be blessed immensely.
If you are looking to become better in the walk with God I highly suggest you read this book.
Blessings to all and lets all stay full of joy and be positive everyday.


 

This book sheds false light on a bigoted, horrific, sexist, fear

This book sheds false light on a bigoted, horrific, sexist, fear- and hatred- inducing book of fiction masquerading as non-fiction, called The Bible. "The Bible" contains adult, grotesque stories of rape, genocide, child abuse, sexism, revenge, murder. Many of these acts are commandeered by, and allowed by, authority figures... My advise is to actually read the entire bible, before buying this book.

0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

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0 out of 3 people found this review helpful.

Disappointed in this book

This book was written from the author's own biased opinion. He clearly has an opinion on what a woman's role should be and only praises women when they fit into this mold. Women are to be beautiful, dutiful, submissive and subordinate. If they do not fit into this traditional mold they are then shrews, nags and manipulative bottom dwellers (his discriptive terms of Sarah and Rahab). While he occaisionally brought out a finer point about someone that you may have missed in a general reading of a story he frequently defeated his purpose in educating you by his unfortunate and derogatory choice of words. If you read this book I strongly suggest you have another book about women in the Bible as a companion reader. You will need this in order to get a more balanced picture of the women he describes.

0 out of 5 people found this review helpful.

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