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Anchored - Bible Study Book with Video Access: The Life and Letters of the Apostle Peter
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April 8, 2026
I have been thinking hard about how to write this review right from week one of doing this bible study, because I know I need to. It feels very important for me to write out the issues I found but also I want to be respectful of the author.
I want to be very clear that this is not a personal condemnation of the author, I don’t know her personally. But I do have grievances with the book that have to do with how she wrote it.
This study has a particular habit of misdefining words, the author will tell us the definition of a word or concept but that definition will be incorrect. A lot of the time these “definitions” are not sourced and so I can only assume they were created by the author herself. This results in the premises of her lessons or teaching being built on a faulty foundation, so when it is interrogated it falls apart.
One of the most glaring examples of this is in week 5, day 4 when we went over 2 Peter 1:5-7, which offers a list of qualities we are to supplement our faith with. She then provides a “Brief definition of each quality.” These “definitions” are not the actual definitions of the original or translated words, and at times they posture themselves to take on a whole new level of implication that she does not source. Two of these have sources to commentaries but the rest are all unsourced. The words used in the bible have different meanings than the “definitions” she gives, the ones she gives add to the meanings. This is not the only time this type of “definition” is presented in the text. This is such a dangerous precedent, if you call something a definition and then just say what you think/posit it means you can unknowingly or knowingly spread misinformation. I am not saying that all of these “definitions” are wholly harmful but I think that creating a definition for a word and then passing it off as a “definition” without telling the reader clearly that these are your own ideas of what the word means is an inherently harmful practice. This is true whether or not your definitions are truthful and correct, but on more than a few occasions hers are not.
Along with misdefining words the study also took a very strange look at some of the texts it presented. Some examples that stick out to me are in week 1, day 4, speaking on acts 4:13. She uses this moment when the high priests recognize that Peter and John had been with Jesus to make a point about how it is an example of our fruit in our christian lives to be recognized as having spent time with God, she talks about starting to look like who we spend time with. This is a good thing to talk about but it’s not really what happens in the text. There is a difference between sensing through your behavior and fruit that you have a relationship or closeness with Jesus versus the high priests recognizing ‘hey, those are the guys who physically walked around with Jesus.’ I know that seems a bit semantic but it's an establishing of a pattern.
Through the study she tends to view the text and concepts she speaks on all through a very white, middle American lens. This white, privileged, capitalist, very American lens almost always leads to a surface level, self centered understanding of the bible. This is not a problem isolated to this study but I would feel remiss not to bring it up. There were many examples of buzzwords and topics that the church loves to throw around without actually interrogating and sitting with. Most often the us vs. them language that is usually a gateway to racism and bigotry in the church. To be absolutely clear I am not calling the author racist or bigoted, I do not know her. But this type of lens and language raises lots of red flags for me because it is rooted far more in the worship of the white church than the text of the bible.
As an example of this lens (one of many) she speaks about persecution in week 1, day 4. She says “Most of us have likely never experienced the kind of hatred and persecution Peter and the other apostles did. Why do you think that is? […] Perhaps we don’t experience the same hatred and persecution because we are not as bold with the gospel as the early believers were.” This either ignores the fact that modern persecution for the christian faith is incredibly prevalent in some places or it ignores the fact that she is writing to a predominantly christian country, she can’t have both. The answer can’t be we are not bold enough to be persecuted when we live in a country where christianity is not persecuted the way it was in first century Judea, but the answer also can’t be that we are not bold enough to be persecuted when some people are persecuted in ways that are much closer to the ways of persecution in the first century world. Karen from accounting doesn’t have Pharisee Saul hunting her down to kill her for following Jesus but also, some people around the world are actively facing persecution for their faith.
Do you see what I mean? There is a shallow reading of the text that feels almost casual and under interrogated.
This is also very evident when she writes about 1 Peter 3, she talks about the submission mentioned in the chapter and uses it as a broad concept for what submission should look like in women-specifically married women. But she does not examine this through the context of who this letter was written to and in what time, it was written to women in a specific time under a specific regime and it spoke to them about how to live Godly lives under that regime. She also in this lesson puts the burden of hindering a husband from coming to faith completely on his wife’s tone and word choice, as if the wife’s words are able to stop the work of the Holy Spirit in someone. Our examples and words are important, but they are not more powerful than the holy spirit and they are not what makes peoples choices for them.
Also in week 1 she had us go through an exercise where we were supposed to write out what Peter observed, felt, learned, and heard in a series of textual experiences with Jesus, but in one of the texts given (Mark 15:16-20) we are not given any evidence of Peter physically being there. In fact, from the text there is an implication that he was not there. (They take Jesus into the palace, the governor's residence and surround him with soldiers to be mocked and hit.)
There are many examples-I have not listed all of the ones I found on my initial read- of her using a text and then describing it and extrapolating things from it that seem to be in contradiction with the context and nuance of the text itself.
This makes me really angry because when you write a bible study you have taken on the responsibility of molding and forming the spiritual lives and beliefs of the people who read your words, people who don’t always know better. There were spiritually young and immature people in my church who took on misinterpretation of the text because of this study, other people in their study groups had to redirect and reexplain the text to them. I thank God that those wiser people were there to have those discussions because the study was not, it mishandled the word of God in ways that led to misinterpretation as it’s teaching.
Throughout the study she teaches predominantly from personal examples or illustrations and her own viewpoint rather than a deep examination of the text, this lead to a lot of her teaching being things I have heard before-which is not a crime, but it was things I have heard before that tended to be more shallow and at times immature. From reading the study I felt as though the author wanted to write a testimony or an opinion piece, not a study. She told her story over and over again without making it an introspective, she used it as an illustration-or what felt like proof of concept. I heard her testimony almost as many times as I heard how much she loved Peter’s but we didn’t interrogate either of them. That was another hallmark of the study, it more often than not stayed on the surface. When my study group and I spoke about our experience going through this book there were multiple people who expressed that they had been excited to learn more about Peter and to dive into studying him, but they felt like we didn’t do that, neither did I. To be fair she had us read a lot of the text, which is always a positive, but it almost felt like she didn’t know what to do with it afterwards. She gave us verses to read and then used the questions to have us summarize the events and give our interpretation of what they might mean. Then she talked about something else, sometimes Peter, sometimes not. We didn’t sift through the text or dig deeper, at times she included quotes on concepts or explanations -more often than not with a personal definition- of some ideas or context. But at the end of the day I didn’t feel like she was teaching me, I felt like I was listening to her talk.
There was also discussion in my group of how the questions she asked in the study felt like questions from a book report, most often they were having us summarize the text or list out the events or words said, not having us dive deeper, explore or analyze the text itself.
Week after week I would pick up the book to do my homework and immediately pull out my -metaphorically red- pen to start marking up the study itself.
While my main issues and complaints with the study had to do with its handling of scripture and biblical concepts, as well as misdefining words, there were also parts of the actual structure of the writing that I found confusing. It was put together in a way that was quite frustrating to read. There were days that I really wanted to re-edit it myself, to cut sections or sentences and move bits around to make the narrative structure make more sense. I was constantly leaving notes in places where it needed more clarity and depth. I often felt like she had a very narrow idea of what the formula of a bible study day needed to look like and she wouldn’t deviate from it even if the content of that day didn’t fit in that formula. She seemed to have trapped herself in a template to the detriment of her writing. There were also some sentences that were just odd, with a strange structure or word choices.
Sometimes she would add in a theory about a concept, verse or situation and talk about it like it was substantiated or describe it without saying it was a theory or who it was theorized by. That, whether it was the intention or not, read as adding in strong informed commentary when sometimes it was just actually random theory.
Overall I found this study to be a mishandling; of the text, of the themes, of the trust of the reader, at times of the knowledge it presented itself and, by proxy, of people's spiritual growth. That is why I found it to be such a frustrating read. At a base level when you write a bible study you are taking people’s reading and understanding of the word of God into your hands and you have to take that very seriously. There were a few parts that were good, some good points or beginnings but all of that gets lost under the parts of it that are not just bad but are either themselves harmful or set a harmful precedent. While I am going to choose to believe that the author had pure intentions and wanted to write the best study possible, through the misdefining, lack of depth, hyper white american lens, and seeming underdevelopment this study ultimately fell in on itself and what I worry about most is that it took people with it.
I want to be very clear that this is not a personal condemnation of the author, I don’t know her personally. But I do have grievances with the book that have to do with how she wrote it.
This study has a particular habit of misdefining words, the author will tell us the definition of a word or concept but that definition will be incorrect. A lot of the time these “definitions” are not sourced and so I can only assume they were created by the author herself. This results in the premises of her lessons or teaching being built on a faulty foundation, so when it is interrogated it falls apart.
One of the most glaring examples of this is in week 5, day 4 when we went over 2 Peter 1:5-7, which offers a list of qualities we are to supplement our faith with. She then provides a “Brief definition of each quality.” These “definitions” are not the actual definitions of the original or translated words, and at times they posture themselves to take on a whole new level of implication that she does not source. Two of these have sources to commentaries but the rest are all unsourced. The words used in the bible have different meanings than the “definitions” she gives, the ones she gives add to the meanings. This is not the only time this type of “definition” is presented in the text. This is such a dangerous precedent, if you call something a definition and then just say what you think/posit it means you can unknowingly or knowingly spread misinformation. I am not saying that all of these “definitions” are wholly harmful but I think that creating a definition for a word and then passing it off as a “definition” without telling the reader clearly that these are your own ideas of what the word means is an inherently harmful practice. This is true whether or not your definitions are truthful and correct, but on more than a few occasions hers are not.
Along with misdefining words the study also took a very strange look at some of the texts it presented. Some examples that stick out to me are in week 1, day 4, speaking on acts 4:13. She uses this moment when the high priests recognize that Peter and John had been with Jesus to make a point about how it is an example of our fruit in our christian lives to be recognized as having spent time with God, she talks about starting to look like who we spend time with. This is a good thing to talk about but it’s not really what happens in the text. There is a difference between sensing through your behavior and fruit that you have a relationship or closeness with Jesus versus the high priests recognizing ‘hey, those are the guys who physically walked around with Jesus.’ I know that seems a bit semantic but it's an establishing of a pattern.
Through the study she tends to view the text and concepts she speaks on all through a very white, middle American lens. This white, privileged, capitalist, very American lens almost always leads to a surface level, self centered understanding of the bible. This is not a problem isolated to this study but I would feel remiss not to bring it up. There were many examples of buzzwords and topics that the church loves to throw around without actually interrogating and sitting with. Most often the us vs. them language that is usually a gateway to racism and bigotry in the church. To be absolutely clear I am not calling the author racist or bigoted, I do not know her. But this type of lens and language raises lots of red flags for me because it is rooted far more in the worship of the white church than the text of the bible.
As an example of this lens (one of many) she speaks about persecution in week 1, day 4. She says “Most of us have likely never experienced the kind of hatred and persecution Peter and the other apostles did. Why do you think that is? […] Perhaps we don’t experience the same hatred and persecution because we are not as bold with the gospel as the early believers were.” This either ignores the fact that modern persecution for the christian faith is incredibly prevalent in some places or it ignores the fact that she is writing to a predominantly christian country, she can’t have both. The answer can’t be we are not bold enough to be persecuted when we live in a country where christianity is not persecuted the way it was in first century Judea, but the answer also can’t be that we are not bold enough to be persecuted when some people are persecuted in ways that are much closer to the ways of persecution in the first century world. Karen from accounting doesn’t have Pharisee Saul hunting her down to kill her for following Jesus but also, some people around the world are actively facing persecution for their faith.
Do you see what I mean? There is a shallow reading of the text that feels almost casual and under interrogated.
This is also very evident when she writes about 1 Peter 3, she talks about the submission mentioned in the chapter and uses it as a broad concept for what submission should look like in women-specifically married women. But she does not examine this through the context of who this letter was written to and in what time, it was written to women in a specific time under a specific regime and it spoke to them about how to live Godly lives under that regime. She also in this lesson puts the burden of hindering a husband from coming to faith completely on his wife’s tone and word choice, as if the wife’s words are able to stop the work of the Holy Spirit in someone. Our examples and words are important, but they are not more powerful than the holy spirit and they are not what makes peoples choices for them.
Also in week 1 she had us go through an exercise where we were supposed to write out what Peter observed, felt, learned, and heard in a series of textual experiences with Jesus, but in one of the texts given (Mark 15:16-20) we are not given any evidence of Peter physically being there. In fact, from the text there is an implication that he was not there. (They take Jesus into the palace, the governor's residence and surround him with soldiers to be mocked and hit.)
There are many examples-I have not listed all of the ones I found on my initial read- of her using a text and then describing it and extrapolating things from it that seem to be in contradiction with the context and nuance of the text itself.
This makes me really angry because when you write a bible study you have taken on the responsibility of molding and forming the spiritual lives and beliefs of the people who read your words, people who don’t always know better. There were spiritually young and immature people in my church who took on misinterpretation of the text because of this study, other people in their study groups had to redirect and reexplain the text to them. I thank God that those wiser people were there to have those discussions because the study was not, it mishandled the word of God in ways that led to misinterpretation as it’s teaching.
Throughout the study she teaches predominantly from personal examples or illustrations and her own viewpoint rather than a deep examination of the text, this lead to a lot of her teaching being things I have heard before-which is not a crime, but it was things I have heard before that tended to be more shallow and at times immature. From reading the study I felt as though the author wanted to write a testimony or an opinion piece, not a study. She told her story over and over again without making it an introspective, she used it as an illustration-or what felt like proof of concept. I heard her testimony almost as many times as I heard how much she loved Peter’s but we didn’t interrogate either of them. That was another hallmark of the study, it more often than not stayed on the surface. When my study group and I spoke about our experience going through this book there were multiple people who expressed that they had been excited to learn more about Peter and to dive into studying him, but they felt like we didn’t do that, neither did I. To be fair she had us read a lot of the text, which is always a positive, but it almost felt like she didn’t know what to do with it afterwards. She gave us verses to read and then used the questions to have us summarize the events and give our interpretation of what they might mean. Then she talked about something else, sometimes Peter, sometimes not. We didn’t sift through the text or dig deeper, at times she included quotes on concepts or explanations -more often than not with a personal definition- of some ideas or context. But at the end of the day I didn’t feel like she was teaching me, I felt like I was listening to her talk.
There was also discussion in my group of how the questions she asked in the study felt like questions from a book report, most often they were having us summarize the text or list out the events or words said, not having us dive deeper, explore or analyze the text itself.
Week after week I would pick up the book to do my homework and immediately pull out my -metaphorically red- pen to start marking up the study itself.
While my main issues and complaints with the study had to do with its handling of scripture and biblical concepts, as well as misdefining words, there were also parts of the actual structure of the writing that I found confusing. It was put together in a way that was quite frustrating to read. There were days that I really wanted to re-edit it myself, to cut sections or sentences and move bits around to make the narrative structure make more sense. I was constantly leaving notes in places where it needed more clarity and depth. I often felt like she had a very narrow idea of what the formula of a bible study day needed to look like and she wouldn’t deviate from it even if the content of that day didn’t fit in that formula. She seemed to have trapped herself in a template to the detriment of her writing. There were also some sentences that were just odd, with a strange structure or word choices.
Sometimes she would add in a theory about a concept, verse or situation and talk about it like it was substantiated or describe it without saying it was a theory or who it was theorized by. That, whether it was the intention or not, read as adding in strong informed commentary when sometimes it was just actually random theory.
Overall I found this study to be a mishandling; of the text, of the themes, of the trust of the reader, at times of the knowledge it presented itself and, by proxy, of people's spiritual growth. That is why I found it to be such a frustrating read. At a base level when you write a bible study you are taking people’s reading and understanding of the word of God into your hands and you have to take that very seriously. There were a few parts that were good, some good points or beginnings but all of that gets lost under the parts of it that are not just bad but are either themselves harmful or set a harmful precedent. While I am going to choose to believe that the author had pure intentions and wanted to write the best study possible, through the misdefining, lack of depth, hyper white american lens, and seeming underdevelopment this study ultimately fell in on itself and what I worry about most is that it took people with it.
December 12, 2025
This Bible study was so good. Like the kind that makes you pause, think deeply, and unexpectedly cry.
Marian Jordan Ellis has a beautiful way with words and insight that reminded me of a hard but comforting truth: our lives are messy. No matter how hard we try, our flesh always shows. And that was true even for those who walked with Jesus, ate with Jesus, and prayed with Jesus.
Peter saw the miracles. He witnessed the arrest, the crucifixion, and the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. And still—he failed, denied, and fell apart. Yet Jesus met him right in the middle of his shattered, messy story and redeemed him.
On the other side of that redemption, Peter became a bold voice—one the Holy Spirit used to lead thousands to faith in Jesus.
This study walks you alongside Peter as he walks with Jesus, weaving his life story together with the letters that bear his name. Marian does a phenomenal job of making Peter’s journey feel real, relatable, and deeply reflective of our own.
If you need the reminder that failure is not the end of your story, I cannot recommend this study enough. Be anchored in this beautiful, faith-strengthening Bible study.
Marian Jordan Ellis has a beautiful way with words and insight that reminded me of a hard but comforting truth: our lives are messy. No matter how hard we try, our flesh always shows. And that was true even for those who walked with Jesus, ate with Jesus, and prayed with Jesus.
Peter saw the miracles. He witnessed the arrest, the crucifixion, and the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. And still—he failed, denied, and fell apart. Yet Jesus met him right in the middle of his shattered, messy story and redeemed him.
On the other side of that redemption, Peter became a bold voice—one the Holy Spirit used to lead thousands to faith in Jesus.
This study walks you alongside Peter as he walks with Jesus, weaving his life story together with the letters that bear his name. Marian does a phenomenal job of making Peter’s journey feel real, relatable, and deeply reflective of our own.
If you need the reminder that failure is not the end of your story, I cannot recommend this study enough. Be anchored in this beautiful, faith-strengthening Bible study.
March 19, 2026
I truly enjoyed getting to know Peter. Hearing and studying his letters to us was more meaningful to me than I had expected it to be. Seeing how human he was and learning how immensely faithful and rock solid it was. He inspires my hope, love and courage. To be more like Jesus. Marian is very passionate about these apistles and she draws you in to feel And relate to Peter Simon. It’s heart warming and deep and sad. But just so relatable.
I do feel the homework with this book was a lot. And somewhat repetitious
I do feel the homework with this book was a lot. And somewhat repetitious
November 7, 2025
I absolutely loved this study! It’s an in depth study on the life and letters of the apostle Peter and I have learned so so much! Highly recommend!
February 25, 2026
I can not recommend this enough. The author's videos and this study book was so informational and moving. I loved every minute of it. It was the perfect blend of education and self learning.
March 10, 2026
Loved that it was in-depth without jumping around. Flowed well.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews