Life with God: Reading the Bible for Spiritual Transformation by Richard J. Foster My rating: 3/5 stars

The first two chapters were excellent as Foster unpacked the importance and primacy of scripture. He points out that God constantly asks tells us through the Bible, "I will be with you," and the question is... "will you be withGod?" The main way of discovering who God is is through His Word.

He has some quotables throughout the book, but I lost interest in several places as he just didn't seem to be adding to his overall thesis: Scripture is primary for entering and cultivating a relationship with God AND the spiritual disciplines help us stay in relationship with God.

The chapter on "Reading with the Heart" had some good thoughts on how quick we are to move toward "application" of the text and in doing so miss the broader invitation into relationship. We want steps and solutions instead of a relationship with the Savior. This emphasis on application may, unfortunately, lead us to be more in control of our "spiritual" life than God though.

I enjoyed his emphasis on reading the Bible with the people of God. Theology is best done in community, it has been said. Foster hits a good note here.

The closing three chapters brought it back to the spiritual disciplines as only being a means to entering relationship with God and not the end. They were decent, but I felt like they were repetitive from what he'd said earlier in the book.

Overall, a fair read. I can highly recommend the first two chapters as soundly helpful.

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