Common People...
Story after story marked by scandal, stumble, and intrigue. Who are these people? They're the people of the Bible.
And they're us. We find our stories in theirs. We find our hope where they found theirs.
...in the hands of an uncommon God.
In the midst of them all...hovering over them all...is the hero of it all. God. Maker. Shaper. Rescuer of sinking hearts. God. Passing out high callings, second chances, and moral compasses to all comers and takers.
In this gathering of inspiring stories from his numerous best-selling books, master storyteller Max Lucado revisits some of his favorite biblical characters - all of whom were very human and imperfect, just like us. If God can find a place for them...he just might have a place for us too.
MY REVIEW:
I would have to give this book 3 stars.
Cast of Characters is a wonderful little book that lets the reader see into the lives of some of the people who participated in the stories of the Bible. These characters weren’t spotless, they weren’t without fault, but they were the people who God chose to use for His perfect work; people like David, Jarius, Abigail, Nicodemus, The Samaritan Woman, Job, Esther, and so on.
I could tell that this book was written to inspire Christians to realize how magnificent our God is. It took a few chapters to get into the book, but in some places I really did enjoy the truths that he had to point out. There was, however, one thing that I really did not enjoy about this book.
Lucado frequently used NCV (New Century Version) of the Bible. Maybe it is because I am so used to reading from my King James Version, but this alteration of versions was irritating and very hard to follow. The NCV distorted the bible verses so much that sometimes I didn’t even realize he was quoting some of my favorite verses. The NCV was just too…too normal…it didn’t sound like the sacred Word of God. This was probably my biggest issue with the book.
Once I got past the “watered-down” verses, it was a pretty good book. He added quite a bit of humor to it and added personal accounts into the stories. Frequently, he would recreate the Bible stories into modern-day events and although I thought it was a bit odd and took a while to get used to, I did enjoy reading about those events. It just goes to show you that God’s commandments aren’t just for “the ancient days” – they are everlasting and apply to every generation, no matter how much it changes and alters.
That said, this book would make a great devotional, as long as you have your Bible nearby to translate the NCV. (Maybe it’s just me, but I thought to give you a heads up anyways!) Max Lucado has written many different devotionals and, although I wouldn’t say this is a must have for your morning or evening worship with our Savior, it was a nice read and I learned many relevant truths from it.
Thanks goes to Thomas Nelson for giving me a complementary copy of this book to review.
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