And everywhere in this story is God who, in his wild and passionate love for humanity, is shepherding history toward the birth and ministry of Jesus the Messiah.

Do you already have a good grasp of the Old Testament? Wonderful. This book will be an enjoyable review. Do you not know the difference between the Bible and The Hobbit? Also fine. This book will be a helpful map into unknown territory.

By the time we're done, you won't know all the ins and outs of the story, but you will have a strong grasp of the major movers and shakers. We will sit shotgun with patriarchs and prophets. Each one will take us a little farther down the Old Testament road until we get to the goal: to Jesus, the one in whom the whole story finds fulfillment and meaning.

Each of us is the owner of a seemingly random collection of theologies, doctrines, and superstitions--a junk drawer of religious ideas and influences.

• It's the witticisms your grandmother tossed around with ease that sounded like they came from a religious text.
• It's an insight about God from a half-heard sermon at a friend's church.
• It's the mental screenshot of a meme shared on social media.
• It's the empowering idea you underlined in a book and wrote on a Post-it Note now forever affixed to your laptop.

These are the things stuffed in our spiritual junk drawers. And as with that stash of old clothes in the closet or that stew of phone chargers, pens, and half-used batteries sitting in your kitchen drawer, something in us says, This might be useful. And so we hold on.

But should we? For many, this junk drawer spirituality has become burdensome. We are worn down by the religious experience it creates and frustrated by a collection of traditions, truths, and unfulfilled promises that continue to grow. In Junk Drawer Jesus, the spiritually exhausted are invited to examine our religious clutter and compare it to the person and the promises of Jesus Christ.

We'll discover what--if anything--of our spiritual collection should be kept. In the process, we rediscover the soul-satisfying simplicity of a God who refuses to fill our lives with junk but instead offers grace upon grace.

And everywhere in this story is God who, in his wild and passionate love for humanity, is shepherding history toward the birth and ministry of Jesus the Messiah.

Do you already have a good grasp of the Old Testament? Wonderful. This book will be an enjoyable review. Do you not know the difference between the Bible and The Hobbit? Also fine. This book will be a helpful map into unknown territory.

By the time we're done, you won't know all the ins and outs of the story, but you will have a strong grasp of the major movers and shakers. We will sit shotgun with patriarchs and prophets. Each one will take us a little farther down the Old Testament road until we get to the goal: to Jesus, the one in whom the whole story finds fulfillment and meaning.

Most of us are regular people who have good days and bad days. Our lives are radically ordinary and unexciting. That means they're the kind of lives God gets excited about. While the world worships beauty and power and wealth, God hides his glory in the simple, the mundane, the foolish, working in unawesome people, things, and places.

In our day of influencer worship and online posturing, this is a refreshing, even transformative way of understanding God and our place in his creation. It urges us to treasure a life of simplicity, to love those whom the world passes by, to work for God's glory rather than our own. And it demonstrates that God has always been the Lord of the cross--a Savior who hides his grace in unattractive, inglorious places.

Your God Is Too Glorious reminds readers that while a quiet life may look unimpressive to the world, it's the regular, everyday people that God tends to use to do his most important work.

Now available in a second edition, Chad Bird invites the reader to go deeper into the pursuit of the faithful, ordinary life with study questions at the end of each chapter for personal or corporate use.

This booklet introduces readers to the Augsburg Confession, one of the most important charters of Christian liberty. From the time of its appearance in the sixteenth century to this day, the Augsburg Confession connects back to the first Christians and shows how the Bible can be read and Christian life can be lived today. You will see how the gospel enlivens all aspects of the life of faith and the mission of the church.

If you are a fan of the fantasy books by Tolkien, C.S.Lewis, Charles Williams or Chesterton, then this is a book worth reading. It is a collection of essays by various authorities in literature, myth and theology. A couple of the contributors were acquainted with either Tolkien or Lewis. The central thesis running through this collection of essays is that mythic symbols found in folk-tales and religious rituals, all express a common, fundamental human yearning for healing and a return to a lost paradise. The essayists draw on insights from religious phenomenology, Jungian analysis, Christian theology and literary interpretation to tease out the potent mythic symbols found in the writings of Tolkien, Lewis, Chesterton and Williams. Lewis, Williams and Tolkien were associated with one another as drinking partners in an informal literary club known as The Inklings. The essayists test their thesis about the power of myth to reveal our search for meaning through the novels of the Inklings. The essayists take us a step further to consider the Christian world-view that informed and shaped the writings of Tolkien, Lewis, Williams and Chesterton. Although a couple of the essays are slightly dated, anyone interested in fantasy literature would find the thesis very absorbing. It should be useful not merely to students of English literature but also to the general reader who might like to know more about the backdrop to The Lord of the Rings, Narnia, etc. Certainly a book to add to your list for reading if you enjoyed the novels!

This book offers that encouragement, rooted in and focused on Christ. We're reminded of the work of Christ and the reality that he has established the work of our hands brings hope, peace, and sustainability to our work as mother.

Encouragement for Motherhood is honest about the struggles of motherhood.

Each contributor's words are vulnerable and honest about pieces of their work as mothers. The authors write about their limitations, fear of the future, failures, and relationship dynamics. More importantly, each contributor points to the hope found amid the struggles of motherhood. The hope found is not within the mother. The hope found is freely given to each of us by Christ.

Encouragement for Motherhood will not give you 30 tips and tricks to a more successful motherhood. What it provides is the gospel reminder that you are forgiven and free on account of Christ and his work. Being kept in those unfailing promises of Christ we get to live in freedom. Living in freedom we will fail and ask forgiveness, be confronted by our limitations but held by God, and be fearful yet rest in Christ.

Urchin on the Beat

A stirring defense of the faith by one of Christianity's ablest defenders, this is a re-issue of the classic History and Christianity expanded to include Dr. Montgomery's essay Christianity Juridically Defended.

Dr. John Montgomery, scholar, theologian and apologist for the faith, developed this book from a seminar he presented at the University of British Columbia. Readable and convincing, the book is divided into four sections:

• Section One deals with four basic errors usually committed by those who attack the historicity of the New Testament.
• Section Two defends the accuracy of the New Testament documents, using tests which are commonly applied to any ancient document.
• Section Three, entitled God Closes In, is a powerful defense of the truly divine and truly human nature of Christ.
• Section Four clearly shows that if Jesus were not the Son of God, the only other alternatives are either liar or lunatic.
• The last section contains Dr. Montgomery's essay Christianity Juridically Defended.

The book includes the transcript of a panel discussion in which Dr. Montgomery convincingly argues from the above four points to demonstrate their application for the reader. Here is excellent material for class discussion or individual study, particularly suited to helping young people combat humanistic concepts of the Bible and Christianity.

Each of us is the owner of a seemingly random collection of theologies, doctrines, and superstitions--a junk drawer of religious ideas and influences.

• It's the witticisms your grandmother tossed around with ease that sounded like they came from a religious text.
• It's an insight about God from a half-heard sermon at a friend's church.
• It's the mental screenshot of a meme shared on social media.
• It's the empowering idea you underlined in a book and wrote on a Post-it Note now forever affixed to your laptop.

These are the things stuffed in our spiritual junk drawers. And as with that stash of old clothes in the closet or that stew of phone chargers, pens, and half-used batteries sitting in your kitchen drawer, something in us says, This might be useful. And so we hold on.

But should we? For many, this junk drawer spirituality has become burdensome. We are worn down by the religious experience it creates and frustrated by a collection of traditions, truths, and unfulfilled promises that continue to grow. In Junk Drawer Jesus, the spiritually exhausted are invited to examine our religious clutter and compare it to the person and the promises of Jesus Christ.

We'll discover what--if anything--of our spiritual collection should be kept. In the process, we rediscover the soul-satisfying simplicity of a God who refuses to fill our lives with junk but instead offers grace upon grace.

John Warwick Montgomery beautifully highlights how modern psychiatric treatment has lost its mind! Contemporary forms of psychotherapy are, soulless-psychological and spiritual problems require a transcendent solution, as Montgomery nicely documents. No citation of Freud, Jung, or Albert Schweitzer in his flawed diagnosis of Jesus will never be the same as quoting Holy Scripture.

Dr. Montgomery's latest book is a fresh movement of the Spirit of God to a lost and dying world without Christ. The answer: Put Christianity back into the discussion of what is genuine treatment, and Montgomery's newest book wonderfully points us in that direction.

Every person is born with a deep longing for a father.

Being Dad deals with the way fathers, and the subject of biblical fatherhood, are treated in modern culture. Dr. Keith brings his experience with family, students, great mentors, and friends to bear on a subject that is crying out for attention. Equally, he brings his Christian faith, a scholarly eye for detail, and an ear for story along on the journey and works with the reader to navigate a path to a better country where the Father blesses His children and is honored.

Forgiven fathers are a gift from God, for they have the gospel to proclaim to their families. This approach leads to gracious fathers that can now display a shadow of the love of their Heavenly Father so that children may be drawn into saving faith.