The 49th Mystic

The 49th Mystic (Beyond the Circle #1)
By: Ted Dekker

I am one of Ted Dekker’s biggest fans. I loved that this book connected to the world of the Circle Trilogy. It had a lot of the same flavor of those books tied with some of the style of the Water Walker books. It had some more abstract concepts and verbiage than the Circle series which I haven’t decided if I like that as much.

I think it’s awesome how this story is explaining the Circle symbol through the 5 seals. It’s not what I expected it to be. I thought it would be more like the salvation bead bracelets that used to be popular. I’m looking forward to seeing what the last two seals are.

The main biblical concepts found in the book include: perfect love casts out fear, having a right view of who God is, seeing events and people the way God sees them and not through our sinful earthly filter, & knowing suffering and our earthly bodies are temporary and we are made for more than this- we are to die to our sin and live in the spirit and hope that God calls us to. This list is not exhaustive. Which is one thing I love about his books- it puts a tangible picture to explore things we think we ‘know’ already and challenges us to really own our faith and know what we believe and why it’s important.

Disclaimer: I wouldn’t read this book as a theology book, I’m not sure I quite agree with the exact words of everything he said with the verses he used but at the very least I could appreciate the idea behind it and could see the point he was getting at so it wasn’t a big issue.