Book Review: Inspired by Rachel Held Evans

Inspired: Slaying Giants, Walking on Water, and Loving the Bible Again by Rachel Held Evans

I picked up this book during a time when I felt I needed inspiration. I was starting a new book myself and felt like things were not moving the way they needed to. So, I admit I was seeking “inspiration” and thought I would get it from Rachel. I suppose I could say that I did, but it was not the inspiration that I expected.

Inspired by Rachel Held Evans is a book about the Bible. About its contradictions, its stories, its genres, its people. It is a book about the style of the Bible, the interpretation and life found in the Bible. Evans writes of her own wrestling with the Bible conundrums that become more apparent as we graduate from children of faith to adults of faith.

Style

Interspersed with tales rewritten to illustrate points made in the Bible and her own chapters, Evans approaches origin, deliverance, war, wisdom, resistance, gospel, fish, and church stories with intellect and a questioning heart. She seeks to impart the wisdom that she has received in her struggle to understand the best story ever told.

Perhaps an orderly exposition of the genre and text of what we find in the Bible would be clearer, but by integrating biblical learning with her personal stories and struggles, readers are more apt to think about what she is saying and what the Bible is saying than to let it pass only through the brain as so often orderly things do for me.

Key passages

I found the statements about the life of Jesus being as key in the “gospel” as his death and resurrection particularly affirming. The section about the church and the epistles as well were thought-provoking. The war stories chapter encouraged me to read the Bible with the whole story in mind. Held pushes readers to understand the context and the intention of Bible books and stories while steering offering depth of inquiry and understanding.

While the book challenges traditional thought on the Bible, it encourages questioning and building a personal, deep, connection to God. Is that not what we are called into: relationship with God?

5/5 stars

5/5 stars for encouraging readers to work through doubt and the hard-to-comprehend parts of the Bible to reveal our stunning God.