One will learn communion's origin deepen his relationship with God and be challenged in discipleship.

    God is relentlessly reclaiming the entire world for himself.In The Mission of God’s People, Wright shows how God’s big-picture plan directs the purpose of God’s people, the church. Wright emphasizes what the Old Testament teaches Christians about being the people of God. He addresses questions of both ecclesiology and missiology with topics like “called to care for creation,” “called to bless the nations,” “sending and being sent,” and “rejecting false gods.” As part of the Biblical Theology for Life Series, this book provides pastors, teachers, and lay learners with first-rate biblical study while at the same time addressing the practical concerns of contemporary ministry. The Mission of God’s People promises to enliven and refocus the study, teaching, and ministry of those truly committed to joining God’s work in the world.

    Written as a series of letters to "Christian"—a young college student who is a new believer—Letters to an American Christian will help every reader think carefully about how Christianity informs what it means to be an American. In the midst of a rapidly changing national and political landscape, Letters to an American Christian reminds us of two important truths: we cannot afford to shrink away from our earthly citizenship, and we cannot afford to lose sight of our heavenly citizenship.

    All four canonical Gospels declare that the Torah and the Prophets and the Psalms mysteriously prefigure Jesus. The author of the Fourth Gospel states this claim succinctly: in his narrative, Jesus declares, If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me (John 5:46). Yet modern historical criticism characteristically judges that the New Testament's christological readings of Israel's Scripture misrepresent the original sense of the texts; this judgment forces fundamental questions to be asked: Why do the Gospel writers read the Scriptures in such surprising ways? Are their readings intelligible as coherent or persuasive interpretations of the Scriptures? Does Christian faith require the illegitimate theft of someone else's sacred texts?Echoes of Scripture in the Gospels answers these questions. Richard B. Hays chronicles the dramatically different ways the four Gospel writers interpreted Israel's Scripture and reveals that their readings were as complementary as they were faithful. In this long-awaited sequel to his Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul, Hays highlights the theological consequences of the Gospel writers' distinctive hermeneutical approaches and asks what it might mean for contemporary readers to attempt to read Scripture through the eyes of the Evangelists. In particular, Hays carefully describes the Evangelists' practice of figural reading--an imaginative and retrospective move that creates narrative continuity and wholeness. He shows how each Gospel artfully uses scriptural echoes to re-narrate Israel's story, to assert that Jesus is the embodiment of Israel's God, and to prod the church in its vocation to engage the pagan world.Hays shows how the Evangelists summon readers to a conversion of their imagination. The Evangelists' use of scriptural echo beckons readers to believe the extraordinary: that Jesus was Israel's Messiah, that Jesus is Israel's God, and that contemporary believers are still on mission. The Evangelists, according to Hays, are training our scriptural senses, calling readers to be better scriptural people by being better scriptural poets.--J�rg Frey, Chair of New Testament Studies, University of Z�rich "Novum Testamentum"

    In it, John Barclay led readers through a recontextualized analysis of grace and interrogated Paul’s original meaning in declaring it a “free gift” from God, revealing grace as a multifaceted concept that is socially radical and unconditioned—even if not unconditional. Paul and the Power of Grace offers all of the most significant contributions from Paul and the Gift in a package several hundred pages shorter and more accessible. Additionally, Barclay adds further analysis of the theme of gift and grace in Paul’s other letters—besides just Romans and Galatians—and explores contemporary implications for this new view of grace.

    Word-Centered Church brings that answer into sharp focus. Written by Jonathan Leeman, editorial director for the reputable ministry 9Marks, Word-Centered Church offers a thorough treatment of one of God’s greatest concerns: growing His people and growing His church.As simple as the concept may seem, it’s one that many churches miss, and to their own detriment. Because when churches center everything they do on God’s Word—when the pulpit ministry gives direction to every aspect of the church’s life—growth happens God’s way. God’s Word is what creates the church, and it’s what sustains it, too.Theological and practical, Word-Centered Church focuses on how the church hears, responds to, discusses, implements, and is transformed by Scripture. It’s not about high-octane production, superstar personalities, or postmodern entreaties, but stuff that is really old, really good, and really powerful.Word-Centered Church is the ministry-model book that churches need, because it advances the model God designed. For anyone who wants to grow or help others grow, Word-Centered Church is indispensable.

    This study grows out of the vintage concept of taking timeless truths from Scripture-truths about church leadership, preaching, baptism, communion, and more-and blending them with aspects of contemporary culture, such as multi-campus churches and the latest forms of technology, to reach people with the gospel.While Vintage Church is helpful for pastors and church leaders, it is the kind of book you could hand to someone who has questions about ecclesiology but finds the very term ecclesiology intimidating. The authors put forth twelve practical questions about church doctrine and answer them in clear, biblical language that lay people and new believers can understand.

    But what churches really need is a process that is flexible, not bound to a particular time or current fad. In The Nuts and Bolts of Church Planting, trusted author and church-planting expert Aubrey Malphurs shares the basic steps any church planter will need, regardless of his or her generation now or in the future. These steps includeestablishing values, mission, vision, and strategyreaching the communitymaking disciplesrecruiting a teamdetermining location and facilitiesraising money for the ministryWith instant practical takeaway based on proven techniques, this book will be invaluable to any church planter.

    It’s also one of the hardest. It requires initiative, leadership, strategy, systems, and a lot of prayer. In this second edition of  Planting Missional Churches, not only will you find a completely redesigned book with new content in every single chapter, but you will also find several new chapters on topics such as church multiplication, residencies, multi-ethnic ministry, multisite, denominations and networks, and spiritual leadership. So if you’re planting a church, be prepared. Use this book as a guide to build the needed ministry areas so that you can multiply over and over again. For additional resources visit www.newchurches.com/PMC.

    Like the Elvises who roam the streets of Vegas, these counterfeit christs look and sound like Jesus, but they couldn’t be further from the real deal.In Will the Real Jesus Please Stand Up? 12 False Christs, author Matthew Richard exposes these false christs for what they are . . . mere impostors. Richard reveals to readers who the real Jesus of the Bible is, but also reveals to us twelve false christs who are embraced, loved, promoted, and revered, even by well-meaning Christians.“My hope is that readers will connect with the different stories in this book, but will do so in a way that they can see how people’s false theology and bad presuppositions lead to taking up false christs,” says Richard. “In other words, this book attempts to combine the art of story and the discipline of theology, so that the reader can see flesh-and-blood examples of how easy false theology can lead someone into idolatry.”

    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."

    According to Leonard Verduin, the American formula of a society in which no religion is designated as the right religion, is the result of pioneering done by the "stepchildren" of the Reformation. To them, rather than to the Reformers, do we owe the concept of separation of church and state. Taking the several terms of opprobrium that the Reformers hurled at these stepchildren, Verduin gives a penetrating historical analysis of each and shows how each term sets in focus an important phase of the master struggle, the struggle regarding the delineation of the church.

    He presents a methodology for taking the literary characteristics of biblical texts into account in the text-to-sermon process and then applies that methodology in separate chapters on preaching on psalms, proverbs, narratives, parables, and epistles.

    In Liturgical Theology, Simon Chan issues a call to evangelicals to develop a mature theology of the church--an ecclesiology that is grounded in the church's identity as a worshiping community. Evangelicals, he argues, are confused about the meaning and purpose of the church in part because they have an inadequate understanding of Christian worship. As a remedy for this ailment, Chan presents a coherent theology of the church that pays particular attention to the liturgical practices that have constituted Christian worship throughout the centuries. With a seasoned eye and steady hand, he guides the reader through these practices and unpacks their significance for theology, spirituality and the renewal of evangelicalism in the postmodern era. Chan's proposal advances the conversation among evangelicals regarding the relationship between theology and worship. In contrast to some theologians who have tended to emphasize a sociological analysis, Chan argues that we need to consider what is essential to the church's theological identity. Drawing on the larger Christian tradition, Chan argues that we discover that identity primarily in the structure and significance of Christian worship.

    The covenantal framework from Adam to Christ, from creation to consummation is a most apt way of seeing the flow of the entire biblical text. One is lifted into the journey to see the entire scope of divine providence work out the divine decree from generation to generation, book to book, event to event, person to person.