AUDIOBOOK REVIEW: Your Great Name by Michael Neale

What’s in a name?  Well, in the case of God, everything.  Michael Neale’s excellent book, Your Great Name, walks through the many different names attributed to God in scripture.  The framing device of the book is Neale’s popular worship song “Your Great Name” (sung most famously by Natalie Grant), which demonstrates the theological depth of both the song and the songwriter.  Each chapter focuses on a different name of God, and therefore a different character quality.

Your Great Name lacks a central theme or message and jumps all over the place thematically, but still packs a punch because it is so well-written.  It’s a short book, but packed with theological depth.  It would work well as a devotional guide or group Bible study even though I don’t think it was written for this purpose.  It deserves a place on every worship leader’s bookshelf, where it could be mined for devotional thoughts and spoken transitions during worship services.  It would also be a great comfort to someone who is dealing with grief or uncertainty.

Neale shares many powerful personal stories throughout, and also leans heavily on Old Testament stories and psalms to illustrate the characteristics of each particular name.  His narration is very solid and heartfelt.  His Hebrew pronunciation of the names of God is outstanding.  I’m so horrible at Hebrew pronunciation!

Some of the more outstanding chapters are “El Channun” (“The Gracious God”), “Yeshua” (“the Savior”), “Jehovah Raah” (“God the Shepherd”), and “Jehovah Rophe” (“God the Healer”).  Powerful stuff in a small package.

Please Note: This audiobook was gifted as a part of the Christianaudio Reviewers Program in exchange for my unbiased review of this work. This has in no way influenced my opinion or review of this work.  More information can be found about this and other Christian audiobooks at christianaudio.com.