I won this in a Goodreads giveaway.
There were quite a few parts that made me want to rate this 2-stars (1 if I didn’t finish) and other parts that were inching beyond the 3.5-star range. I’ll give this a 3-star rating even though overall I feel like it’s a 2.5.
This isn’t the book I expected.
I was about 25% through before I wanted to put down the book. There are too many emphases and I felt like there were more than enough exclamation points that made me feel like I was being shouted to and intensely ministered to. I was also uncomfortable that, at first, Joseph Z made it sound like if something wasn’t in the Bible then it wasn’t authentic. In chapter 10, he states that nothing can be added to the actual canon of Scripture, though what is canon differs between denominations. I was also frustrated that there is a lot more about general prayer and then the spiritual realm as a whole and not angels for the first half of the book.
But, since I felt the book was tolerable and I did win it, I kept moving on.
I like the ways in which the author continuously brings everything back to the need for prayer, though am not fond of the phrase “activate these servants of fire.” It makes it sound like angels are at our beck and call; which may be true in some ways, but they serve us all and, as Joseph Z says in the preface, they are “empowered by the voice of God;” and later, that they are part of God’s DNA, created from His presence. While I didn’t later change my mind about this, I was glad that in chapter 14 the author gives Biblical reasons for his words.
I also like that Joseph Z discusses intercessions, and how they are go-between prayers that involve a conflict that must be resolved spiritually. As a Catholic, I am a big believer of intercessory prayer, and it’s nice to see it explained in a non-Catholic book.
In the first part (which goes until just over 50%), Joseph Z brings up a lot about deception. What intrigued me is how he related deception to stories we want to believe over the truth, and how certain paranormal or conspiracy activities might actually manifest from the spiritual realm and aren’t actually aliens.
“The worst thing is when foolish people try to communicate with the unseen realm, and like brute beasts become conduits for these dark celestial beings, allowing them permission and access to society. There is only one prescribed way we are to access the realm of the spirit and that is through the blood of Jesus Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit.”
–This quote from chapter 7 is my favorite in the book. It embodies all that I believe as a Catholic Christian. I have friends who claim they are mediums and it terrifies me, because they purposely open themselves up to spiritual attack and possibly possession. And I believe that I receive Jesus every week in Holy Communion, giving me continual reminders and the strength to fend off spiritual attack.
In the second part, we finally get a lot more about angels, though there isn’t terribly much that is KNOWN. I appreciate that Joseph Z discusses the work from theologians like Dionysius and St. Thomas Aquinas as well as what is known from science (and there is a chapter devoted to Enoch) because again I kept getting some sense that he was of the mindset that anything not from the Bible can’t be trusted, though I also felt like that was not his intent. He seemed too open minded at times even before part 2. Anyway, while a lot of non-Biblical information is mainly speculative (both religious and in particle physics), we can gather evidence from the Bible to support notions like celestial hierarchies and dimensions of the world.
I really like that in chapter 11 he notes that we can’t individually interpret the Bible. I know a lot of Christians who do that (and just people taking things out of context).
I have never read the apocryphal gospels nor anything beyond snippets from the Qumran fragments, and it was indeed interesting to read about the book of Enoch. Joseph Z was very repetitive in his descriptions in that chapter (10) which was yet another frustrating thing.
There are some interesting explanations about Hell, taken from Biblical passages.
I like how Joseph Z notes that we outrank evil spirits and fallen angels. The penultimate chapter though is more about Satan’s desire to rule the world than about angels as a whole.
The last chapter contains generic prayers for angels (and Biblical reasons as to why he and his wife use those prayers).