Steven Murray provides a beginners guide through the complexities of cyberspace. Much of the book is provides guidace for those new to cyberspace. It progresses in a few easy steps from getting on line to designing web pages. A few chapters illustrating what's out there are limited to the United Methodist Church. I found this book to be a useful guide to Christians exploring a new marketplace of ideas.

This is a wonderful book designed for grades 2-6. It is broken down into strategies for each step of the writing process. The best part is the chapter on mini-lessons. The mini-lessons are on creating an opening that grabs attention, adding details, changing verbs to action verbs, using dialogue, showing how characters feel, organizing paragraphs, and using figurative language. The book also has a helpful chapter on fun strategies to get kids to revise their writing. Some of the strategies and lessons may be difficult for second graders, but should be no problem for 3-6.

Excellent guide; easy to use. It gives very concrete information which makes it easy for you to choose the appropriate medicine to give your child. Moreover, it offers an excellent explanation on what homeopathic medicine is and its advantages. I highly reccomend it to all those seeking for alternative ways in which to help children's ailments.

Overall the book is a good how-to guide for developing a personal relationship with Christ. I thought it was a slow start, but stay with it, he says some very profound things. This would be an excellent resource for new Christians. This book was re-released under the title "Daily Experience With God".

Okay, I admit that I've owned J.I. Packer's landmark book "Knowing God" for years, but I haven't read it yet! However, I was able to pick this book up and finish it in just a couple of hours (with some extra time for reflection on some of Dr. Packer's wise comments).

The author compiling this work, Wendy Murray Zoba, tells us in the introduction that Packer is a personal friend of hers. He has been a guest in their home many times. On one occasion, Wendy's teenaged son had some friends over and they wanted to ask Dr. Packer some of those hard questions. Wendy taped the resulting conversation, and this book lets us in on this great theologian explaining the Christian faith to these high school boys.

The questions concern a wide variety of subjects - materialism in today's society, what entertainment should we take in as Christians, how should a new Christian read the Bible (see below for the answer!), denominations, and why should Christians go to church are a few.

The answers to the questions range from a paragraph or two to a page or two. You can pick up the book, read a question (or two, or three, kind of like potato chips - you can't read just one!) and come back to it later for some more. Even though Packer explains his points very well for the layperson, you might want to "chew" on some of his points before you continue reading.

My favorite answer was to the question about how we can develop a pattern for Bible reading. Dr. Packer has 4 main points here: 1) Quiet yourself in God's presence. Ask God to speak to you through His Word. 2)All of the Bible should be read and read regularly. If you read 4 chapters a day, you can finish the Bible in a year. (Please see my "about me" section to read reviews of Bibles, including the One Year Bible, and my Listmania List of favorite Bibles). I read through the whole Bible in 1997 and read MOST of it again last year using the One Year Bible. 3) Having said that all Scripture is important, Dr. Packer says we should also concentrate on the sections of the Bible that are more "vitamin rich". These books are the 4 Gospels, and the book of Psalms. 4) Dig deeper into a particular book of the Bible that especially speaks to you. Martin Luther loved Romans, and Dr. Packer's favorite is Ecclesiastes. As for me, I like Romans chapter 8 and the book of John.

After all the questions and answers, Wendy Zoba includes a 30-page biography of Packer that tells about his childhood run-in with a truck (he has a dented head!) and then goes on to talk about his Christian faith and the history of how he was involved with the evangelical movement within the Church of England.

I plan on tackling one of Packer's books in the near future!

Please check out my other reviews of Christian books and music! May God bless you richly in your study of His Word and in your Christian walk!

While on a small passenger ship sailing from Cyprus to Haifa this summer I met Murray Greenfield. He spoke to my youth group about his participation in the aliya bet. When I returned home I ordered his book from amazon.com but when it arrived I discovered that I had been sent the Hebrew version. Nowhere did the order form have a place to specify language.

After many years of wanting to go there, I recently "discovered" the Olympic Peninsula while on a get-away vacation. I also heard about this book and after reading it, I have to give it a qualified thumbs up. Reading this book would have been somewhat bewildering and a little tedious before I traveled to the Olympic Peninsula. Having made the trip before reading the book gave me a basis upon which to appreciate the writing. There are some very interesting and even disturbing stories in here, from the fantastic to the bizarre and the terrible. For anyone interested in a behind the scenes look at one of the most fascinating and beautiful places in America, this book is a must-have. The writing is generally excellent and very readable and the organization is sound and chronologically logical. There are some poignant descriptions of life in earlier times and a rousing look at turn of the century logging practices. On the down side, the discourse on modern resource extraction activities is a bit long-winded and the book concludes with a rather disjointed short chapter which I am still trying to place in the larger context. Overall, a good read and of definite local interest.

This is a wonderful book for beginners and quite a referral guide for the old hand. So many "metaphysical" and "spiritual" words are now creeping into the main stream soceity, that I have even directed my teen son to it for content and information he needs in high school. Elaines book keeps it simple in her explanations as well. I always find simplicity essential. When I personally began my own spiritual path, I wish someone would have pointed me in the direction of this wonderful book. Now, I would love to see an issue for the year 2000!

Iain Murray, in typical fashion, has given yet another excellent biography of a great man of God (he is also the author of biographies on Spurgeon, Jonathan Edwards, Martyn Lloyd-Jones, and John Murray!).

Arthur W. Pink is a familiar name to many Bible students today both among pastors and laymen. But many may not know about the interesting life this man lived. Murray gives a good portrait here.

He was converted from Theosophy while in his twenties, and immediately felt called to preach. Though he never even completed Bible College, he became a popular conference speaker in his early ministry. After several pastorates in the United States, he moved to Australia where he did conference work and pastored a "Strict" Baptist church. But Pink's allegiance to the "whole counsel of God" cost him the acceptance of men. He taught too much for both the more common Arminians of his day and the "high" Calvinists, who had drifted into hypercalvinism.

After years of struggle to find his place, he reconciled himself to a ministry of writing instead of preaching. From Stornoway, Scotland he faithfully penned his "Studies in the Scriptures" magazine, which was sent to about 1000 (and sometimes less) people across the world.

The books that have now become so popular (The Life of Elijah, Exposition of Hebrews, Spiritual Growth, Eternal Security, etc.) originated in this magazine.

Murray gives the details of these different experiences of Pink and his wife, and also provides some interesting insights into the cause of Pink's eventual isolation. He writes charitably, yet with objectivity.

The ten chapter book concludes with a lengthy section of extracts from Pink's writings on numerous subjects of importance and a helpful bibliography of Pink's writings.

A must-have if traveling through one of the most exotic parts of the world. Our family's journey took up the Matubu River in Bostwana and back across the wild plains of the Jelowi Game reserve in South Africa. There wasn't a day which went by, where my dear daughters did not consult the guide for local cultural tidbits and useful, if not a bit tiny, georgraphical maps. Other than a few dated portions, namely the prices and hostel locations, we highly recommend this book to first time travellers and returnees. Wonderful pictures, if not small again, and consice descriptions of the natural history. Once again, well done Lonely Planet!