The Secret Battle of Ideas about God: Overcoming the Outbreak of Five Fatal Worldviews


Jeff Myers - 2017
    In fact, according to a recent Barna study, only 3 percent of American evangelicals have an authentic biblical worldview.   As president of Summit Ministries and an authority on Christian worldview and apologetics, Dr. Jeff Myers will teach you how to understand what you believe, why you believe it, and how to defend it against these five fatal worldviews: SecularismMarxismIslamNew SpiritualityPostmodernism

Battlefield Of The Mind: Winning The Battle In Your Mind


Joyce Meyer - 1995
    If readers suffer from negative thoughts, they can take heart! Joyce Meyer has helped millions win these all-important battles. In her most popular bestseller ever, the beloved author and minister shows readers how to change their lives by changing their minds. She teaches how to deal with thousands of thoughts that people think every day and how to focus the mind the way God thinks. And she shares the trials, tragedies, and ultimate victories from her own marriage, family, and ministry that led her to wondrous, life-transforming truth--and reveals her thoughts and feelings every step of the way. This special updated edition includes an additional introduction and updated content throughout the book.

Faith Seeking Understanding: An Introduction to Christian Theology


Daniel L. Migliore - 1991
    The book's presentation of traditional doctrine in freshly contemporary ways, its concern to hear and critically engage new voices in theology, and its creative and accessible style have kept it one of the most stimulating, balanced, and readable guides to theology available. This second edition of Faith Seeking Understanding features improvements from cover to cover. Besides updating and expanding the entire text of the book, Migliore has added two completely new chapters. The first, "Confessing Jesus Christ in Context," explores the unique contributions to Christian theology made by recent theologians working in the African American, Asian American, Latin American, Hispanic, feminist, womanist, and mujerista traditions. The second new chapter, "The Finality of Jesus Christ and Religious Pluralism," addresses the growing interest in the relationship of Christianity to other religions and their adherents. Migliore's three delightful theological dialogues are followed by a new appendix, an extensive glossary of theological terms, making the book even more useful to students seeking to understand the history, themes, and challenges of Christian belief.

The Cost of Discipleship


Dietrich Bonhoeffer - 1937
    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.

God's Glory Alone---The Majestic Heart of Christian Faith and Life: What the Reformers Taught...and Why It Still Matters


David VanDrunen - 2015
    God's Glory Alone is a beautiful reflection on how commitment to God's glory alone fortifies us to live godly lives in this present age.Reinvigorating one of the five great declarations of the Reformation—soli Deo gloria—VanDrunen:Examines the development of this theme in the Reformation, in subsequent Reformed theology and confessions, and in contemporary theologians who continue to be inspired by the conviction that all glory belongs to God.Turns to the biblical story of God's glory, beginning with the pillar of cloud and fire revealed to Israel, continuing through the incarnation, death, and exaltation of the Lord Jesus Christ, and culminating in Christ's Second Coming and the glorification of his people.Addresses several of today's great cultural challenges and temptations that attempt to draw us away from a God-centered instead of self-centered way of life.This book leads you into a renewed sense of awe and adoration for our Creator and Redeemer as it mines deeply into the biblical and theological truths about God's glory that stand at the center of the Christian faith.—THE FIVE SOLAS—Historians and theologians have long recognized that at the heart of the sixteenth-century Protestant Reformation were five declarations, often referred to as the "solas." These five statements summarize much of what the Reformation was about, and they distinguish Protestantism from other expressions of the Christian faith: that they place ultimate and final authority in the Scriptures, acknowledge the work of Christ alone as sufficient for redemption, recognize that salvation is by grace alone through faith alone, and seek to do all things for God’s glory.The Five Solas Series is more than a simple rehashing of these statements, but instead expounds upon the biblical reasoning behind them, leading to a more profound theological vision of our lives and callings as Christians and churches.

The Valley of Vision: A Collection of Puritan Prayers and Devotions


Arthur Bennett - 1975
    In this practice the spirit of prayer was regarded as of first importance and the best form of prayer, for living prayer is the characteristic of genuine spirituality. Yet prayer is also vocal and may therefore on occasions be written. Consequently in the Puritan tradition there are many written prayers and meditations which constitute an important corpus of inspiring devotional literature. Too often ex tempore prayer lacks variety, order and definiteness. The reason for this lies partly in a neglect of due preparation. It is here that the care and scriptural thoroughness which others found necessary in their approach to God may be of help. This book has been prepared not to 'supply' prayers but to prompt and encourage the Christian as he treads the path on which others have gone before.

Conscience: What It Is, How to Train It, and Loving Those Who Differ


Andrew David Naselli - 2016
    Yet there is hardly a more neglected topic among Christians. In this much-needed book, a New Testament scholar and a cross-cultural missionary explore all thirty passages in the New Testament that deal with the conscience, showing how your conscience impacts virtually every aspect of life, ministry, and missions. As you come to see your conscience as a gift from God and learn how to calibrate it under the lordship of Jesus Christ, you will not only experience the freedom of a clear conscience but also discover how to lovingly interact with those who hold different convictions.

Inspired: Slaying Giants, Walking on Water, and Loving the Bible Again


Rachel Held Evans - 2018
    What she discovered changed her—and it will change you too.Drawing on the best in recent scholarship and using her well-honed literary expertise, Evans examines some of our favorite Bible stories and possible interpretations, retelling them through memoir, original poetry, short stories, soliloquies, and even a short screenplay. Undaunted by the Bible’s most difficult passages, Evans wrestles through the process of doubting, imagining, and debating Scripture’s mysteries. The Bible, she discovers, is not a static work but is a living, breathing, captivating, and confounding book that is able to equip us to join God’s loving and redemptive work in the world.

Theological Retrieval for Evangelicals: Why We Need Our Past to Have a Future


Gavin Ortlund - 2019
    Modern evangelicalism is not known for drawing from church history to inform views on the Christian life, which can lead to a me and my Bible approach to theology. But this book aims to show how Protestantism offers the theological depth so many desire without the need for abandoning a distinctly evangelical identity.By focusing on particular doctrines and neglected theologians, this book shows how evangelicals can draw from the past to meet the challenges of the present.

Determined to Believe: The Sovereignty of God, Freedom, Faith and Human Responsibility


John C. Lennox - 2017
    John Lennox writes in the spirit of helping people to get to grips with the biblical treatment of this issue for themselves. In this comprehensive review of the topic of theological determinism, Lennox seeks firstly to define the problem, looking at the concepts of freedom, the different kinds of determinism, and the moral problems these pose. He then equips the reader with biblical teaching on the topic and explores the spectrum of theological opinion on it. Following this Lennox delves deeper into the Gospels and then investigates what we can learn regarding determinism and responsibility from Paul’s discussion in Romans on God’s dealings with Israel. Finally Lennox tackles the issue of Christian assurance. This nuanced and detailed study challenges some of the widely held assumptions in the area of theological determinism and brings a fresh perspective to the debate.

Wild at Heart Revised and Updated: Discovering the Secret of a Man's Soul


John Eldredge - 2001
    Simply look at the dreams and desires written in the heart of every boy: To be a hero, to be a warrior, to live a life of adventure and risk. Sadly, most men abandon those dreams and desires-aided by a Christianity that feels like nothing more than pressure to be a "nice guy." It is no wonder that many men avoid church, and those who go are often passive and bored to death. In this provocative book, Eldredge gives women a look inside the true heart of a man and gives men permission to be what God designed them to be-dangerous, passionate, alive, and free!

The Joy of Calvinism: Knowing God's Personal, Unconditional, Irresistible, Unbreakable Love


Gregory Forster - 2012
    But too often the defenders of Calvinism explain it only in highly technical, formulaic, and negative terms. As a result, most people today do not understand what "Calvinism" really is. They are robbed—in whole or in part—of the everyday experience of devotional joy that a robust and well-formed Calvinistic piety always produces.This book will show you how Calvinism can transform your everyday walk with God by unlocking the purpose of the Christian life, and how you can have the joy of God in spite of trials and suffering. It is time we rediscover the joy of Calvinism.

John Calvin: A Heart for Devotion, Doctrine & Doxology


Burk ParsonsEric J. Alexander - 2008
    In the minds of many, he is perceived as an ivory-tower theologian who was harsh and unreasonable, the driving force behind a dangerous theological system. In this volume, Burk Parsons and eighteen other leading Reformed pastors and scholars authoritatively reveal the truth about Calvin and his teaching - that he was humble, caring, pious, Scripture-saturated, and, above all, passionate about upholding the glory of God. Published in conjunction with the five-hundredth anniversary of Calvin's birth (2009), John Calvin: A Heart for Devotion, Doctrine, and Doxology offers a highly readable partrait of a man whose example and teaching remain vitally relevant even in the twenty-first century.

God Is Not One: The Eight Rival Religions That Run the World--and Why Their Differences Matter


Stephen R. Prothero - 2010
    For good and for evil, religion is the single greatest influence in the world. We accept as self-evident that competing economic systems (capitalist or communist) or clashing political parties (Republican or Democratic) propose very different solutions to our planet's problems. So why do we pretend that the world's religious traditions are different paths to the same God? We blur the sharp distinctions between religions at our own peril, argues religion scholar Stephen Prothero, and it is time to replace naÏve hopes of interreligious unity with deeper knowledge of religious differences. In Religious Literacy, Prothero demonstrated how little Americans know about their own religious traditions and why the world's religions should be taught in public schools. Now, in God Is Not One, Prothero provides readers with this much-needed content about each of the eight great religions. To claim that all religions are the same is to misunderstand that each attempts to solve a different human problem. For example: –Islam: the problem is pride / the solution is submission –Christianity: the problem is sin / the solution is salvation –Confucianism: the problem is chaos / the solution is social order –Buddhism: the problem is suffering / the solution is awakening –Judaism: the problem is exile / the solution is to return to God Prothero reveals each of these traditions on its own terms to create an indispensable guide for anyone who wants to better understand the big questions human beings have asked for millennia—and the disparate paths we are taking to answer them today. A bold polemical response to a generation of misguided scholarship, God Is Not One creates a new context for understanding religion in the twenty-first century and disproves the assumptions most of us make about the way the world's religions work.

The Varieties of Religious Experience


William James - 1901
    Psychology is the only branch of learning in which I am particularly versed. To the psychologist the religious propensities of man must be at least as interesting as any other of the facts pertaining to his mental constitution. It would seem, therefore, as a psychologist, the natural thing for me would be to invite you to a descriptive survey of those religious propensities." When William James went to the University of Edinburgh in 1901 to deliver a series of lectures on "natural religion," he defined religion as "the feelings, acts, and experiences of individual men in their solitude, so far as they apprehend themselves to stand in relation to whatever they may consider the divine." Considering religion, then, not as it is defined by--or takes place in--the churches, but as it is felt in everyday life, he undertook a project that, upon completion, stands not only as one of the most important texts on psychology ever written, not only as a vitally serious contemplation of spirituality, but for many critics one of the best works of nonfiction written in the 20th century. Reading The Varieties of Religious Experience, it is easy to see why. Applying his analytic clarity to religious accounts from a variety of sources, James elaborates a pluralistic framework in which "the divine can mean no single quality, it must mean a group of qualities, by being champions of which in alternation, different men may all find worthy missions." It's an intellectual call for serious religious tolerance--indeed, respect--the vitality of which has not diminished through the subsequent decades.