We had the opportunity to review a girls Bible called Beauty in the Heart, A Study of Godly Beauty for Young Women by Pam Forster and available from Doorposts. If you have been homeschooling for a while, you will remember Doorposts from way back when. They have been providing homeschoolers quality products for 20 years now. One of the first things I had ever seen from them is the “If-Then” and “Blessings” charts. These were quite sought after items in curriculum fairs when there weren’t many vendors yet. Yes, that means I have been doing this for awhile now! But they have been a trusted company for me for many years! I was very pleased to be able to review this book!
Beauty in the Heart is a Bible Study about a girls’ inner and outer beauty. This book is written for girls 10-12 and up. The girls not only learn about Godly beauty from the study, they learn how to study the Bible. With these techniques:
- Compare one passage of Scripture with another
- Observe repeated words and themes in a passage
- Outline the content of the passage
- Gather all of Scripture’s words about a particular topic
- Study the lives of people in the Bible, noting how their attitudes and actions portray the truths of Scripture
- Study original Hebrew and Greek words and how they are used in other places in Scripture
- Use printed and outline study helps in your Bible Study
Allie has done many Bible studies at church and at home. I was interested in having her do this one because it had some other neat things to offer. Beauty in the Heart has 10 chapters that are broken down into 86 days (17 weeks if used 5 days a week) of study. There are suggestions for 45 more days in the back of the book. When used all together you have a whole year curriculum. Each lesson is meant to take 5-20 minutes.
The ten chapters are:
- Beauty in Submission: An Inductive study in 1Peter
- Beauty in the Heart: A Verse Study o 1 Peter 3:3-4
- Beauty in Trusting God: A Character Study of Sarah
- Beauty in Humility: A Book Study of Esther
- Beauty in Modesty: A Verse Study of 1 Timothy 2:9-10
- Beauty in Serving: A Word and Topical Study
- Beauty without Discretion: A Verse Study of Proverbs 11:22
- Beauty in Crisis: A Chapter Study of 1 Samuel 25
- Beauty in the Gates: A Book Study of Ruth
- Beauty in Review
There are also alternate questions for young men in the back of the book. These are provided for “young men to encourage young ladies to grow in true, godly beauty. They also need wisdom to discern between true and false beauty in their relationships and as they consider marriage” (excerpt taken from the introduction).
This was definitely a little different that anything Allie had used before. Each days’ assignment is relatively short, but there is quite a bit of research and cross referencing to find the answers. I personally enjoy that in my study, but it has not yet grown on Allie. I did the first chapter myself to get the feel for the curriculum. I did like the completeness of the study and the way it was covered. I enjoyed searching the concordance and the Bible to find the answers and tie them to the subject. Allie missed the personal stories and life application information from her other recent studies. She did like the subject matter and thought the author used great Bible references and stories to learn about Godly beauty. I would have like to be able to have the answers available to me so I could quickly check her work without doing the research myself. I think this is right on target for Allie’s age (14), but if you used this with younger girls you would need to work closely with them and help them learn to find the answers. I did like the references and information for apps and other technology to be able to be used for this study. So many things are online or apps these days, it was nice to see how they can be easily incorporated in a Bible study. They are just suggestions, so if you choose to use books, no technology is required.
Beauty in the Heart can be pre-ordered as a 128 page soft cover book for $14.00 for shipment by August 29, 2013. Use the coupon “beautystudy” in your shopping cart to get a free instant-download PDF copy of the Bible study when you pre-order the paperback. Special ends 8/31.
To order the book and view sample pages, click here.
Doorposts also has a similar Bible Study for Boys called Because you are Strong. Members of the TOS Review Crew reviewed both books. You can see their reviews here.
We Can Hackett 