An appetizer sampler book

I recently received "The Necessity of an Enemy" by Ron Carpenter Jr. to review. I titled this post an appetizer sampler book because it's random and lacks the meat.

The easy part was the information. I understood and agreed with a lot of the information. The author writes in plain, easy language for readers to understand. He write main of his main ideas in bold print which adds to the impact of what he is saying. There were several of these that I really agreed with. Such as "An enemy arising in your life is a key indicator that the next stage of your life is about to be born."

The author writes about what it means when we come up against an enemy. He says when we do, it's a time of growth for us. Is it easy? No, but it's necessary. In these times there is usually the most growth in a person. When we face an enemy, it pushes us deeper to find God. Life is more difficult to just coast along when we are in the heat of a battle. We need a Savior.

There were several good points throughout the book. However, the author never really said how to fight back against the enemy. This is where the lack of meat comes in. He made the point that we have one and sometimes the why we have an enemy. But he never really says how to then fight against the attacks. Do we throw a bible at the unseen enemy? Or do we hide in a hole until it's gone? I know it's neither of these but what if someone didn't know how to fight against the attacks? They would realize they have an enemy but are clueless about how to deal with it.

The "sampler" comes from the format. When you have an appetizer sampler, you pick and choose what you want to eat. There usually isn't a flow. The book was the same way, no real flow. The chapters were typically 2-3 pages long. There wasn't a natural flow from section to section and chapter to chapter. This made it hard to continue to read. There were several times that I just wanted to be done with the book.

All in all it was an ok book. I don't think I would recommend the book since there wasn't any real direction. I would also have a hard time recommending it because of the format. However because there isn't a good flow, you could just pick up the book and read randomly without really missing anything.

Bottom line, it's a pretty random book without the meat. In other words, a veggie appetizer sampler.

I received this book for free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group for this review.