Begin: A Journey Through Scriptures for Seekers and New Believers

Begin: A Journey Through Scriptures for Seekers and New Believers, published by Masterbooks is an original alternative to the concept of the mass produced outreach version of the New Testament bible.  Almost every publisher offers inespensive outreach New Testament and even complete bibles for the purpose of mass distribution.  Basically the purpose of the concept of the "outreach" bible, is to make an inexpensive bible, often with a special introduction for the reader about the basics of the bible and how to be saved.  The premise of this particular book, with its simple title, Begin, is that providing a believer with an entire Bible, or New Testament, for that matter, is too overwhelming or even complicated for someone who has never read the bible. And yes it is true that many out reach bibles are printed in such tiny font, with no sub- heading to break up the chapters, making the text difficult to read and even unappealing.  In contrast, this book sticks to what it feels are the bare bones minimum books to get someone saved: Genesis, John and Revelation. The font size is easy to read, and chapter titles make it inviting as well.  In otherwords, this version of the New Testament- specifically the ESV- a new, yet literal translation (not neccessarily the easiest version for a new bible reader to understand- the New Living version or CEV would be better), contains only three books of the 66 books of the bible.  Nevertheless, the selection is a good representative of the bible, and the commentary is helpful to the new bible reader as well.  Also included is plenty of space for personal notetaking.  The idea of this book is great- but only if it is a prelude to giving the particular recipient an entire bible!  You can't just give someone three books of the bible and leave it at that!  So hopefully, this outreach book will be used with caution- and a disclaimer to all who distribute this book.  If you do give this book away or distribute it in the hopes of saving souls, and fishing for men- in the true fashion of the early evangelists, then hopfully you will follow up by eventually giving that same individual an entire bible!!!!  But regrettably, I feel that those who decide to give this book as an outreach method to reach the masses of unsaved, will probably neglect to follow up with the distribution of  a complete bible.  As a blogger for New Leaf publishers I recieved this book for the purpose of writing a review.  I believe this concept for a book is great, but it must be used with caution- as I believe that following up with an entire bible is essential!