Drawing on nearly 40 years of teaching and ministry experience, pastor-scholar Sam Storms answers 25 challenging questions Christians are often too afraid to ask, addressing thorny issues ranging from the eternal destiny of infants to the roles of demons and angels.The robust, thoughtful answers provided in this book offer a helpful alternative to relying on simplistic explanations, and will encourage you in the search for truth and clarity on such tough topics.

    T. Wright, are the very echoes of a voice we dimly perceive but deeply long to hear. In fact, these questions take us to the heart of who God is and what He wants from us.For two thousand years, Christianity has claimed to solve these mysteries, and this renowned biblical scholar and Anglican bishop shows that it still can today. Not since C. S. Lewis's classic summary of the faith, Mere Christianity, has such a wise and thorough scholar taken the time to explain to anyone who wants to know what Christianity really is and how it is practiced. Wright makes the case for Christian faith from the ground up, assuming that the reader has no knowledge of (and perhaps even some aversion to) religion in general and Christianity in particular.Simply Christian walks the reader through the Christian faith step by step and question by question. With simple yet exciting and accessible prose, Wright challenges skeptics by offering explanations for even the toughest doubt-filled dilemmas, leaving believers with a reason for renewed faith. For anyone who wants to travel beyond the controversies that can obscure what the Christian faith really stands for, this simple book is the perfect vehicle for that journey.

    After over a decade of successful ministry, he had to make a painful self admission: although he believed in God, he was leading his church like God didn’t exist.To Christians and non-Christians alike, to the churched and the unchurched, the journey leading up to Groeschel’s admission and the journey that follows—from his family and his upbringing to the lackluster and even diametrically opposed expressions of faith he encountered—will look and sound like the story of their own lives.Now the founding and senior pastor of the multicampus, pace-setting LifeChurch.tv, Groeschel's personal journey toward a more authentic God-honoring life is more relevant than ever.Christians and Christian Atheists everywhere will be nodding their heads as they are challenged to take their own honest moment and ask the question: am I putting my whole faith in God but still living as if everything was up to me?

    They've asked the same questions. Like you, sometimes they just don't want to believe in hell. But as they write, "We cannot afford to be wrong on this issue."This is not a book about who is saying what. It's a book about what God says. It's not a book about impersonal theological issues. It's a book about people who God loves. It's not a book about arguments, doctrine, or being right. It's a book about the character of God.Erasing Hell will immerse you in the truth of Scripture as, together with the authors, you find not only the truth but the courage to live it out.

    In this paradigm-shattering classic, newly revised and expanded, John Piper reveals that the debate between duty and delight doesn't truly exist: Delight is our duty. Readers will embark on a dramatically different and joyful experience of their faithThe pursuit of pleasure is not optional. It is essential. Scripture reveals that the great business of life is to glorify God by enjoying Him forever. In this paradigm-shattering work, John Piper reveals that the debate between duty and delight doesn’t truly exist: Delight is our duty. Join him as he unveils stunning, life-impacting truths you saw in the Bible but never dared to believe.

    I knew I could just as easily have been born a Baptist or a Mormon. So I spent the next six months reading and talking to priests and ministers to find out the differences between Catholics and Protestants. How did each of their teachings compare with the teaching of Jesus and the apostles?"This book is a kind of re-tracing of Ray's investigation, looking at the key issues which continue to divide Protestants and Catholics, and assessing them in light of the teaching of Scripture.A challenging and invaluable book for Protestants and Catholics alike.Chapter headings:» Growing up Catholic» Which Catholicism?» Christ and the Mass» The Bible and the Church» The way of salvation» It's just grace» Mary» It is finished» Appendix: The new Catholicism

    The basic theme is that we need provocative churches which raise the question asked by the onlookers in Acts 2:12: What does it all mean?

    It's as if God's gone missing, out in the universe somewhere--and we must pick up the hunt, following any trail of breadcrumbs he may have left to go out and find him. We speak of "searching for God," "exploring spirituality," and "finding faith."But what if we have it backward? What if God is the one pursuing us? What if our job is not to go out and find God, but simply to stop running and hiding? Not to earn God's love, but to receive it? Not to turn on the light, but to step out of the shadows?Jesus reveals a God on the prowl, pursuing us, hunting down his world for reconciliation. And the question we're left with is not whether we've pursued hard enough, searched long enough, or jumped high enough . . .The question is, "Do we want to be found?"

    The result of Murray's passionate exploration of the issue of surrender: why it's seemingly impossible and yet completely necessary.

    Yet, while we hear these pleas, we're already functioning with existing beliefs—even if they are beliefs by default. So how do we choose what to believe—especially in the area of faith? Do we need to choose? In "Choosing Your Faith, " Mark Mittelberg encourages us, as Socrates does, not to lead an unexamined life. He invites us to examine why we believe what we believe. This examination will resonate with Christians and seekers alike.

    But do we understand it? More important, do we truly believe in it . . . and do our lives proclaim it as powerfully as our words? In What's So Amazing About Grace?, award-winning author Philip Yancey explores grace at street level.If grace is God's love for the undeserving, he asks, then what does it look like in action? And if Christians are its sole dispensers, then how are we doing at lavishing grace on a cruel and pain-filled world?In fourteen sessions, this study guide will help you to interact deeply with Yancey's most personal and provocative book yet. If you're willing to leave your comfort zone to embrace a more vigorous, passionate Christianity--read on. And prepare to grapple with grace and "un-grace" on a personal level.You'll consider how you can contend graciously with today's tough moral issues. And you'll discover how you can become Christ's answer to a world that desperately wants to know, What's So Amazing About Grace?

    He goes to the heart of the matter, exploring our feelings of shame and grief and opening a new door to God's forgiveness and grace.Travel down the road of spiritual formation with Jerry and discover your true identity as a loved child of God.Discussion guide available.

    One of the most important theologians of the twentieth century illuminates the relationship between ourselves and the teachings of Jesus in this classic text on ethics, humanism, and civic duty.What can the call to discipleship, the adherence to the word of Jesus, mean today to the businessman, the soldier, the laborer, or the aristocrat? What did Jesus mean to say to us? What is his will for us today? Drawing on the Sermon on the Mount, Dietrich Bonhoeffer answers these timeless questions by providing a seminal reading of the dichotomy between "cheap grace" and "costly grace." "Cheap grace," Bonhoeffer wrote, "is the grace we bestow on ourselves...grace without discipleship....Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again, the girl which must be asked for, the door at which a man must know....It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life."The Cost of Discipleship is a compelling statement of the demands of sacrifice and ethical consistency from a man whose life and thought were exemplary articulations of a new type of leadership inspired by the Gospel, and imbued with the spirit of Christian humanism and a creative sense of civic duty.

    According to a recent study by Ranier Research, 70 percent of youth leave church by the time they are 22 years old. Barna Group estimates that 80 percent of those reared in the church will be “disengaged” by the time they are 29 years old. Unlike earlier generations of church dropouts, these “leavers” are unlikely to seek out alternative forms of Christian community such as home churches and small groups. When they leave church, many leave the faith as well.Drawing on recent research and in-depth interviews with young leavers, Generation Ex-Christian will shine a light on this crisis and propose effective responses that go beyond slick services or edgy outreach. But it won’t be easy. Christianity is regarded with suspicion by the younger generation. Those who leave the faith are often downright cynical. To make matters worse, parents generally react poorly when their children go astray. Many sink into a defensive crouch or go on the attack, delivering homespun fire-and-brimstone sermons that further distance their grown children. Others give up completely or take up the spiritual-sounding “all we can do is pray” mantra without truly exploring creative ways to engage their children on matters of faith. Some turn to their churches for help, only to find that they frequently lack adequate resources to guide them. This is where Generation Ex-Christian will lend a hand. It will equip and inspire parents, church leaders, and everyday Christians to reawaken the prodigal's desire for God and set him or her back on the road to a dynamic faith. The heart of the book will be the raw profiles of real-world, young ex-Christians. No two leavers are identical, but upon close observation some categories emerge. The book will identify seven different kinds of leavers (the postmodern skeptic, the drifter, the neopagan, etc.) and offer practical advice for how to connect with each type. Shrewd tips will also intersperse the chapters alerting readers to opportunities for engagement, and to hidden landmines they must sidestep to effectively reach leavers.

    New from the author of the critically acclaimed Blue Like Jazz--and the man who taught him the things his dad never did--comes a gut-wrenching, honest look at growing up without a father.