Modern critical biblical scholarship often points out how the church's teachings about Jesus have become encrusted with tradition so that it is hard to see what the core documents--the New Testament--really say about him. Now, with the insight of 200 years of modern critical scholarship and assuming an audience that includes both the well-churched and the non-churched, how should the church present the story and identity of the central personality of their faith, Jesus of Nazareth? Many people will be surprised at the story they hear.

    The rare bird's tragic extinction in the early 1900s represents a shot to the heart of Aotearoa and is a potent metaphor for a country's conflicted history. Using the story of the untimely extinction of the huia, Jay Ruka offers a fresh perspective on the narrative of Aotearoa; a tale of two cultures, warring worldviews, and the things we lost in translation. Revisiting the early missionaries, the transformative message of the gospel and the cultural missteps of the Treaty of Waitangi, Huia Come Home invites us to reconnect with the unique story offered by the indigenous Maori lens. In relearning the history that lies in the soil of Aotearoa, we might just find a shared hope for the future and a recovery of national treasures once thought to be extinct.

    He emphasized the security of God’s covenant, the call for assurance of salvation, and the place of the heart in the Christian life. In The Affectionate Theology of Richard Sibbes, Dr. Mark Dever gives readers a penetrating look into the life and theology of this fascinating figure.

    Obviously. Matt Woodcock's frank, funny real-life diaries reveal what it was like for him to train as a vicar while struggling against all odds to become a father. In them he lays bare his joys and struggles as he attempts to reconcile his calling as a vicar with his life as a party-loving journalist, footie-freak and incorrigible extrovert. Becoming Reverend is a compelling and original account of how faith can work in the midst of a messy life, combining family, fertility, faith and friendship with the story of a divine - but unlikely - calling.

     Although he was born in what was considered the backwaters of the Roman Empire, Saint Augustine of Hippo has long been renowned for his early religious and philosophical thought. He has been called a Doctor of the Church for his unrivaled ability of patching up even the most complex of theological questions. He tackled such things as the condition of the soul and the omnipotence of God. During the course of his tenure as bishop of the North-African city of Hippo, Augustine often gained as many critics as he did followers. Inside you will read about... ✓ The Son of a Pagan ✓ Augustine’s Love Child ✓ The Road that Led to Rome ✓ Looking toward Christianity ✓ The Priest of Hippo ✓ A Founding Father of the Church And much more! To say that this esteemed theologian was a complex man would be an understatement. Saint Augustine’s life held many contradictions from the very beginning. Born to a pagan father and a devoutly Christian mother, he seemed destined to be at a crossroads. In his life he was both a sinner and a saint, and his seminal works, such as the Confessions and the City of God, prove that somewhere at the intersection of tremendous faith and terrible human frailty you will find the greatness of Saint Augustine.

    Table of Contents: Introduction: Who Are the American Puritans? 1. William Bradford 2. John Winthrop 3. John Cotton 4. Thomas Hooker 5. Thomas Shepard 6. Anne Bradstreet 7. John Eliot 8. Samuel Willard 9. Cotton Mather

    

    He describes the preaching of the Puritans (thoroughly biblical, unashamedly doctrinal, experimentally practical, holistically evangelistic, and studiously symmetrical), the primary methods of evangelism (plain preaching and catechetical evangelism), and the inward disposition of the Puritan evangelist (dependent on the Holy Spirit and prayerful). Table of Contents: 1. Introduction: Puritan Evangelism Defined Characteristics of Puritan Preaching 2. Thoroughly Biblical 3. Unashamedly Doctrinal 4. Experimentally Practical 5. Holistically Evangelistic 6. Studiously Symmetrical The Method of Puritan Evangelism 7. Plain Preaching 8. Catechetical Evangelism The Inward Disposition of the Puritan Evangelist 9. Dependency on the Holy Spirit 10. Men of Prayer

    Kent Edwards recalls a story that late pastor J. Vernon McGee told about seeing children in South Africa playing a game of marbles in the dust with real diamonds. The precious stones were being handled with no regard for their true worth. Edwards fears the same thing happens today when preachers offer Scriptural truth to listeners without being completely overwhelmed by its greatness themselves in the process.Deep Preaching is his call to "rethink" preaching. Edwards helps preachers learn to preach the word in ways that will powerfully change the lives of hearers. He contends that sermons "need not settle comfortably on the lives of the listeners like dust on a coffee table." He encourages preachers to join him in casting off the lines that moor their ministries to the status-quo and make every effort to steer their preaching out of the "comfortable shallows." He urges them to preach deep sermons rather than superficial ones, moving "beyond the yawn-inspiring to the awe-inspiring, from the trite to the transforming."

    

    

    Should preachers ask for a public response in evangelistic meetings?

    But too often he is viewed as an Americanized shepherd boy on a Sunday school felt board or a New Testament saint alongside the Virgin Mary. Not only does this neglect one of the Bible’s most complex stories of sin and redemption; it also bypasses the gritty life lessons inherent in the amazing true story of David.  Mark Rutland shreds the felt-board character, breaks down the sculpted marble statue, and unearths the real David of the Bible. Both noble and wretched, neither a saint nor a monster, at times victorious and other times a failure, David was through it all a man after God’s own heart.

    First, that effective preaching without a manuscript is not a matter of talent as much as it is a matter of preparation. Preachers can learn the practices and disciplines that make it possible to deliver articulate, thoughtfully crafted sermons, not from a written page, but as a natural, spontaneous act of oral communication. Throughout the book, the author offers specific examples including a transcript of a sermon preached without manuscript or notes. Second, that the payoff of learning to preach without a manuscript is nothing less than sermons that more effectively and engagingly give witness to the good news.

    W. Tozer include two of Tozer most loved books; The Pursuit of God and Man, the Dwelling Place of God. Each has a linked table of contents.