In this fine study of Romans 8:28, Thomas Watson explains how both the best and the worst experiences work for the good of God's people.

    The third edition has been revised throughout. Gilbert Bilezikian avoids using scholarly jargon and complex argumentation in the main text of the book to encourage readers to interact with the biblical research. The aim is for nonspecialized readers to be able to follow his discussion step-by-step, evaluate arguments, consider alternative views, and arrive at independent conclusions. The study guide format of the book is designed for either individual investigation or group work. Pastors, church leaders, students, and those interested in issues relating to gender and church life will value this classic work on the egalitarian viewpoint.

    Three centuries later, Brian Zahnd was both mesmerized and terrified by Edwards's wrathful God. Haunted by fear that crippled his relationship with God, Zahnd spent years praying for a divine experience of hell. What Zahnd experienced instead was the Father's love--revealed perfectly through Jesus Christ--for all prodigal sons and daughters. In Sinners in the Hands of a Loving God, Zahnd asks important questions like Is seeing God primarily as wrathful towards sinners true or biblical? Is fearing God a normal, expected behavior? And where might the natural implications of this theological framework lead us? Thoughtfully wrestling with subjects like Old Testament genocide, the crucifixion of Jesus, eternal punishment in hell, and the final judgment in Revelation, Zanhd maintains that the summit of divine revelation for sinners is not God is wrath, but God is love.

    Many churches have adopted this mind-set in their practice of membership and discipline-if they have not done away with such structures entirely. "Yet God's love and God's gospel are different than what the world expects," writes Jonathan Leeman. They're centered in his character, which draws a clear boundary between what is holy and what is not. It's this line that the local church should represent in its member practices, because the careful exercise of such authority "is God's means for guarding the gospel, marking off a people, and thereby defining his love for the world."So how should churches receive and dismiss members? How should Christians view their submission to the church? Are there dangers in such submission? The Church and the Surprising Offense of God's Love responds with biblical, theological, and practical guidance-from both corporate and individual perspectives. It's a resource that will help pastors and their congregations upend worldly conceptions and recover a biblical understanding and practice of church authority.

    The laughter of children. College football. Scrambled eggs and crispy bacon. But what happens to these earthly pleasures when Jesus shows up? Do the things of earth grow strangely dim? Or does he shine in all that's fair?In this book, Joe Rigney offers a breath of fresh air to Christians who are burdened by false standards, impossible expectations, and misguided notions of holiness. Steering a middle course between idolatry on the one hand and ingratitude on the other, this much-needed book reminds us that every good gift comes from the Father's hand, that God's blessings should drive us to worship and generosity, and that a passion for God's glory is as wide as the world.

    Wayne McDill draws on decades of experience as a preacher and homiletics professor to inspire other preachers to live up to their God-given potential.Here are twelve proven ways to pack more content and effectiveness into every sermon, covering all of the bases from general preparation to the end result of increasing each listener’s faith. Recent seminary graduates and seasoned pastors alike will identify skills that need personal improvement, and McDill encourages them to strengthen such areas at their own pace and in whatever order they feel is best.Every chapter in this new edition has been revised and updated. Also included are additional worksheet helps and sermon examples.

    And in circles where the traditional family model is highly regarded, many working women who sense a call to work find little church or peer support. In A Woman’s Place, Katelyn Beaty, print managing editor of Christianity Today and cofounder of Her.meneutics, insists it’s time to reconsider women’s work. She challenges us to explore new ways to live out the Scriptural call to rule over creation—in the office, the home, in ministry, and beyond. Starting with the Bible’s approach to work—including the creation story, the Proverbs 31 woman, and New Testament models—Beaty shows how women’s roles in Western society have changed; how the work-home divide came to exist; and how the Bible offers models of women in leadership. Readers will be inspired by stories of women effecting dynamic cultural change, leading institutions, and living out grand and beautiful vocations. Far from insisting that women must work outside the home, Beaty urges all believers into a better framework for imagining career, ambition, and calling. Whether caring for children, running a home, business, or working full-time, all readers will be inspired to live in a way that glorifies God. Sure to spark discussion, A Woman’s Place is a game-changing look at the importance of work for women and men alike.

    That may be bad news for America, but it can be good news for the church. What's needed now, in shifting times, is neither a doubling-down on the status quo nor a pullback into isolation. Instead, we need a church that speaks to social and political issues with a bigger vision in mind: that of the gospel of Jesus Christ. As Christianity seems increasingly strange, and even subversive, to our culture, we have the opportunity to reclaim the freakishness of the gospel, which is what gives it its power in the first place.   We seek the kingdom of God, before everything else. We connect that kingdom agenda to the culture around us, both by speaking it to the world and by showing it in our churches. As we do so, we remember our mission to oppose demons, not to demonize opponents. As we advocate for human dignity, for religious liberty, for family stability, let's do so as those with a prophetic word that turns everything upside down.   The signs of the times tell us we are in for days our parents and grandparents never knew. But that's no call for panic or surrender or outrage. Jesus is alive. Let's act like it. Let's follow him, onward to the future.

    Tozer, is not for a select few, but should be the experience of every follower of Christ. Here is a masterly study of the inner life by a heart thirsting after God. Here is a book for every child of God, pastor, missionary, and Christian. It deals with the deep things of God and the riches of His grace. In The Pursuit of God, Tozer sheds light on the path to a closer walk with God.

    In The Case for Jesus, Brant Pitre taps into the wells of Christian scripture, history, and tradition to ask and answer a number of different questions, including: If we don't know who wrote the Gospels, how can we trust them? How are the four Gospels different from other gospels, such as the lost gospel of "Q" and the Gospel of Thomas? How can the four Gospels be historically true when there are differences between them? How much faith should be put into these writings? As The Case for Jesus will show, recent discoveries in New Testament scholarship, as well as neglected evidence from ancient manuscripts and the early church fathers, together have the potential to pull the rug out from under a century of skepticism toward the apostolic authorship and historical truth of the traditional Gospels.

    Popular entertainment relentlessly pushes the envelope. Biomedicine stretche

    Articles, books, conferences—they mostly feature leaders of large congregations. Yet big churches are a small part of the ecclesial landscape. In fact, more than 90 percent of churches have fewer than 200 people. That means small churches play a big part in what God is doing.Small Church Essentials is for leaders of these smaller congregations. It encourages them to steward their role well, debunking myths about small churches while offering principles for leading a dynamic, healthy small church.Based on the popular six-hour lecture that Karl Vaters delivers to church leaders across the country, Small Church Essentials will affirm small church leaders and show them how to identify what they do well, and how to do it even better. Readers will:Be assured that leading a small congregation does not make them ministry failuresCome away inspired to lead with passion, regardless the size of their churchHave field-tested principles for leading a church in their contextPossess new metrics for biblically measuring vitality in small churchesHave a toolkit of resources to use in their everyday ministryKarl Vaters has been a small church pastor for 30 years, is the author of The Grasshopper Myth: Big Churches, Small Churches, and the Small Thinking that Divides Us (2013), and travels extensively to churches and conferences to speak about leading a small church well.If you are pastoring a small church, this book will be a breath of fresh air. It will affirm your calling while giving you fresh tools to help you lead. It will help you:Stop believing lies about small churchesLead your church to fulfill the role only small churches canUnderstand your congregation’s strengths and weaknessesTurn around a dying or unhealthy churchIdentify good trends and bad in church and culture

    Wellum and Brent E. Parker have assembled a team of scholars who offer a fresh perspective regarding the interrelationship between the biblical covenants. Each chapter seeks to demonstrate how the covenants serve as the backbone to the grand narrative of Scripture. For example, New Testament scholar Thomas Schreiner writes on the Sabbath command from the Old Testament and thinks through its applications to new covenant believers. Christopher Cowan wrestles with the warning passages of Scripture, texts which are often viewed by covenant theologians as evidence for a "mixed" view of the church. Jason DeRouchie provides a biblical theology of “seed” and demonstrates that the covenantal view is incorrect in some of its conclusions. Jason Meyer thinks through the role of law in both the old and new covenants. John Meade unpacks circumcision in the OT and how it is applied in the NT, providing further warrant to reject covenant theology's link of circumcision with (infant) baptism. Oren Martin tackles the issue of Israel and land over against a dispensational reading, and Richard Lucas offers an exegetical analysis of Romans 9-11, arguing that it does not require a dispensational understanding. From issues of ecclesiology to the warning passages in Hebrews, this book carefully navigates a mediating path between the dominant theological systems of covenant theology and dispensationalism to offer the reader a better way to understand God’s one plan of redemption.

    But too often as women, we try to find this safety in our roles and relationships, our professional accomplishments, or our picture-perfect homes. And as we do, our souls shrink smaller and smaller. It's because these things aren't made to hold us.In Made for More, Hannah Anderson invites you to re-imagine yourself, not simply as a set of roles and categories, but as a person destined to live in the fullness of God Himself.Starting with our first identity as image bearers, Hannah shows how Jesus Christ makes us people who can reflect His nature through our unique callings. She also explores how these deeper truths affect the practical realities that we face as women—how does being an image bearer shape our pursuit of education, our work, and even our desire for holistic lives?Because you are made in God’s image, you will only ever know yourself—only ever be yourself—as you find your identity in Him. Find it now.

    Transcribed by his wife Biddy, and drawn from his numerous sermons, lectures, and speeches, this monumental book includes more than forty titles from the popular, thought-provoking chaplain, including never-before published notes on Ezekiel, Isaiah, and Jeremiah, and is published in a handsome hardbound volume.