This is an accessible, comprehensive, and persuasive resource providing detailed evidence for the resurrection of Jesus. It also demonstrates how to share the material clearly, honestly, and definitively. Included is an interactive CD which tests the reader's knowledge of the material by using an entertaining TV game show format.
[The authors] have distinguished themselves as leading experts on the evidence for this all important event.A leading expert in New Testament ethics discovers in the biblical witness a unified ethical vision -- centered in the themes of community, cross and new creation -- that has profound relevance in today′s world. Richard Hays shows how the New Testament provides moral guidance on the most troubling ethical issues of our time, including violence, divorce, homosexuality and abortion.
Find hope and grace when you are feeling cynical about the church and faith.
Are you struggling to connect with your church community? Do you find yourself questioning the core beliefs that you once held dear? Searching for Sunday, from New York Times bestselling author Rachel Held Evans is a heartfelt ode to the past and a hopeful gaze into the future of what it means to be a part of the modern church.
Like millions of her millennial peers, Rachel Held Evans didn't want to go to church anymore. The hypocrisy, the politics, the gargantuan building budgets, the scandals--to her, it was beginning to feel like church culture was too far removed from Jesus. Yet, despite her cynicism and misgivings, something kept drawing Evans back to church.
Evans found herself wanting to better understand the church and find her place within it, so she set out on a new adventure. Within the pages of Searching for Sunday, Evans catalogs her journey as she loves, leaves, and finds the church once again.
Evans tells the story of her faith through the lens of seven sacraments of the Catholic church--baptism, confession, holy orders, communion, confirmation, the anointing of the sick, and marriage--to teach us the essential truths about what she's learned along the way, including:
Searching for Sunday will help you unpack the messiness of community, teaching us that by overcoming our cynicism, we can all find hope, grace, love, and, somewhere in between, church.
Over 100,000 Copies Sold
Winner of the 2014 ECPA Book of the Year Award
Everything Kevin DeYoung writes is biblical, timely, and helpful for both life and ministry. You can't afford to miss what he says here. --Rick Warren, #1 New York Times best-selling author, The Purpose Driven Life
I'M TOO BUSY! We've all heard it. We've all said it. All too often, busyness gets the best of us.
Just one look at our jam-packed schedules tells us how hard it can be to strike a well-reasoned balance between doing nothing and doing it all.
That's why award-winning author and pastor Kevin DeYoung addresses the busyness problem head on in his book Crazy Busy--and not with the typical arsenal of time management tips, but rather with the biblical tools we need to get to the source of the issue and pull the problem out by the roots.
Highly practical and super short, Crazy Busy will help you put an end to busyness as usual.
The kingdom of God and the atonement are two of the most important themes in all of Scripture. Tragically, theologians have often either set the two at odds or focused on one to the complete neglect of the other.
In The Crucified King, Jeremy Treat demonstrates that Scripture presents a mutually enriching relationship between the kingdom and atonement that draws significantly from the story of Israel and culminates in the crucifixion of Christ the king. As Israel's messiah, he holds together the kingdom and the cross by bringing God's reign on earth through his atoning death. The kingdom is the ultimate goal of the cross, and the cross is the means by which the kingdom comes. Jesus' death is not the failure of his messianic ministry, nor simply the prelude to his royal glory, but is the apex of his kingdom mission. The cross is the throne from which he rules and establishes his kingdom.
Using a holistic approach that brings together the insights of biblical and systematic theology, this book demonstrates not only that the kingdom and the cross are inseparable, but how they are integrated in Scripture and theology.
What if reading Genesis 2-3 in its ancient Near Eastern context shows that the creation account makes no claims regarding Adam and Eve's material origins? John Walton's groundbreaking insights into this text create space for a faithful reading of Scripture along with full engagement with science, creating a new way forward in the human origins debate.
The Divine Conspiracy has revolutionized how we think about the true meaning of discipleship. In this classic, one of the most brilliant Christian thinkers of our times and author of the acclaimed The Spirit of Disciplines, Dallas Willard, skillfully weaves together biblical teaching, popular culture, science, scholarship, and spiritual practice, revealing what it means to apprentice ourselves to Jesus. Using Jesus's Sermon of the Mount as his foundation, Willard masterfully explores life-changing ways to experience and be guided by God on a daily basis, resulting in a more authentic and dynamic faith.
Practical and Gospel-centered thoughts on how to have a fruitful ministry by one of America's leading and most beloved pastor.
Many church leaders are struggling to adapt to a culture that values individuality above loyalty to a group or institution. There have been so many church growth and effective ministry books in the past few decades that it's hard to know where to start or which ones will provide useful and honest insight.
Based on over twenty years of ministry in New York City, Timothy Keller takes a unique approach that measures a ministry's success neither by numbers nor purely by the faithfulness of its leaders, but on the biblical grounds of fruitfulness.
Center Church outlines a balanced theological vision for ministry organized around three core commitments:
Between a pastor's doctrinal beliefs and ministry practices should be a well-conceived vision for how to bring the gospel to bear on the particular cultural setting and historical moment. This is something more practical than just doctrine but much more theological than how-to steps for carrying out a ministry. Once this vision is in place, it leads church leaders to make good decisions on how to worship, disciple, evangelize, serve, and engage culture in their field of ministry--whether in a city, suburb, or small town. -- Tim Keller, Core Church
In Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church, top-selling author and Anglican bishop, N.T. Wright tackles the biblical question of what happens after we die and shows how most Christians get it wrong. We do not go to heaven; we are resurrected and heaven comes down to earth--a difference that makes all of the difference to how we live on earth. Following N.T. Wright's resonant exploration of a life of faith in Simply Christian, the award-winning author whom Newsweek calls the world's leading New Testament scholar takes on one of life's most controversial topics, a matter of life, death, spirituality, and survival for everyone living in the world today.
Theology--the study of God--is a concern for every believer, not just theologians or those in ministry. It's the goal of good theology to humble us before the triune God of majesty as we come to understand him better. This is a book of and about good theology.
Award-winning author, theologian, and professor Michael Horton wrote The Christian Faith as a book of systematic theology and doctrine that can be preached, experienced, and lived, as well as understood, clarified, and articulated. It's written for a growing cast of pilgrims--in ministry and laity--who are interested in learning about Christ as a way of living as a Christian. Who understand that knowing doctrine and walking in practical Christianity are not competing interests.
The Christian Faith is divided into six parts, five of which each focus on an aspect of God, while the first part sets up an understanding and appreciation for the task of theology itself, addressing topics like:
In a manner equally as welcoming to professors, pastors, students, and armchair theologians; Horton has organized this volume in a readable fashion that includes a variety of learning features:
At the heart of this book is a deep love for and curiosity about God. Its basic argument is that a personal relationship with God goes hand in hand with the pursuit of theology. It isn't possible to know God without studying him.
Integrity - all of us are in favor of it, but nobody seems to know how to make sure that we get it. From presidential candidates to crusading journalists to the lords of collegiate sports, everybody promises to deliver integrity, yet all too often, the promises go unfulfilled.
Stephen Carter examines why the virtue of integrity holds such sway over the American political imagination. By weaving together insights from philosophy, theology, history and law, along with examples drawn from current events and a dose of personal experience, Carter offers a vision of integrity that has implications for everything from marriage and politics to professional football. He discusses the difficulties involved in trying to legislate integrity as well as the possibilities for teaching it.
As the Cleveland Plain Dealer said, In a measured and sensible voice, Carter attempts to document some of the paradoxes and pathologies that result from pervasive ethical realism... If the modern drift into relativism has left us in a cultural and political morass, Carter suggests that the assumption of personal integrity is the way out.
What on earth are we missing? Philip Yancey believes we are missing the supernatural hidden in everyday life. In Rumors of Another World, Yancey investigates the natural world and discovers the supernatural hiding in plain view. He grapples with why God made the world and what our role truly is, and seeks to answer the question, How do I live in the natural world while expressing the values of the supernatural? Philip writes, I have come to understand faith as the highest form of integrated encounter. Faith puts together, assembles, re-orders, accepting the entire world as God's handiwork. We live among clues, like rescuers sifting through pieces of stained glass shattered by a bomb, and only with a blueprint or some memory of original design can we begin to connect the shards, to assemble them into a pattern that makes sense of our world. Nature and supernature are not two separate worlds, but different expressions of the same reality. To encounter the world as a whole, we need a more supernatural awareness of the natural world. Yancey invites readers to join him on a journey of discovery. He challenges us to tune into rumors of another world, and connect the seen with the unseen. He promises that the grace-filled result will be a life of beauty, purpose, freedom, and faith.
Thinking more globally about the formation of theology enriches our understanding of what it means to be a Christian.
It's no secret that the center of Christianity has shifted from the West to the global South and East. While the truths of the Christian faith are universal, different contexts and cultures illuminate new questions, understandings, and expressions. What does this mean for theology, as Western theologians understand it?
Timothy Tennent argues that the Christian faith is culturally and theologically translatable. Theology in the Context of World Christianity is written to expand our ecclesiastical cartography by highlighting--within each of the major themes of systematic theology--studies that are engaging the global church, such as:
Each of the ten chapters examines traditional theological categories in conversation with theologians from across the globe, making this volume valuable for students, pastors, missionaries, and theologians alike.
Theological reflection is active and exciting in the majority world church, and Tennent invites you to your own reflection and celebration of Christ's global church. These are perspectives that should be heard, considered, and brought into conversation with Western theologians. Global theology can make us aware of our own blind spots and biases and has much to offer toward the revitalization of Western Christianity.
Twenty years ago, Jerry Sittser lost his daughter, wife, and mother in a car accident. He chronicled that tragic experience in A Grace Disguised, a book that has become a classic on the topic of grief and loss.
Now he asks: How do we live meaningfully, even fruitfully, in this world and at the same time long for heaven? How do we respond to the paradox of being a new creature in Christ even though we don't always feel or act like one? How can we trust God is involved in our story when our circumstances seem to say he isn't?
While A Grace Disguised explored how the soul grows through loss, A Grace Revealed brings the story of Sittser's family full circle, revealing God's redeeming work in the midst of circumstances that could easily have destroyed them. As Sittser reminds us, our lives tell a good story after all. A Grace Revealed will helps us understand and trust that God is writing a beautiful story in our own lives.