I received Foundations: Become What You Believe by Scott Johnston as a gift, with the request to review it. When considering the request, I thought the book looked interesting, being described by both the gifter and descriptions of the book as a book that teaches the foundations of the faith and how those foundations are to be applied. The book's description reads as,"you will discover the essential truths that build confidence in a chaotic world. You'll tackle important questions like, why should I read the Bible and can I even trust it?" And "What is my purpose in life? God want to bring you back to the fundamentals of the faith."Layout:So, I accepted and received my copy. I was a bit surprised by what I received as this is less of your typical book and more of a devotional. The format and design are fantastic and consistent, but the buyer should be aware that this is not a deep or intensive study of the essentials of Christianity. It's a devotional that provides some doctrinal exposition, relevant scriptures, and questions that you reflect on each day. When you open the book, you realize this not only by the layout but also on the opening pages where it explains how to 'use this guide.' This is to say, I think the marketing of this book should be shifted to better reflect the book itself lest the book’s success suffer on this point.The layout and format are consistent (and, like I said, pleasing to the eye), with the same questions being posed daily for five days over seven weeks.The topics for the seven weeks are Bible, God, Humanity, Jesus, Eternity, Holy Spirit, and Church. Each day begins with an illustration and a brief exposition on a particular topic related to the listed categories. Following this exposition, there is a verse of the day, some additional verses, and your journal with reflection questions. At the end of each week, there are 'additional resources', such as "bible emergency numbers," a breakdown of bible basics, etc.Content:For the most part, the devotions are good and contain great illustrations to make the point. The author is gifted and clearly has a heart for God's people. The strength of the questions is that they call you to apply the truth found in the devotion and to consider a prayer response.The doctrinal exposition is minimal but fair if you come at it from a devotional standpoint. If one were to think of this as a 'book' on the essentials of faith, however, I would classify it as lacking, especially when considering alternative protestant and evangelical catechisms and books on the market already. I think that demonstrates the importance of the shift in marketing/descriptions lest, again, a good author/book gets negative reviews.Regarding Gospel content, the book doesn't pull punches on sin, the need for repentance, dependence on God for salvation, walking in the faith, etc. The author touches on things that need to be heard, and things that people need to come to grips with. I was happy with this disposition of the author and only found grievances on one point: the call to action at the end of the book that provides the sinner's prayer which opened with, "If you want to be redeemed, transformed, and have eternal life it's as simple as praying this prayer."Nonetheless, the author speaks against moralism, the abandonment of the local church, and the abandonment of church unity. He doesn't skirt around hell, speaks to the importance of the Old Testament, the necessity of God's word as having God 'speak to us' today, the all-sufficient work of Christ, the necessity of Christ's deity, the Trinity, and so on. Thus, theologically, the book is solid overall with only a few minor gripes. For example, the book quotes some questionable folk, and the expositions on 'tithes' and tetelestai are the familiar popular expositions that aren't really correct.Other than these points, the only major theological issue seems to be poor wording, which could be fixed in future print runs. On pg. 84, on Jesus is human, the author (accidentally, I presume) states that Jesus "came and set aside his equality with God." Theologically speaking, any conceptions formed by the wording of 'set aside his equality with God' are offset by the next section on Jesus' deity, where the author expresses that, indeed, Jesus is equal to the Father still in his incarnation.The only major negative I had with the book was on p. 12, "Can I trust the Bible." My negative impression of this section also left me a little bummed the quotations lacked citations (which does make sense for a devotional type book), so I couldn't quickly look up the information. The author begins by explaining the telephone game but never really explains that the Bible's transmission is not like the telephone game, leaving the impression that it is (an atheist talking point) but that the message was transmitted faithfully (which is true!) regardless.Following this, the author speaks about the Dead Sea Scrolls, which did indeed clear a gap in the Old Testament text of the Bible. Still, it is not true that "because of this archaeological discovery, we have 266 of the earliest manuscripts and to a startling degree they agree with contemporary New Testament translations."I'm not sure what the 266 number is referring to. The Dead Sea Scrolls comprise more than 800 manuscripts, but none of them are New Testament manuscripts; thus, they cannot be found to be in agreement with New Testament manuscripts or as the author says “translations.” Based on count of manuscripts and the dating of P52 that I'll mention below, the author may be using a dated source, but I'm not sure.The author goes on to state that early papyrus scrolls have been discovered (though he is referring to NT papryi, and so they're not scrolls) and that there are over 100, which is true. The quote from Millard Burrows provided is true, but the quote from William Albright (whom Geisler quoted back when) is strange without its context (though I don’t know the context either).Strangely, the author doesn't mention the astounding reality that we have roughly 5300 Greek New Testament manuscripts. The papyri included, which are significant, of course! But this isn’t a negative per se, it was just a bit surprising.What threw me beyond the Dead Sea Scroll - New Testament bit was the following as the author states,"Archaeologists found a mummy in Egypt dating as early as 98 AD. Its head was wrapped in parchment - which turned out to be chapter 18 of the book of John. Most scholars think that the book of John was written about 98 AD. Incidentally, it reads exactly like John 18 in contemporary bibles."The impression I get from this is that there is a 1st-century parchment manuscript of John that could be the original manuscript from John's hand, but this isn't true. The introduction of parchment manuscripts in Christian literature took some time (which is why the early papyri discoveries are papyri). The earliest copy of John (and it is indeed chapter 18, but only part of the chapter) is from P (papyrus) 52, and the dating of 98 AD was only one old proposal but unanimously rejected for the range of AD 125-175 (2nd century). It's still early! But this leaves the narrative unintentionally misleading. P52 further was not found on a mummy. Instead, as far as I can recall, it was the alleged 1st century Mark (which it proved not to be 1st century, unfortunately), that was said to be found on a mummy mask.This critique could be seen as nitpicky, but it stood out to me, affected my perception of the book going forward, and will ultimately misinform readers of the book (any Christians interested in the subject ought to consult the new and accessible work, Scribes and Scripture by Meade to begin with).Nonetheless, I was pleasantly surprised by the rest of the devotional when I remembered that it was a devotional.Conclusion:I think if the author edited this section, the text regarding Christ’s incarnation, and the marketing, the book would be a four to five-star resource, but I opted for three stars due to those points.When sharing this review with a friend, they asked if I would recommend this work for high schoolers, but I'd probably recommend it more for a middle school audience if the intention is to teach doctrine. I don't believe this depth is beneficial for high schoolers or adults if it is for basic doctrinal exposition. Other introductory doctrinal expositions hit the same and more points and are in more depth, which would be better for doctrinal instruction.However, as a devotional, it can be used by anyone, and I think, indeed, anyone can get something from this work. I believe it could be a particularly beneficial devotion for newer Christians to use for a lighter but more reflective experience with Christian truths.All in all, the devotion is good in that it focuses on truths of Christianity, while many devotionals tend to fall flat and focus on a few verses, emotionalism or experience, with little to zero depth. This devotional instead presents basic truths and doesn’t shy away from topics that modern pop-evangelical circles often do.If you’re a new Christian wanting a devotional, pick up this book for you or even your small group. I think you’ll benefit from it.