An Encouraging and Challenging Journey

In the interest of full disclosure, the author of this book, Tara Barndt, is a personal friend of mine.  She asked me to provide a review for her book for Amazon, and I thought I would post it on my blog as well.  I have no problem writing a review for her because Tara has written a very personal yet insightful devotional on the Pauline epistle of Philippians.

Journey through Philippians is a 33 day daily devotional that takes the reader through Paul’s letter to the Christian believers in the Greek city of Philippi.  Each day’s reading concerns itself with only a handful of verses, allowing the reader to easily read, re-read and meditate on the day’s passage.  The daily reading is short – typically 2-4 pages – but not so short that it is lacking in content.  Tara does not shy away from digging into the text itself, at times tackling the original Greek meanings behind our English text, but she does so in a manner that is not at all overwhelming or intimidating to the average reader.

Tara’s writing is very honest.  As Tara’s friend and her pastor, I have seen her struggle with some of the very things she has put down on paper in this book.  She is not preaching at the reader from an ivory tower, convinced that she has it all together.  Rather, she is a fellow struggler, someone seeking to put Paul’s inspired words into practice in her life as well.  She uses an abundance of personal examples to help the reader understand and apply the day’s text and ends each day with a reflection section in which she invites each of us to ponder the text and its practical meaning for our lives.

Some of you may be concerned because Journey through Philippians is self-published.  While an increasing number of people are self-publishing today, many, including myself, regularly wonder about the quality of the typical self-published book.  Don’t worry about that with this book.  The author actually had offers from publishing houses, but her desire is to translate the book into Spanish and use it in ministry contexts in Central America.  Only by self-publishing does she retain the rights to the text to allow that to happen.

Journey through Philippians is an excellent study of Paul’s wonderful book.  I recommend it highly to anyone who is looking for a devotional that is both faithful to God’s word and seeks to challenge them in their walk with Jesus.