Based on the understanding that no man is born a leader, the book explores the principles, and perils, of becoming one. Profound, eloquent, and deeply inspiring, Lessons in Leadership reveals the biblical secrets of influence, as relevant now as they were three thousand years ago.

    Rabbi Sacks fuses Jewish tradition, Western philosophy and literature to present a highly developed understanding of the human condition under God's sovereignty.

    This richly illustrated book continues to tell that story—from the creation of the world to Jesus’s victory over death. Designed for children ages 4 to 8, The Story of King Jesus is the gospel told in a single story—a story meant to be read from start to finish in one sitting.The Story of King Jesus will captivate your child’s imagination, nurture their spiritual curiosity, and draw them into the full Bible story as they embark on a lifetime of following Jesus the King.Ben Irwin is coauthor of Fascinating People of the Bible and one of the creators of The Story: The Bible as One Continuing Story of God and His People. He studied theology at Grand Rapids Theological Seminary and spent several years as a writer for World Vision. He and his wife, Amanda, live in Grand Rapids, Michigan, with their two children.

    But how do we view its importance in relation to New Testament teaching and our 21st century experiences? This accessible yet powerful addition to the Pocket Guide series draw together the threads of Scripture to help us understand the power of God's word when viewed in its completeness.

    . .We believe these words, but what do they really mean? Does God choose to love, or does God love necessarily? Is God's love emotional? Does the love of God include desire or enjoyment? Is God's love conditional? Can God receive love from human beings?Attempts to answer these questions have produced sharply divided pictures of God's relationship to the world. One widely held position is that of classical theism, which understands God as necessary, self-sufficient, perfect, simple, timeless, immutable and impassible. In this view, God is entirely unaffected by the world and his love is thus unconditional, unilateral and arbitrary.In the twentieth century, process theologians replaced classical theism with an understanding of God as bound up essentially with the world and dependent on it. In this view God necessarily feels all feelings and loves all others, because they are included within himself.In The Love of God, John Peckham offers a comprehensive canonical interpretation of divine love in dialogue with, and at times in contrast to, both classical and process theism. God's love, he argues, is freely willed, evaluative, emotional and reciprocal, given before but not without conditions. According to Peckham's reading of Scripture, the God who loves the world is both perfect and passible, both self-sufficient and desirous of reciprocal relationships with each person, so that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life.

    Beyond providing an eye-opening reading of a familiar biblical book, the author creatively demonstrates that midrashic readings can reveal deep strata of textual meaning, and combines these insights with classical and contemporary scholarship to uncover the religious messages of this beautifully crafted story. In Ruth: From Alienation and Monarchy, modern techniques of literary analysis and rabbinic homilies merge to yield common insights into themes such as leadership, redemption, identity, and social morality.The Book of Ruth, with its focus on the exemplary behavior of Ruth and Boaz, stands at the crossroads between society’s downward trajectory during the era of the Judges and its ascent during the era of the monarchy. It teaches the timeless lesson of how two individuals can act in accordance with their own conscience and, through small acts of kindness and humanity, change the course of history and restore hope and unity to a nation.

    These beautiful and insightful expositions guide you through some of the early chapters of the Bible and will deepen your understanding of this important area of Scripture which help shape our understanding. This is an ideal resource for pastors as well small groups and personal study.

    This was the most traumatic event in the whole of Old Testament history, with its extreme human suffering, devastation of the ancient city, national humiliation, and the undermining of all that was thought to be theologically guaranteed like the Davidic monarchy, the city of Zion, and the temple of the God of Israel. It is out of that unspeakable pain that Lamentations speaks, in poetry of astonishing beauty and intricacy, though soaked in tears. If we neglect this book, says Chris Wright, we miss the challenge and reward of wrestling with the massive theological issues that permeate it. How can suffering be endured alongside faith in an all-loving, good God? Even if these events are recognized and accepted as God's judgment, has not the flood of brutality and evil gone beyond all bounds? If anarchy, death and destruction stalk the land, can the center of Israel's faith in the covenant God of faithfulness and mercy hold? In this Bible Speaks Today volume, Wright shows that as Christian readers we must not, and cannot, isolate Lamentations from the rest of the Bible; and equally, that we should not read the rest of the Bible without Lamentations. We must still let it speak for itself, as a book for today.

    One result, Joshua W. Jipp argues, is that important aspects of Paul's thinking about Jesus' messiahship have gone unrecognized. Jipp argues that kingship discourse is an important source for Paul's christological language: Paul uses royal language to present Christ as the good king. Jipp surveys Greco-Roman and Jewish depictions of the ideal king and argues for the influence of these traditions on several aspects of Paul's thought: king and law (Galatians 5–6; Romans 13–15; 1 Corinthians 9); hymning to the king (Colossians 1:15-20); the just and faithful king; the royal roots of Paul's language of participation "in Christ"; and the enthroned king (Romans 1:3-4; 1 Corinthians 15:20-28). Jipp finds that Paul's use of royal tropes is indeed significant. Christos is a royal honorific within Paul's letters, and Paul is another witness to ancient discussions of monarchy and ideal kingship. In the process, Jipp offers new and noteworthy solutions to outstanding questions concerning Christ and the law, the pistis Christou debate, and Paul's participatory language.

    Despite that interest, students have lacked a guidebook to the text similar to the readers and handbooks that exist for the Greek New Testament. Discovering the Septuagint: A Guided Reader fills that need. Created by an expert on the Septuagint, this groundbreaking resource draws on Jobes's experience as an educator in order to help upper--level college, seminary, and graduate students cultivate skill in reading the Greek Old Testament.This reader presents, in Septuagint canonical order, ten Greek texts from the Rahlfs--Hanhart Septuaginta critical edition. It explains the syntax, grammar, and vocabulary of more than 700 verses from select Old Testament texts representing a variety of genres, including the Psalms, the Prophets, and more.The texts selected for this volume were chosen to fit into a typical semester. Each text (1) is an example of distinctive Septuagint syntax or word usage; (2) exemplifies the amplification of certain theological themes or motifs by the Septuagint translators within their Jewish Hellenistic culture; and/or (3) is used significantly by New Testament writers.

    This series affirms that the Bible is a Christ-centered book, containing a unified story of redemptive history of which Jesus is the hero. It’s presented as sermons, divided into chapters that conclude with a “Reflect & Discuss” section, making this series ideal for small group study, personal devotion, and even sermon preparation. It’s not academic but rather presents an easy-reading, practical and friendly commentary. The series is projected to be 48 volumes.

    The deeper import of the story, however, has to do with the internal boundaries that define the people of God. Is Israel a closed community, held together exclusively by bonds of kinship, or a nation that welcomes faithful outsiders into its sphere of belonging? Ruth appropriates marriage as the symbolic vehicle of a transformation in Israel's self-understanding from a community articulated by Naomi's declaration that her daughters-in-law marry within their own people, to the acclamations by the people of Bethlehem that endorse Boaz's marriage to a Moabite. L. Daniel Hawk undertakes a detailed narrative analysis of Ruth that goes beyond the description of its content and stylistic features to illumine its deep structure and use of metaphor. Informed by contemporary studies on ethnicity, he discovers a work of remarkable sophistication that employs a story of intermarriage to address opposing ideas of Israelite identity. Hawk's meticulous attention to patterned structures, stylistic devices and characterization reveals the strategy by which the narrator constructs a vision of Israel that looks beyond rigid internal boundaries to the welcome of faithful foreigners as agents of blessing.

    Contributors include Daniel I. Block, Mark J. Boda, Hélène Dallaire, Nancy Erickson, Karen H. Jobes, Bo H. Lim, Tremper Longman III, Miles V. Van Pelt, Bruce K. Waltke, and Michael Williams, among others. The authors use a variety of exegetical approaches in their devotions—including grammatical, lexical, rhetorical, sociohistorical, and linguistic—and each devotion closes with a practical application or spiritual reflection.Miles Van Pelt, for example, shows that a careful analysis of a grammatical particle in Judges 3:9 elucidates the agent of Israel’s deliverance. Indeed, it is Yahweh who saves! Tremper Longman III explains the role of poetical parallelism in Psalm 1 and highlights how clearly the psalmist invites the reader to introspection, compelling the reader to follow the path of righteousness. And Bo Lim reminds the reader of the biblical precedent for expressing lament. He highlights the poetic artistry of the book of Lamentations, noting its beautiful acrostic, and confirms that both grief and hope provide the rhythm of faith and worship.Devotions on the Hebrew Bible contains a devotion on every book in the Old Testament and can be used as a weekly devotional or as a supplemental resource throughout a semester or sequence of courses. These devotions will inspire you to keep reading and meditating on the Hebrew Scriptures and find new treasures from the biblical text.

    

    Fretheim has long been a leading voice in Old Testament theology. In this volume, thirty of his classic studies have been gathered together for the first time under the rubrics "God and the World", "God and Suffering", "God, Wrath, and Divine Violence", "God and the Pentateuch", "God and the Prophets", and "God and the Church's Book". Here readers can find a compelling answer to the question that has motivated Fretheim's work for more than forty years--namely, what kind of God is the God of Scripture? The studies are introduced by a critical overview of Fretheim's career and theology by the editors and a retrospective by Fretheim himself.

    God's people are minnows in the vast Persian Empire, and the promises of the earlier prophets for a glorious restoration of Jerusalem seem far from their experience. These books, from beginning to end, restate God's intention to establish his glorious kingdom, and explain what this means for the lives of his people. For Haggai and Zechariah, the immediate challenge was to rebuild the temple in view of God's return. For Malachi, the challenge was covenant unfaithfulness which had infected the people's attitudes towards God, and how this needed to change in view of future judgment. God used each of these prophets to remind the people of the true King and to re-order their lives and their community in the light of the reality of his coming kingdom. In this Apollos Old Testament Commentary, Anthony Petterson offers detailed commentary on these prophetic books, setting them in their wider biblical-theological context. He shows the connections between the post-exilic world and our own, and explains how these books contain a vital message for the church today, living in the gap between promise and reality. The Apollos Old Testament Commentary series aims to take with equal seriousness the divine and human aspects of Scripture. It expounds the books of the Old Testament in a scholarly manner accessible to non-experts, and shows the relevance of the Old Testament to modern readers. Intended primarily to serve the needs of those who preach from the Old Testament, they are equally suitable for use by scholars and all serious students of the Bible.

    Entering this conversation, Just Deceivers provides a fresh analysis of this important topic through a comprehensive examination of the motif of deception in the books of Samuel. While many studies have explored deception in other Old Testament texts-especially the patriarchal narratives of Genesis-and a few articles have initiated examination of this motif in Samuel, Just Deceivers builds upon this groundwork and offers an exhaustive treatment of this theme in this important portion of the Hebrew Bible. Newkirk takes the reader through the books of Samuel, investigating every occurrence of deception in the narrative, exploring how the author depicts these various acts of deception, and then synthesizing the results to offer an exegetically based theology of deception. In so doing, this study both challenges commonly held views concerning the Bible's stance on falsehood and illustrates the importance of attending to the sophisticated literary character of biblical narrative.

    Guided by scholars, pastors and laity representing diverse traditions and academic experience, this collection of commentary meets the needs of preachers, teachers, and all students of the Bible.Easy-To-Use FormatA detailed, critical commentary providing an exegetical -close-reading- of the biblical text Reflections that present a detailed exposition of issues raised in the biblical text Introductions to each book that cover essential historical, sociocultural, literary, and theological issues An ecumenical roster of contributors Comprehensive, concise articles Numerous visual aids (illustrations, maps, charts, timelines) enhance use

    Akin, and Tony Merida, this new commentary series, projected to be 48 volumes, takes a Christ-centered approach to expositing each book of the Bible. Rather than a verse-by-verse approach, the authors have crafted chapters that explain and apply key passages in their assigned Bible books. Readers will learn to see Christ in all aspects of Scripture, and they will be encouraged by the devotional nature of each exposition.

    Many go so far as to say that the absence of any mention of God in Esther is proof of his presence-a tenuous foundation upon which to build a case! GOD UNSEEN argues that Esther is indeed intended to be read in a religious context and that it does speak to God's providence, but shows this by a careful comparison of the text of Esther with many other Old Testament narratives that it echoes, thus setting it squarely in a canonical context. The result of such a contextual reading will give credence to the belief that God should be seen in those silences. Esther closely parallels life in 21st-century western culture. It tells the story of people who know how to be righteous followers of God, but who are surrounded by a world of paganism and, far too often, find themselves assimilating rather than standing apart. The characters receive no special revelation from God, nor does he seem to be present at all in their lives. Many Christians today live under a similar set of circumstances, so its message is vital. GOD UNSEEN's argument that the book of Esther is religious and that God is present in the narrative will help give practical shape to modern questions of what it means to live during the apparent silence of God.

    

    In contrast, the book of Ruth offers a message of redemption and hope following disorder. Set in a time when everyone "did what was right in his own eyes," both books work together to highlight God's faithfulness in the midst of Israel's disobedience.Exploring the stories of figures such as Gideon, Samson, Naomi, and Ruth, this accessible commentary emphasizes the countless ways God protected and preserved his people in the Bible. Experienced preacher Barry Webb explores important connections between Judges and Ruth, reminding us of God's promises to his people and offering practical applications for daily life--pointing us toward the hope of the coming King of kings, Jesus Christ.Part of the Preaching the Word series.

    What is more, the Hebrew Bible also contains numerous instances in which the worth or dignity of the female characters are threatened, violated or potentially violated, creating a situation of dehumanization in which women are viewed as less than fully human. And yet the Bible continues to serve as a source of inspiration for readers committed to justice and liberation for all. But in order for the Bible to speak a liberative word, what is necessary is to cultivate liberating Bible reading practices rooted in justice and compassion. Restorative Readings seeks to do exactly this when the authors in their respective readings seek to cultivate Bible reading practices that are committed to restoring the dignity of those whose dignity has been violated by means of racial, gender, and sexual discrimination, by the atrocities of apartheid, by the HIV/AIDS pandemic, and by the dehumanizing reality of unemployment and poverty."Restorative Readings is a joint venture of seasoned scholars of Old Testament and ethics from South Africa and the United States, two societies in which the Bible has historically been used to justify abusive practices of violence, injustice, and xenophobia. These essays walk a constructive middle road between the wholesale rejection of the Old Testament as irredeemably violent on the one hand and misguided attempts to ignore or explain away the Bible's violent applications in human history."--Dennis Olson, Charles Haley Professor of Old Testament Theology, Princeton Theological Seminary, Princeton, NJ"In Restorative Readings, Julie Claassens, Bruce Birch, and a wise group of scholars from South Africa and the United States remind us that even if the language of human dignity isn't explicit in Scripture, thoughtful exegesis of biblical texts can still found, form, and fund attention to human dignity in a world all too likely to sag under the weight of violent ideologies, market logic, and tepid politics. We rise even as we read."--Mark Douglas, Professor of Christian Ethics, Columbia Theological Seminary, Decatur, GAJuliana Claassens is Professor of Old Testament in the Faculty of Theology, Stellenbosch University, South Africa. Her most recent book is Mourner, Mother, Midwife: Reimagining God's Liberating Presence in the Old Testament.Bruce Birch is Dean Emeritus and Professor Emeritus of Biblical Theology at Wesley Theological Seminary, Washington, DC. His works include Let Justice Roll Down: Old Testament, Ethics, and Christian Life and A Theological Introduction to the Old Testament (with W. Brueggemann, T. Fretheim, and D. Petersen).

    The NIVAC Bundle includes the first five volumes in the series, also known as the Pentateuch.

    This NIVAC Bundle includes the six historical books found in the NIV Application Commentary series.

    Though the themes in Job are complex, Bond winsomely portrays the story's essential, foundational theology in a poetic introduction for younger children. Although known for its supernatural encounters and advice both good and bad, the story of Job is most of all a story that reveals a glorious Redeemer who lives—showing how our children can have hope and comfort no matter what befalls them in this life.