I'd recommend this book to Christians who want to learn more about the Roman world in the first century but don't like reading dry history books. As a novel it is workmanlike, the story exists to keep you engaged as you learn about Roman culture and early church history and it does that effectively. However, the dialog and overall writing isn't amazing so it looses stars for that. I read an ebook copy that didn't have footnotes or a bibliography (although a few reference works are occasionally mentioned in the sidebars) and that kind of bugged me but I had a fair bit of knowledge about the book's subject matter before hand and saw nothing that raised any red flags. Overall I think the books works very well as a teaching tool. Learning through storytelling is very memorable and I'm sure this book will stick with me for a long time. Also, content advisory for younger readers: Sex, pedastry, and violence were very visceral parts of Roman society and this book does not shy away from it