What do you think?
Rate this book
Refiner's Fire
“Are you the One who is to come—or should we look for another?”
In biblical history, few heroes shine brighter than John the Baptist. Yet, two years into his ministry he questioned the very heart of his own the Messiahship of Jesus.Doubt is painful, frightening, deeply personal—and familiar to us all. Part Bible study, part conversation, this book uses the lens of John the Baptist to examine the nature of faith and doubt, explore the unexpected contours of the gospel, and help us grasp what it means to believe even in the midst of hurt, disappointment, and confusion.For the shaking and the rocked, the questioning and the doubtful, and every pilgrim heart who wants to hold on.
In biblical history, few heroes shine brighter than John the Baptist. Yet, two years into his ministry he questioned the very heart of his own the Messiahship of Jesus.Doubt is painful, frightening, deeply personal—and familiar to us all. Part Bible study, part conversation, this book uses the lens of John the Baptist to examine the nature of faith and doubt, explore the unexpected contours of the gospel, and help us grasp what it means to believe even in the midst of hurt, disappointment, and confusion.For the shaking and the rocked, the questioning and the doubtful, and every pilgrim heart who wants to hold on.
240 pages, ebook
Published March 1, 2020
2 people are currently reading
3 people want to read
About the author
Rachel Starr Thomson
79 books174 followersRachel Starr Thomson is in love with Jesus and convinced the gospel will change the world.
Rachel is a woman of many talents and even more interests: she’s a writer, editor, indie publisher, singer, speaker, Bible study teacher, and world traveler. The author of the Seventh World Trilogy, The Oneness Cycle, and many other books, she also tours North America and other parts of the world as a speaker and spoken-word artist with 1:11 Ministries.
Adventures in the Kingdom launched in 2015 as a way to bring together Rachel’s explorations, in fiction and nonfiction, of what it means to live all of life in the kingdom of God.
Rachel lives in the beautiful Niagara Region of southern Ontario, just down the river from the Falls. She drinks far too much coffee and tea, daydreams of visiting Florida all winter, and hikes the Bruce Trail when she gets a few minutes. A homeschool graduate from a highly creative and entrepreneurial family, she believes we’d all be much better off if we pitched our television sets out the nearest window.
LIFE AND WORK (BRIEFLY)
Rachel began writing on scrap paper sometime around grade 1. Her stories revolved around jungle animals and sometimes pirates (they were actual rats . . . she doesn’t remember if the pun was intended). Back then she also illustrated her own work, a habit she left behind with the scrap paper.
Rachel’s first novel, a humorous romp called Theodore Pharris Saves the Universe, was written when she was 13, followed within a year by the more serious adventure story Reap the Whirlwind. Around that time, she had a life-changing encounter with God.
The next several years were spent getting to know God, developing a new love for the Scriptures, and discovering a passion for ministry through working with a local ministry with international reach, Sommer Haven Ranch International. Although Rachel was raised in a strong Christian home, where discipleship was as much a part of homeschooling as academics, these years were pivotal in making her faith her own.
At age 17, Rachel started writing again, this time penning the essays that became Letters to a Samuel Generation and Heart to Heart: Meeting With God in the Lord’s Prayer.
In 2001, Rachel returned to fiction, writing what would become her bestselling novel and then a bestselling series–Worlds Unseen, book 1 of The Seventh World Trilogy.
A classic fantasy adventure marked by Rachel’s lyrical style, Worlds Unseen encapsulates much of what makes Rachel’s writing unique: fantasy settings with one foot in the real world; adventure stories that explore depths of spiritual truth; and a knack for opening readers’ eyes anew to the beauty of their own world–and of themselves.
In 2003, Rachel began freelance editing, a side job that soon blossomed into a full-time career. Four years later, in 2007, she co-founded Soli Deo Gloria Ballet with Carolyn Currey, an arts ministry that in 2015 would be renamed as 1:11 Ministries. To a team of dancers and singers, Rachel brought the power of words, writing and delivering original narrations, spoken-word poetry, and songs for over a dozen productions. The team has ministered coast-to-coast in Canada as well as in the United States and internationally.
Rachel began publishing her own work under the auspices of Little Dozen Press in 2007, but it was in 2011, with the e-book revolution in full swing, that writing became a true priority again. Since that time Rachel has published many of her older never-published titles and written two new fiction series, The Oneness Cycle and The Prophet Trilogy.
Over 30 of Rachel’s novels, short stories, and nonfiction works are now available in digital editions. Many are available in paperback as well, with more released regularly.
The God she fell in love with as a teenager has remained the focus of Rachel’s life, work, and speaking.
Rachel is a woman of many talents and even more interests: she’s a writer, editor, indie publisher, singer, speaker, Bible study teacher, and world traveler. The author of the Seventh World Trilogy, The Oneness Cycle, and many other books, she also tours North America and other parts of the world as a speaker and spoken-word artist with 1:11 Ministries.
Adventures in the Kingdom launched in 2015 as a way to bring together Rachel’s explorations, in fiction and nonfiction, of what it means to live all of life in the kingdom of God.
Rachel lives in the beautiful Niagara Region of southern Ontario, just down the river from the Falls. She drinks far too much coffee and tea, daydreams of visiting Florida all winter, and hikes the Bruce Trail when she gets a few minutes. A homeschool graduate from a highly creative and entrepreneurial family, she believes we’d all be much better off if we pitched our television sets out the nearest window.
LIFE AND WORK (BRIEFLY)
Rachel began writing on scrap paper sometime around grade 1. Her stories revolved around jungle animals and sometimes pirates (they were actual rats . . . she doesn’t remember if the pun was intended). Back then she also illustrated her own work, a habit she left behind with the scrap paper.
Rachel’s first novel, a humorous romp called Theodore Pharris Saves the Universe, was written when she was 13, followed within a year by the more serious adventure story Reap the Whirlwind. Around that time, she had a life-changing encounter with God.
The next several years were spent getting to know God, developing a new love for the Scriptures, and discovering a passion for ministry through working with a local ministry with international reach, Sommer Haven Ranch International. Although Rachel was raised in a strong Christian home, where discipleship was as much a part of homeschooling as academics, these years were pivotal in making her faith her own.
At age 17, Rachel started writing again, this time penning the essays that became Letters to a Samuel Generation and Heart to Heart: Meeting With God in the Lord’s Prayer.
In 2001, Rachel returned to fiction, writing what would become her bestselling novel and then a bestselling series–Worlds Unseen, book 1 of The Seventh World Trilogy.
A classic fantasy adventure marked by Rachel’s lyrical style, Worlds Unseen encapsulates much of what makes Rachel’s writing unique: fantasy settings with one foot in the real world; adventure stories that explore depths of spiritual truth; and a knack for opening readers’ eyes anew to the beauty of their own world–and of themselves.
In 2003, Rachel began freelance editing, a side job that soon blossomed into a full-time career. Four years later, in 2007, she co-founded Soli Deo Gloria Ballet with Carolyn Currey, an arts ministry that in 2015 would be renamed as 1:11 Ministries. To a team of dancers and singers, Rachel brought the power of words, writing and delivering original narrations, spoken-word poetry, and songs for over a dozen productions. The team has ministered coast-to-coast in Canada as well as in the United States and internationally.
Rachel began publishing her own work under the auspices of Little Dozen Press in 2007, but it was in 2011, with the e-book revolution in full swing, that writing became a true priority again. Since that time Rachel has published many of her older never-published titles and written two new fiction series, The Oneness Cycle and The Prophet Trilogy.
Over 30 of Rachel’s novels, short stories, and nonfiction works are now available in digital editions. Many are available in paperback as well, with more released regularly.
The God she fell in love with as a teenager has remained the focus of Rachel’s life, work, and speaking.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
March 26, 2020
[Note: This book was given free of charge by the author in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.]
The story of John the Baptist is a compelling one, and the author provides that story as well as a lot of context that helps the reader to understand why it is that the messianic prophecies that we take for granted in understanding were not well understood by the Jews of the day (or even by the Jews of today, it must be admitted). While I found the book to be nothing particularly new personally, there are likely people who will be surprised to hear about the doubts of John the Baptist and the implicit way that Jesus dealt with those doubts by praising John the Baptist while also avoiding making obvious claims about Himself that would lead people to think that He was a different kind of messiah than He was because His mission was not what was expected of Him by those at the time. And there is certainly a great deal of worth in general in reading books that subvert one's expectations, making this certainly a worthwhile effort.
This book begins with an introduction that discusses how the author was led to think about John the Baptist as a series she was writing on her blog. After that the author talks about the doubt expressed by John the Baptist based on his question from prison (1), though she does not comment on the remez nature of the conversation that John the Baptist was having with Christ where what is omitted is as important as what is said. The rest of the book talks about John the Baptist himself and how he was shaped by his destiny and his experiences, and how Jesus Christ proved to be a different Messiah than he was expecting to be the forerunner of. The author also discusses doubt and seeks to defang it a bit by pointing out the positive sides of recognizing when we struggle to understand what God is doing. Mixing her own personal stories along with plenty of material she has gathered from previous writings, this book is certainly not original but it is encouraging all the same that even the heroes of faith can struggle to understand what God is doing and need encouragement from time to time.
Admittedly, this book would not be very long without its context, as the actual material in this book that is specifically about John The Baptist would not be enough for it to be a full published book. But it is the larger context about biblical prophecy and how layered it is and how it is to be interpreted that makes this a particularly interesting book to read. The author has some strong views about justice that are expressed at the beginning of the book, though the author could have made it more clear that she was hostile to imperialism, because the author's hostility to colonialism does not make as much sense in context, not least because the author is herself as an American a descendant of colonists whether she likes it or not. By and large the author takes a serious view of the Bible that seeks to provoke the reader to reflect and not merely take one's understanding of the Bible for granted, and that is definitely something worth appreciating in a book. This book deserves a good audience and is likely to get it.
The story of John the Baptist is a compelling one, and the author provides that story as well as a lot of context that helps the reader to understand why it is that the messianic prophecies that we take for granted in understanding were not well understood by the Jews of the day (or even by the Jews of today, it must be admitted). While I found the book to be nothing particularly new personally, there are likely people who will be surprised to hear about the doubts of John the Baptist and the implicit way that Jesus dealt with those doubts by praising John the Baptist while also avoiding making obvious claims about Himself that would lead people to think that He was a different kind of messiah than He was because His mission was not what was expected of Him by those at the time. And there is certainly a great deal of worth in general in reading books that subvert one's expectations, making this certainly a worthwhile effort.
This book begins with an introduction that discusses how the author was led to think about John the Baptist as a series she was writing on her blog. After that the author talks about the doubt expressed by John the Baptist based on his question from prison (1), though she does not comment on the remez nature of the conversation that John the Baptist was having with Christ where what is omitted is as important as what is said. The rest of the book talks about John the Baptist himself and how he was shaped by his destiny and his experiences, and how Jesus Christ proved to be a different Messiah than he was expecting to be the forerunner of. The author also discusses doubt and seeks to defang it a bit by pointing out the positive sides of recognizing when we struggle to understand what God is doing. Mixing her own personal stories along with plenty of material she has gathered from previous writings, this book is certainly not original but it is encouraging all the same that even the heroes of faith can struggle to understand what God is doing and need encouragement from time to time.
Admittedly, this book would not be very long without its context, as the actual material in this book that is specifically about John The Baptist would not be enough for it to be a full published book. But it is the larger context about biblical prophecy and how layered it is and how it is to be interpreted that makes this a particularly interesting book to read. The author has some strong views about justice that are expressed at the beginning of the book, though the author could have made it more clear that she was hostile to imperialism, because the author's hostility to colonialism does not make as much sense in context, not least because the author is herself as an American a descendant of colonists whether she likes it or not. By and large the author takes a serious view of the Bible that seeks to provoke the reader to reflect and not merely take one's understanding of the Bible for granted, and that is definitely something worth appreciating in a book. This book deserves a good audience and is likely to get it.
April 3, 2020
This is a well written look into the story of John the Baptist and his own struggle with doubt about who Jesus was. Ms. Thomson does a thorough look into the whole background of the Old Testament and how it sets up the whole event of the coming of Christ. She has a deep knowledge of theology and expresses that well.
But this book is not a dry theology textbook. Rather Ms Thomson takes significant truths and applies them to practical life and real human beings.
For anyone who has ever struggled with any doubts about their faith and about who God is and His love and care for His creation, this book is worth the time to read and work through.
But this book is not a dry theology textbook. Rather Ms Thomson takes significant truths and applies them to practical life and real human beings.
For anyone who has ever struggled with any doubts about their faith and about who God is and His love and care for His creation, this book is worth the time to read and work through.
April 1, 2020
Rachel masterfully builds a case through Scripture to show that our faith is a reasonable faith, and that it has both internal and external proofs. The Resurrection is the ultimate demonstration of God’s love; of His reaching down to us. He isn’t offended by seekers; He can weather our doubts. She shows how going through the refiner’s fire leaves us with a stronger, perhaps different faith. But at the end, there’s always the choice to accept or reject ... I received a free copy of this book.
September 3, 2020
A good study.
This Bible study gave me some new insights about doubting. It is healthy to doubt. It has helped me in my journey.
This Bible study gave me some new insights about doubting. It is healthy to doubt. It has helped me in my journey.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews