Book Review of the Advent of the Lamb of God by Russ Ramsey

The Advent of the Lamb of God
by Russ Ramsey
IVP Books
ISBN 978-0-8308-4388-5
Reviewed by Clint Walker

The Advent of the Lamb of God is a great book for beginning to understand the Story of Jesus. It is the first book in a three part Retelling the Story Series published by IVP Books. It would be a wonderful family devotion for couples or people with children well into grade school or older.

Advent of the Lamb tells about the coming of Christ in two parts. After a brief two chapters setting the scene of God's intention through the Messiah, Russ Ramsey summarizes the biblical story through sharing a number of excepts from Scripture. He does this both by referencing the Scripture, and also putting it the narrative of Scripture in his own words.

The second half of the book gets into the traditional narrative of the Advent and Christmas stories, ending with an except from the book of Galatians to summarize what God was doing in Christ at his birth.

There are several benefits of reading this book:

• It is an easy way to understand Scriptures story in a way that the reader can easy sense and feel the flow of the Biblical narrative. This is more user friendly than simply picking up a Bible if you are trying to get a general flow of God's redemption story. I would recommend reading the Scripture narrative as a part of reading Ramsey's retelling of the story.
• This book draws its readers into celebrating the Christian year, which I think is very important.
•  It is very readable in its style, which makes the study of this book not only spiritually beneficial, but also pleasurable.
• The narrative teaches as it tells.

Even in January, this would be a great read in helping the reader understanding the story of Jesus.