The Barbour Children's Bible Review

I was given the opportunity to review The Barbour Children's Bible in exchange for my honest opinion. I was thrilled when it arrived, as it was even better than anticipated.

There are many children "Bibles" out there to choose from. Many, however, are really more of a Bible storybook and not word-for-word biblical accounts.

This Children's Bible is  NLV New Living Version using a limited vocabulary of 850 easy-to-understand words. The interpretation choice is intended to make the Bible easy to understand and more readable for a child or young reader while not in any way attempting to wash over or take away from original manuscripts of the Scriptures.

The scripture behind The Barbour Children's Bible is:

But Jesus said, 'Let the little children come to Me. Do not stop them. The holy nation of heaven is made up of ones like these."

Matthew 19:14

.

The Bible is hard-bound with 931 fairly thin, but thicker than onion skin, pages. There are no pictures or illustrations throughout the book at all, but all of the scriptures are broken apart into bite-sized segments with headings that make it easy to quickly know what your child is reading about.  Both the Old Testament and the New Testament are included, with the New Testament highlighting Jesus' own words in the color red.

Retails for $19.99

This Children's Bible seems to be written at approximately a 4th Grade reading level (my guess), but a younger or older child could still very well enjoy it. If the words are still a bit challenging to read, an adult could read aloud with the child until the reading comes easier.

The Bible also has an inside Presentation Page, making it a really nice option as a baptismal, confirmation, or First Communion gift.

The Foundation of All Knowledge

Every day when I wake up, I flip my little calendar that my husband gave to me years ago when we were still dating.  It is a scripture calendar.  Each page contains a scripture for the day.  While it's not a full-fledged in-depth Bible study, it's nice to start the day off with an encouraging thought from God.

Today when I flipped the  little page, I read Proverbs 9:10.  The version that this calendar presents each day varies.  Often, however, it uses The Living Bible which puts the scripture into an understandable read that is easy to apply to my life.

Today I read:

The reverence and fear of God is the basics of knowledge.  Wisdom is the beginning of all other understanding.

Here are some other versions of this verse:

http://bible.cc/proverbs/9-10.htm

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Proverbs+9%3A10&version=MSG

When I read it, I thought how I need to use that on my blog as my byline to what the Scott Homeschool stands for.  At the base of all understanding is first reverencing God.

Billy Graham in Quotes: Book Review

Billy Graham in Quotes! When I saw the title of this book, I knew I had to get a copy. See, we named our firstborn son after Billy Graham's last name, because it was at a training seminar to be counselors at a Billy Graham conference that I gained the faith I needed during that pregnancy. If my son, Graham, carries on his faith like his namesake, I will be thrilled. If, he also brings honor to his dad like Billy Graham's son, Franklin, he will have completed a circle of faith to the next generation. Quotes like this, make my life go on:

Perhaps the greatest psychological, spiritual, and medical need that all people have is the need for hope.

I had the extreme privilege of reviewing this book provided by the Booksneeze.com program.

What better way to teach children, or anyone, but to learn quotes directly from the source. Students often learn poetry or other forms of memory work. An entire book of the Bible, Ecclesiastes, is devoted to nothing but words of wisdom to learn and live by. Many families find it easier to memories Proverbs and Psalms because of how the scriptures flow. Billy Graham's quotes are worth learning and memorizing and teaching to the next generation. Billy Graham talks on many topics. One of his quotes on family is:

More friction and tensions are caused in a family by tone of voice than for any other one reason.

This book is filled with quotes from the evangelist, Billy Graham. They were compiled with the help of his son, Franklin Graham, and Donna Lee Toney, who plays a role in Samaritan's Purse ministry.

The book is broken down into sections that could be used as an entire lesson in and of themselves. The sections offer specific quotes from Billy Graham related to:

Abortion
Addiction
Age
America
Angels
Anger
Anxiety
Bible
Blood
Character
Children
Choice
Christianity
Church
Comfort
Commitment
Coompromise
Comforming
Conscience
Conversion
Convictions
Creation
Death
Deception
Decision
Devil/Satan
Disappointment
Discipleship and Discipline
Encouragement
End Times
Eternity
Evangelism
Evil
Faith
Family
Followers
Forgiveness
Glorifying God
God
God's Will
Gospel
Grace
Greed
Grief
Happiness
Heart
Heaven
Hell
Holiness
Holy Spirit
Home
Hope
Human Nature
Imagination, Entertainment, and Fun
Influence
Integrity
Jesus
Joy
Judgment
Knowledge
Life
Living and Christian Life
Loneliness
Love
Lust
Marriage
Money
Morals
Parents
Patience
Peace
People
Persecution
Pleasure
Prayer
Preaching
Pride
Race
Religion
Repentance
Resurrection
Right & Wrong
Salvation
Service
Sin
Society
Soul
Speech
Srength
Success
Suffering
Surrender
Temptation
Testimony
Thankfulness
Time
Truth
War
Witnessing
Word of God
Work
World
World Evangelism
Worry
Worship
Young People

Just a handful of these topics would be enough to ponder for quite some time. But, having this book as a resource for anything life brings your way is a remarkable piece of paper to have on your shelf.

I love this book and will save it for my son as part of his namesake.