Book Review: Transformed by Truth by Katherine Forster

Do your kids have a hard time reading the Bible? Do they find it boring? As parents, how can we help them? First and foremost, I’d say be a faithful student of God’s word yourself, and let them catch your passion. Another way to help them is to pick up a new book, Transformed by Truth by Katherine Forster. It’s a book written by a teen for teens that, as the subtitle says, helps them to study the Bible for themselves.

This book breaks Bible study down into two main sections—the why and the how. In the first section, Forster talks about how the Bible is one big, unified story. This isn’t the way most church kids understand the Bible. It’s easy for us to think of the Scriptures as a collection of fragmented stories. But Forster reminds her readers that the God’s Word, the whole Bible—both Old and New Testaments—is God’s revelation of himself to us. We can truly know him as we read. And as we do, we learn that he loves us enough to save us. He doesn’t leave us stuck in our sin. No! He sent his Son to die on the cross to pay the penalty for our sin. God wants a relationship with us so that we can grow in what it means to be his children.

In the second half of the book, Forster moves to the question of how. Forster presents the inductive Bible study method method—something I didn’t encounter until Bible college. I really appreciated the way she breaks down inductive study in a way teens will understand, and I love the practical examples. Forster takes something that is easy to talk about yet harder to master, and brings it to the realm of doable.

This book would make a great gift for any middle or high school student. It would be good for youth ministries to study in discipleship groups, and it would even be good for family devotions with teens. This is also a great resource for anyone who works with teens. If you know a teen who is struggling with studying the Bible, consider picking it up.

I received a free copy of this book for the purposes of this review.