In our wider culture it's now tucked in the endnotes of book-club histories or forms the ghostlike ellipses in the six o'clock news. But in Introducing Christian Mission Today, Michael Goheen brings the vibrant history, motivation and challenges of Christian mission to the fore. Through the centuries Christian mission has always been recalibrating, retooling and reevangelizing. It has repeatedly taken surprising turns as it is carried along by the Spirit of God. Goheen's introduction to mission's biblical, theological and historical dimensions engages the present and anticipates the future. As he unfolds the major issues of the global and urban, the pluralistic and wholistic contexts of mission today, he lays the ground for engaging in God's great kingdom enterprise. This full-scale text incorporates the keen missional insights of Lesslie Newbigin, David Bosch and other formative thinkers. It will be a valued resource not only for those in crosscultural contexts but also for those engaged in reevangelizing the West.

    How can we know anything about God apart from Scripture? In Nature's Case for God, distinguished theologian John Frame argues that Christians are not forbidden from seeking to learn about God from his creation. In fact, the Bible itself shows this to be possible.In nine short and lucid chapters that include questions for discussion, Frame shows us what we can learn about God and how we relate to him from the world outside the Bible. If the heavens really do declare the glory of God, as the psalmist claims, it makes a huge difference for how we understand God and how we introduce him to those who don't yet know Christ.

    This book helps readers match who they are--their unique spiritual gifts, passions, temperament, talents, and leadership style--with the ministry area for which God designed them. A practical guide, it takes dedicated Christians step by step through the process of reaching their full potential for Christ's kingdom. This new edition of Maximizing Your Effectiveness puts multiple tools, inventories, and worksheets in the hands of readers to empower them to minister according to God's unique design and purpose for their lives.

    How are we to formulate a clear, biblical understanding of the gospel? Tradition, reason, and experience all leave us ultimately disappointed. If we want answers, we must turn to the Word of God.Greg Gilbert does so in What Is the Gospel?. Beginning with Paul's systematic presentation of the gospel in Romans and moving through the sermons in Acts, Gilbert argues that the central structure of the gospel consists of four main subjects: God, man, Christ, and a response. The book carefully examines each and then explores the effects the gospel can have in individuals, churches, and the world. Both Christian and non-Christian readers will gain a clearer understanding of the gospel in this valuable resource.

    To understand these two words as they are used in Scripture is to understand the gospel. This book focuses on nine of the most important appearances of this key phrase, drawing in numerous other passages of Scripture and in the process unfolding the magnificent drama of God's sovereign grace-from his mercy on Noah to our security in a resurrected Savior. Taken together, this collection of brief Bible expositions provides a big-picture overview of the consistent way in which God has chosen to save sinners. It has always been by his might, his power, his grace, and his initiative. James Montgomery Boice wrote that "If you understand those two words-'but God'-they will save your soul. If you recall them daily and live by them, they will transform your life completely."

    Today the debate over who Jesus is rages on. Has the Bible bound Christians to a narrow and mistaken notion of Jesus? Should we listen to other gospels, other sayings of Jesus, that enlarge and correct a mistaken story? Is the real Jesus entangled in a web of the church's Scripture, awaiting liberation from our childhood faith so he might speak to our contemporary pluralistic world? To answer these questions we need to know what story Jesus claimed for himself. Christopher Wright is convinced that Jesus' own story is rooted in the story of Israel. In this book he traces the life of Christ as it is illuminated by the Old Testament. And he describes God's design for Israel as it is fulfilled in the story of Jesus.

    In discussing the facets of the working out of salvation -- the role of the Spirit, union with Christ, the gospel call, regeneration, conversion, repentance, and so on -- Hoekema does away with the classical ordo salutis ("order of salvation") by viewing these facets largely as simultaneous aspects in the process of salvation rather than sequential steps on the way to salvation.

    Here are all the tools pastors and teachers need to mine the Greek text and other language resources for the enhancement of personal study and sermon content.

    Grace in Practice begins with Zahls response to the classic tension between law and grace. He then sets up the four pillars of his own theology of grace: humanity, salvation, Christ, and the Holy Spirit in the Trinity. Having discussed grace in theological terms, Zahl goes on to address the practicality of grace, developing a systematic theology of grace that is radically understood from the Bible and consistently applied to everyday life. After helpfully narrowing down specific fields of grace, asserting throughout that grace always trumps both law and church, Zahl concludes with an expanded view of grace in everything, extending this good news to all creation.

    But how are we to glorify God for the rest of our lives? The Bible reveals that God has laid before every Christian two infinite journeys which we are to travel every day: the internal journey of growth into Christlike maturity, and the external journey of worldwide evangelism and missions. This book is a roadmap for the internal journey, laying out how we are to grow in four major areas: knowledge, faith, character, and action. In this book, we'll learn how God grows us in knowledge, faith, character, and action. We'll also discover that spiritual knowledge constantly feeds our growing faith, faith will transform our character, our transformed character will result in an array of actions more and more glorifying to God, and our actions will feed our spiritual knowledge. This upward spiral will lead us to become more and more like Jesus Christ in holiness.

    But we sometimes differ on how to relate the messages of the Old and New Testaments. Without a basic understanding of this crucial matter, it is difficult to know how to use the Testaments to formulate either doctrine or practice.For example: Was Israel the OT Church--are OT promises to God's national people fulfilled in the church today? Or, is Mosaic Law binding on believers now--are twentieth-century Christians to obey the Ten Commandments, including sabbath observance?In this book, thirteen noted evangelical theologians discuss, fairly but clearly, the continuity/discontinuity debate in regard to six basic categories: theological systems, hermeneutics, salvation, the Law of God, the people of God, and kingdom promises.Covering much more than the differences between Covenant Theology and Dispensationalism, this work of distinguished evangelical scholarship will fuel much profitable study and discussion.

    In the twentieth century, there arose a sense that the doctrine had been neglected and stood in need of recovery. In The Quest for the Trinity, Holmes takes us on a remarkable journey through 2,000 years of the Christian doctrine of God. We witness the church's discovery of the Trinity from the biblical testimony, its crucial patristic developments, and medieval and Reformation continuity. We are also confronted with the questioning of traditional dogma during the Enlightenment, and asked to consider anew the character of the modern Trinitarian revival. Holmes's controversial conclusion is that the explosion of theological work in recent decades claiming to recapture the heart of Christian theology in fact deeply misunderstands and misappropriates the traditional doctrine of the Trinity. Yet his aim is constructive: to grasp the wisdom of the past and, ultimately, to bring a clearer understanding of the meaning of the present.

    Drawing on the best biblical and historical scholarship, respected New Testament scholar Luke Timothy Johnson demonstrates that the "real Jesus" is the one experienced in the present through faith rather than the one found in speculative historical reconstructions. A new preface by the author presents his point of view on the most recent rounds of this lively debate.

    Unlike the so-called mainstream Protestant denominations, Southern Baptists have remained stubbornly conservative, refusing to adapt their beliefs and practices to modernity's individualist and populist values. Instead, they have held fast to traditional orthodoxy in such fundamental areas as biblical inspiration, creation, conversion, and miracles. Gregory Wills argues that Southern Baptist Theological Seminary has played a fundamental role in the persistence of conservatism, not entirely intentionally. Tracing the history of the seminary from the beginning to the present, Wills shows how its foundational commitment to preserving orthodoxy was implanted in denominational memory in ways that strengthened the denomination's conservatism and limited the seminary's ability to stray from it. In a set of circumstances in which the seminary played a central part, Southern Baptists' populist values bolstered traditional orthodoxy rather than diminishing it. In the end, says Wills, their populism privileged orthodoxy over individualism. The story of Southern Seminary is fundamental to understanding Southern Baptist controversy and identity. Wills's study sheds important new light on the denomination that has played - and continues to play - such a central role in our national history.

    And if we are honest, we don’t usually think of fear as a good thing. So why does the Bible call us to fear the Lord? In this book, Michael Reeves explains that the fear of God is not a gloomy fear marked by anxiety but a heartfelt and happy enjoyment of God as Creator and Redeemer. As we learn more about the surprising good news of the fear of the Lord, we will discover the vital role we play in displaying to the world the awesomeness of our God.