When God Walked in Galilee by Rachel Starr Thomson: A Book Review

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Age Appropriate For: All Ages

Best for Ages: 15 and up

Description: Do we know who our King is?

At thirty years of age, Jesus launched his ministry with the words “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

Yet even before then, his life pulsated with the mystery and revelation of the kingdom of God—still the most critical and yet misunderstood component of the Christian faith and the life of anyone who desires to follow Jesus.

In this electrifying little book, author and speaker Rachel Starr Thomson argues that King and kingdom are inextricably interlinked: to see one is to see the other. In her lyrical, accessible style, she guides readers through Jesus’s early life as chronicled in the gospel of Matthew—an ancient book that bridges Old and New Testaments and reveals king, and kingdom, within their prophetic and historical context.

Every day, millions of Christians pray “Your kingdom come.” Let this journey with Jesus deepen your understanding and practice of those words as you see Jesus in a whole new light, and with him, discover the astonishing reality of the kingdom of heaven on earth.

Thomson is one of my all-time favorite authors. I've been impressed with her writing since reading her Seventh World Trilogy. While her fiction is masterful and some of my favorites, her non-fiction is quickly becoming an auto-buy for me. I was offered a chance to be part of the advanced readers for this book and I jumped at the chance.

Thomson has, for a while, shared her thoughts on Matthew in the form of blog posts. For those who have followed that series, this won't be new material. However, I haven't followed it as faithfully as I would like and it's been a long time since I read the beginning. So reading this was a delightful journey.

There were a lot of wonderful insights in this book, but I wanted to pretty much highlight all of Chapter 14. It was a powerful chapter on a passage of scripture that I too struggled to understand. Perhaps you might have already realized some of the things that Thomson points out about the temptation of Jesus. However, I'm sure that there are many things in this gem of a book that will touch your heart.

Here are a couple of my favorite quotes:

"Salvation is not simply a matter of escaping the world after death. It is holistic, and it is now (and also later)."

"Jesus is Son of God become Son of Man, eternally blurring the lines of separation between God and humanity."

"If Jesus had hinged his identity, his belief that he was who God said he was, on an outcome in his circumstances, then not getting that outcome would have had the potential to destroy his identity."


I was given a copy of this book for review purposes. I was not required to write a positive review. All thoughts in this review are my own.

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