Twelve Unlikely Heres by John MacArthur

Twelve Unlikely Heroes by John MacArthur is an in-depth study of some of the ordinary and not so ordinary people of whom God picked to do his work.  They were weak in body and sometimes soul.  They questioned God.  Some of the heroes, Jonah for instance, God had to all but drag to work and then listen to him complain when he successfully completed his mission.  Some unflinchingly worked for God, Jonathan, even when he had to go against his Earthly father in order to work for his heavenly father.  The Bible and other historical documents are used as Mr. MacArthur weaves these fascinating Biblical stories of which most of us are familiar with cultural facts of the background during which they occur.

I enjoyed reading the well known stories of the Bible.  Mr. MacArthur brought alive the stories that I had heard from childhood on up to adulthood.  However, I am not a Bible scholar but as I was reading the early parts of the book I thought to myself, I don’t remember that but I did not look them up in either of the Bibles cited in the book.  When I came to the Jonathon story though and on page 103 it says after Saul threw the spear and missed his son’s head.  “Nobody moved.  The only sound in the room came from the still-vibrating spear handle plunged ominously into the wall.”  I really thought, “I don’t remember that”.  So I looked it up.  Nope it doesn’t say that in the Bible so I looked to see if this book was fictionalized- nope it says, “Bible—Biography”.  I looked for citing in the back of the book and only see citing for chapter 10.  I work with many persons who only read books and consider if they are Bible based that they are not fiction (even if the book says that they ARE fiction).  I am sure that if they read a book which is non-fiction they would not look up and see if everything is as is written or if it has been embellished for interest.  This is concerning to me about this work even though I enjoyed reading the book and learned much from it.

This book was provided for this review from Booksneeze.