The Family of Jesus by Karen Kingsbury

Wow!  After having spent this whole year in the book of Matthew for my personal study, I'm so glad this book came at the time of my final few chapters of study.  This was a beautiful way to end my Matthew study.  I came to love Joseph, Zechariah, Elizabeth, Mary, James, and John the Baptist in a new way.

I think it's easy to de-personalize the characters in the Bible since information about many of them is limited.  Then there's some who were so close to God or so close to Jesus that we forget that they could possibly be scared or have normal feelings like we do. 

One person I always did that to was John the Baptist.  I never stopped to think about his lonely time in prison and how he was left with his own thoughts. I'm sure he battled fears and disappointment.  I loved stopping to really ponder who these people were and remind myself they were, in fact, humans too. 

There is a Bible study at the end that you could easily do as a small group study, Women's study, or personal study.  It has personal questions for personal study and then group discussion questions.

It's hard to beat the Baxter series, but I think this book is my favorite so far.  I hope she does more with the people in the Bible, such as others in the line of Jesus.  There's a hint of that happening with this being part of the Life-Changing Bible Study Series.

____________

I received this book free from Howard Publishers in exchange for my honest opinion of this book.