Book Review- Ephesians: Head Held High

This Bible study is a fairly new release by Lori Wilhite and is part of the Beautiful Word Bible Study series. The study comes with free access to the videos which are found on Studygateway. The study six sessions long and looks at one chapter of Ephesians per week, with one main study session and three more shorter personal study sessions each week. The videos are integral to the main study session, with all teachings in the videos.

Head Held High

This study provides an introduction to six singular topics written about by Paul in the letter to Ephesians: chosen, alive in Christ, empowered by prayer, live worthy, walk in light, take your stand. The videos are simple and direct with an anecdote or two thrown in about Lori’s children and family life.

GROUP SESSIONS: The groups sessions begin with an icebreaker or a focus activity related to the topic of the chapter and teaching. The video teachings are then watched, each about 20 minutes long. There is space for video notes and 6-8 questions for small group discussion in the book. The group session closes with suggestions for prayer.

PERSONAL STUDY: In the session questions for the days during the week between group meetings, the chapter form Ephesians is the primary focus. A short introduction is read then followed by a number of questions about the text. There is a coloring page for each session and a few quotes and verses highlighted throughout. There are also memory verse cards at the back of the book.

What’s good

When I think about the good that is in the study, it is the slowing down. Ephesians is a short letter that doesn’t always get its due. By spending a whole week looking at each chapter, the words have time to settle down in us. It is good to see that prayer, the Spirit and spiritual warfare are focal topics in the teachings as well. The questions about the oft’ divisive family teachings in Eph. 5 and 6 were done well. Several of the personal session lessons invite the participants to reach out to others to do what Paul teaches Christians should be doing. The teachings are very relatable and, for the first time I’ve seen, the integral videos are included in the purchase.

What’s not great

Paul wrote Ephesians as an encouragement and this study seems to do the same. I agree with applying lessons, but many of the questions were requests to describe our actions and attitudes or are ‘what do you think’ questions. A number of the personal time questions could be beneficial to share and ask for accountability in group rather than answer individually. There were some ‘draw this’ questions and that is a bit difficult for an ebook.

I guess like many guided studies, you get what you put into it. I feel like the study is a bit superficial, and I wonder if that’s not because I got the ebook and haven’t written or typed in my answers to the questions. I tend to recall better what I write.

Pleasantly surprised 4/5

Overall, this study surprised me. I think it would be best as a group study, but it is fine as an individual one. The teachings are relatable if focused on just one or two points in each chapter. In fairness, Paul writes richly and there is simply too much to say about each chapter perhaps. 4/5 stars