I just finished reading John MacArthur's book Twelve Extraordinary Women and I wanted to do a review on it. I enjoyed reading it and would definitely recommend it to anyone. The writing is very clear and concise, which makes it easily understandable for just about anyone.
MacArthur takes a look at twelve women in the Bible who lived extraordinary lives because "their faith and their hopes were absolutely and resolutely Christ-centered." (page 199) It really wasn't because they were anything other than ordinary women, but God used them in extraordinary ways because they chose to follow Him above all else.
This book looks at the lives of women like Sarah who followed her husband so willingly, but was not without mistakes. Her choice to offer Hagar to Abraham was getting ahead of God's plan, but God still used her to bring about the birth of a great nation.
There is also a chapter on Rahab who was a pagan prostitute, but when she was presented with the love of God, she chose to follow Him and ended up marrying into the genealogy of Christ. She completely turned away from her sinful past and joined the Israelites, which was only possible because of her obedience.
I have always been fascinated by the story of Ruth, which is also studied in this book. She, like Rahab was from a pagan nation, but after her husband died, she chose to stay with her mother-in-law, Naomi, and serve the true God. You also see her obedience to Naomi which lead to her becoming part of the bloodline of Christ as well. There is more to Boaz, her eventual husband, than meets the eye, but you will have to read the book to find out what is so special about him.
Another one of my favorites is Anna, the Prophetess. She lived at the Temple and served God day and night. She was there when Mary and Joseph brought Jesus to the Temple shortly after He was born, and she was able to see the Messiah with her own eyes, which was something she had hoped for for many years. In Anna, we see great dedication to the service of God. She was married for only seven years when her husband died and she never remarried. She was now over eighty years old and still serving God faithfully.
Twelve Extraordinary Women takes an in depth look into the lives of many women, such as these. MacArthur studies the culture surrounding the women, which helps to shed light on their lives in a more complete way than their stories alone could do. This book is challenging to us as Christians, in that it shows us how we should be living and tries to help us to apply the honorable characteristics of these women in our own lives. MacArthur has also written two other books along the same lines, Twelve Ordinary Men and Twelve Unlikely Heroes. I hope to have the time to read both of these in the near future as well.
