Why are we here? Men and women have asked this question for
years, and will continue to ask it as long as this earth endures. Rick Warren
aims to shed some light on this topic in his book, The Purpose Driven Life. He
looks to the Bible for answers to this age old question, and seeks to guide
readers toward discovering their purpose in this life.
The book is written as a 42 day journey. Each day, the
reader studies a short chapter and is given some points and questions to
consider at the end of each chapter. Major focuses include, worship, serving
God, and developing personal relationships with God and with other believers.
He gives guidance for how to determine one’s own unique gifts and abilities so
each reader can discover his or her own individual “purpose”.
The expanded tenth anniversary edition includes two new
chapters at the end, exploring two “traps” that get in the way of finding one’s
purpose. He discusses specifically how these traps derail us and lead us to sin
instead of service. Each chapter now has a video introduction and a 40-50
minute lesson, complete with notes, available online. The additional online
content is a great accompaniment to the book, in that one can spend about an
hour a day reading, studying, and listening.
The Purpose Driven Life is a good book, and a great guide
for a Christian in need of some spiritual direction. I highly recommend reading
it, but would suggest keeping your Bible close by. The author quotes the Bible
extensively, but he jumps around to different translations and paraphrases. I
admit I was slightly put off by his use of multiple translations and
paraphrases of the Bible. He does so because he says that sometimes a shade of
truth might be missed in one translation of a particular verse, or the
familiarity of a verse can cause us to skim over it. I think it is dangerous to
use a paraphrase in that circumstance, because paraphrases usually present one
person’s interpretation of a verse, not the verse itself. The Bible is the
Bible, and when looking for a deeper meaning, it is safer to go to one of the
original texts and look at the Hebrew it was translated from for meaning or a
fresh perspective rather than a paraphrase.
I also noticed that instead of presenting a Bible verse and
citing where it came from, he would incorporate the verse into his paragraph
using a footnote. In order to know where the verse came from you have to look
at one of the Appendices at the end of the book. I understand is makes the book
flow well, but one must be careful to see the Bible in its own context. In the
form presented, it is too easy to miss out on studying the Word of God, and too
easy to rely on the book.
All in all, I enjoyed the book, and the new features are
great! I just recommend keeping your Bible nearby and using both!
I received
this book for free from the publisher through the BookSneeze®.com <http://BookSneeze®.com> book review bloggers program. I
was not required to write a positive review and the opinions and thoughts I
have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal
Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255
