BOOK STUDY: Twelve Extraordinary Women / Preface and Introduction / John MacArthur

Last year I blogged periodically about Let Me Be a Woman by Elisabeth Elliot and Wild at Heart by John Eldredge.

For the next several weeks I'll be posting about once a week, my thoughts from the book Twelve Extraordinary Women by John MacArthur.   I particularly appreciate his writings and sermons. This book was recommended by my friend Amy recently at our  Titus 2 Moms group.  I had never heard of it and requested it from Paperback Swap.  It arrived last week.  The preface drew me in with this:

...Some have asked me the significance of the delicate shift in titles.  If the disciples were "ordinary", how is it that these twelve women are extraordinary?...

...all these women ultimately became extraordinary not because of any natural qualities of their own, but because the one true God whom they worshiped is great, might, glorious, and awesome, and He refined them like silver...

Then the Introduction:

...Tertullian, one of the early church fathers, noted that as believers who lived under the lordship of Christ, women were spiritually wealthier, more pure and thus more glorious than the most extravagant women in pagan society...they elevated feminine virtue to an unprecedented height.

...May your heart be set ablaze with the very same faith, may your life be characterized by a similar faithfulness, and may your soul be overwhelmed with love for the extraordinary God they worshiped.

Wow!  The introduction also gave a short synopsis of each of the women discussed in this book.  This is going to be an excellent one to read.  You may already have a copy in your personal library.  If not, they are fairly inexpensive  at Amazon.com or at Bright Light Books.   Or do what I did and get it free at Paperback Swap. I hope you will join me as I begin walking through Bible times by readying this book and learning more about the faith of these Twelve Extraordinary Women--Eve, Sarah, Rahab, Ruth, Hannah, Mary, Anna, The Samaritan Woman, Martha and Mary, Mary Magdalene and Lydia--changing our hearts and renewing our minds in the process together.