3.5 stars
I found this a really thoughtful and thought provoking retelling of Aaron's life. I loved how closely it stuck to the Bible and brought home the emotions of the events taking place. ( )

Title: The Priest (Sons of Encouragement #1)
Author: Francine Rivers
Pages: 228
Year: 2004
Publisher: Tyndale House Publishers
My rating is 4 out of 5 stars.
Aaron is the focus of this series from Francine Rivers. These five books tell the story of five men who serve God in the shadow of another famous biblical figure. With this first novella, readers learn of the fictional account of Aaron’s early years, his jealousy of Moses, and his relationship with his sister Miriam via flashbacks. In the present day, Aaron is 83 years old still working as a slave making bricks in the hot Egyptian sun. He longs for God to free them from bondage and prays for such. Then, he miraculously hears the voice of God telling him to go into the wilderness to meet his brother Moses whom he hasn’t seen for forty years.
The story progresses through their meeting, discussing their mission to approach Pharoah and asking him to let the Hebrews go into the wilderness to worship their God. Each of the ten plagues is described along with Pharoah’s reactions, as well as Moses’s from Aaron’s viewpoint. The golden calf incident and the resulting deaths reveal Aaron’s perception of himself as unable to lead. However, God and Moses refused to let him remain in doubt of himself. They raised him to the level of high priest over all of the Hebrews, with his sons serving as priests as well. He was able to learn from his mistakes, to become an intercessor for his people with God and learn to obey God.
I enjoyed this fictional tale that breathed life into Aaron’s story. When most people think of the Hebrews in Egypt, then the exodus, they tend to think of Moses. It was refreshing to read about Aaron and his struggles to live a godly life, just like all of us.
Note: The opinions shared in this review are solely my responsibility. ( )

Sons of Encouragement:

Similar to A Lineage of Grace, this book contains five novellas about different biblical characters – but this time, it’s the men! For this collection, Rivers chose to tell the stories of background figures and secondary characters who don’t often get as much focus as the main heroes of their stories: Aaron (The Priest), Caleb (The Warrior), Jonathan (The Prince), Amos (The Prophet), and Silas (The Scribe).

Aaron’s and Caleb’s stories overlap as they chronicle the plagues in Egypt, the Exodus, and Israel’s wandering in the wilderness, with Caleb going on to tell of conquering the Canaanites under Joshua’s leadership. Jonathan struggles to remain loyal to both his father, the first king of Israel, and his best friend, David, anointed to take Jonathan’s place as Saul’s successor. Amos is called to turn the hardhearted nation of Israel back to the Lord and warn of His coming wrath, and Silas recounts his travels with the apostle Paul and the emerging first-century churches across the Roman Empire. I see the theme of faithfulness throughout: both our lack of it and God’s abundance!

This book did a great job of getting into Aaron's head. I had forgotten some things about the end of his life. I'm glad I gave this series a second chance. Much better than the Scribe. This book is told as if it was happening. ( )

I'm conflicted about this book because I have really enjoyed other books by Francine Rivers. To begin with I couldn't really put my finger on what the problem was. The details I was reading seemed very familiar almost like a deja vu experience, so I was scratching my head and trying to work out whether I was reading something else similar as I usually have several books on the go at one time. Then I realised it was my Bible....doh! My daily readings right now are in Exodus/Leviticus so I have been reading about Moses and Aaron.

Those of you who follow my reviews will probably now be surprised because usually I am complaining about the lack of Christian content or the errors in theology. It was almost like this book had too much biblical content--it is basically the biblical narrative of Aaron's life with some creative additions. I think the problem with this approach is because it is so close to the biblical account, the creative additions from the author may become part of the biblical narrative in the mind of the reader, but they are fiction. I am reading another book Agents of Babylon, about the life of Daniel, it gives a fictional story for each chapter then follows it up with the biblical narrative afterwards. This is a much better approach as there is no blending/mixture and there is a clear distinction.

The author really hasn't added much to the life of Aaron apart from making him into a bit of a wimp who was always afraid, in awe of Moses and cowering in the background and from God suffering terrible guilt over his many sins. I'm not sure that this is a correct portrayal of Aaron but as it is fiction I guess it doesn't matter. I liked the idea of Aaron beginning as a slave but I'm not sure about all the jealousy of Moses and the complaining that went on.

This book is clean and biblical. I didn't see any obvious theological issues. It just wasn't that much of a story. I probably won't bother to read the rest of the series. Maybe some who don't know the biblical account of Aaron would enjoy learning about him through this story but I would suggest reading the biblical account as well to understand what is fiction and what is not! ( )