I’m having a hard time knowing how to review Hoping for Something Better: Refusing to Settle for Life as Usual, a Bible study by Nancy Guthrie. It doesn’t have a plot or characters, after all. 🙂 My first thoughts are just to say, “It’s good. Really, really good. You should get it.” But I’ll try to elaborate.

I was drawn to Nancy’s Bible study because I thoroughly enjoyed her compilations and introductions in Come Thou Long Expected Jesus:Experiencing the Peace and Promise of Christmas and Jesus, Keep Me Near the Cross: Experiencing the Passion and Power of Easter, plus I saw her study highly recommended by people whom I trust.

This study takes the reader through the book of Hebrews. Though Nancy says Hebrews is a difficult book, I had found it quite refreshing when I first discovered it as a young Christian: it really helped put much of the Old Testament practices into perspective. And even though I have read it several times since then, this book helped me mine more of it and find treasures or perspectives I had missed before.

One of the key words in Hebrews is “better.” Jesus is better than the angels (1:4),  provides a better hope (7:19), is the author of a better covenant (7:22),makes better promises (8:6), is a better sacrifice (9:23), and so on, with about seven more references which deem Him “better.”

In Nancy’s introduction, she writes:

There really is something better that is within our grasp. Better than living life with a merely sentimental, superficial spirituality. Better than going through life with a debilitating fear of death. Better than becoming bored and burdened by meaningless religious ritual; better than feeling like an unwelcome outsider or an unworthy hypocrite; better than being bound by shame and regret. There is something better that makes problems worth persevering through, something that makes heaven worth waiting for, something worth running to and dreaming of.

That something better is actually someone better: Jesus.

But even as I say it, whether or not you are a follower of Jesus, I know there is a voice inside you saying, Oh, Jesus again, or Just Jesus?…

Because some of us have been disappointed in Jesus, too — at least Jesus as we have understood Him and experienced Him to this point. Could it be that our desire for something better springs from our underestimation or devaluing of Jesus? Could it be that we’ve become so comfortable with the Jesus we’ve constructed that we just aren’t that awed by Him any more and we’ve become blinded to what He is truly worth?

Could it be possible to move from wherever we are now to becoming more solidly convinced that Jesus is worth our costly devotion, our intellectual energy, our emotional investment, our cherished reputation, our everything?

Nancy discusses those issues and others as she moves through Hebrews.Her personal illustrations are sometimes humorous, sometimes poignant.

I’ve shared several quotes from the book through The Week In Words posts and in “What Keeps us From Real Rest?”

This study is unlike any other ladies’ Bible study I have ever done. With most of them I could go through the assigned reading and questions in maybe an hour, and that’s fine, but with Nancy’s book it took  several days to work through a chapter. She also recommends reading the Scripture passage and working through a series of questions before reading the material in the book in order to prepare our minds for the discussion there, and I found this very beneficial.

The book is set up for a ten week study. Since I went at my own pace, I am not sure how long it took me to complete the book, but I did read it again immediately after completing it to try to fix more firmly in my mind those things I had read.

If you’re looking for a meaty Bible study, or if you’re searching for something or someone better, I recommend Hoping for Something Better: Refusing to Settle for Life as Usual. I am hoping Nancy writes more Bible studies as well.