4 Stars ✨

Family Devotional 52 Weeks

**Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for this advanced e-copy of The Bible in 52 Weeks for Families, in exchange for an honest review.**

The Bible is more than a book it’s an entire library of stories, poetry, and history. As you begin thus devotion the authors prayer is that, through weekly Bible reading and discussion, your family will grow closer to God and to one another. Each week offers thoughts on the chapters assigned. Some weeks provide an overview; others focus on a few chapters or verses. The commentaries, discussion questions, prayers, and activities will give your family the necessary tools to get the most out of the readings. In one year, you will have read the entire Bible.

I love the idea of a family devotional that guides you and your whole family not only with devotions for each week, but by the end of a year - you all have read the entire Bible together. There are discussion questions and journal prompts for each week. It encourages family time, open ended conversation starters, and growing in the word together. I think the author did a fantastic job creating this devotional and would definitely recommend it. After skimming, and a thorough overview of this arc, I look forward to starting this with my own family. Would recommend!

Thank you to Callisto Publishing, Dr. Wes Bixby, and NetGalley for the opportunity to preview this title before publication in exchange for an honest review.

Obviously, I have not completed this book bc it would have taken an entire year before I could have offered a review. However, I did do 4 weeks so I believe that I have had enough time to form an opinion. However, that opinion is mixed.

First, the purpose of this devotional is to get through the entire Bible in 1 year. That is quite a bit of reading each day (well, 6 days a week), although I understand that is what needs to happen to finish in 52 weeks. The first day we sat down to read and it was 3 chapters of Genesis, I was a bit intimidated. Second, this is a family devotional and it says in the "How to use this book" section that families should find a Bible (or Bibles) that fit the family and their needs, so we tried using a storybook Bible so my 6 yr old wasn't bored and confused. However, that Bible (as with most storybook Bibles not matter how advanced they are) failed to cover what was being asked to read. The introduction says that it should only take about 15 minutes each day to read but we did not find that to be the case, it was more like 30 minutes.

That being said, the written devotional and the discussion questions at the end of the week were nice, however, that just added yet more time already set aside for that day. Further, the discussion questions were pretty cut and dry. The first part was usually a yes or no question followed by a "why?" which generally offered a one sentence answer. Even with further prompting from us, the conversation did not go far. (Maybe bc we were kinda ready to be done?)

Now, I understand that this sounds terrible, like we cannot be bothered to take time as a family to spend with God and His word. But I am being real, as this is an honest review. I think a lot of families, like ours, has a difficult time carving out time when it requires coordinating schedules and this would have been easier and better if less time was required. Or if it was abbreviated reading, more devotional, and/or more questions. That way, this could have been done in the car going to and from activities.

Overall, I do not feel that this is very family-friendly and would be much more suited for an individual study.

My family and I are always looking for new books to read at the dinner table, and wow! This is perfect. I absolutely loved this book. It was just so good from start to finish. I loved the concept for families to work through this together. So many wonderful things. Loved it!