Mossad: The Stories You Haven’t Heard Of Israel’s Most Effective Secret Service


Peter Russo - 2017
    (Previously Turkey had owned Palestine. It had never been owned or ruled by Palestinians). An argument that will continue until one of the countries is either destroyed or disarmed. Palestine, being an Arab nation, has many allies in the surrounding areas, giving them a geographical, numerical and financial advantage. Be that as it may, the drive of Mossad is able to keep Israel’s head above water and their interests intact.The agency has performed—or been a part of—some of the boldest and fearless operations ever executed. For example, after the Munich Massacre of their sportsmen by Palestinian terrorist organisation Black September, Israel wanted justice, or vengeance. To do so, the Mossad scoured the globe for those that were a part of the terrorist group Black September and is suspected of killing the murderers. The Jewish religion has been combating anti-Semitism since the Egypt in the old testament—the Mossad is the result. It is their persistence that makes them such an effective fighting force in Israel’s arsenal.

Out of Time: A story of archaeology... sort of


David LaVigne - 2012
    The grand opening of the Roman Colosseum. A British attack on Boston in 1776 that wasn’t supposed to happen.Doctor John Campbell, an archaeology professor at a community college, has led an ordinary life, a boring life, until the purchase of an old desk at a local flea market turns out to be an extraordinary find. A desk that once belonged to one of the most brilliant and frightening minds in the history of science. Hidden inside is a device that no one except the long dead scientist has ever seen. This discovery sparks a chain of events that sends Campbell on an amazing adventure that spans centuries, but Campbell’s journey quickly becomes more than he bargained for and the consequences could have dire effects on time itself.

Gospel of Glory: Major Themes in Johannine Theology


Richard Bauckham - 2015
    In this volume Richard Bauckham, a leading biblical scholar and a bestselling author in the academy, illuminates several main theological themes of the Gospel of John. Bauckham provides insightful analysis of key texts, covering topics such as divine and human community, God's glory, the cross and the resurrection, and the sacraments. This work will serve as an ideal supplemental text for professors and students in a John course or a Gospels course. It will also be of interest to New Testament scholars and theologians.

Embracing Grace: A Gospel for All of Us


Scot McKnight - 2005
    In the candid and lucid style that has made McKnight's The Jesus Creed so appealing to thousands of pastors, lay leaders, and everyday people who are searching for a more authentic faith, he encourages all Christians to recognize the simple, yet potentially transforming truth of the gospel message: God seeks to restore us to wholeness not only to make us better individuals, but to form a community of Jesus, a society in which humans strive to be in union with God and in communion with others.

Raptureless


Jonathan Welton - 2013
    In Normal Christianity he laid the groundwork for having a Kingdom Worldview. Then in Eyes of Honor he magnificently unveiled our identity in Christ. In his fourth and newest book, Raptureless; An Optimistic Guide to the End of the World, Jonathan bares his theological teeth.The End Times have become the King of the Sacred Cows for the Modern Church. Jonathan fearlessly treads where most leaders will not and asks questions that many thirst to ask but can't articulate. Questions such as, what does the Bible really say about:A secret rapture of the Church?A Future One-World Ruler?A Future Seven-Year Tribulation?Are we living in the Last Days?Welton's answers to these questions are thoroughly argued and scripturally based. Prepare to be stretched and see the Bible through brand new eyes!

Tough Topics: Biblical Answers to 25 Challenging Questions


Sam Storms - 2013
    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.

Out of Babylon


Walter Brueggemann - 2010
    Devoted to materialism, extravagance, luxury, and the pursuit of sensual pleasure, it was a privileged society. But, there was also injustice, poverty, and oppression. It was the great and ancient Babylon--the center of the universe. And now we find Babylon redux today in Western society. Consumer capitalism, a never-ending cycle of working and buying, a sea of choices produced with little regard to life or resources, societal violence, marginalized and excluded people, a world headed toward climactic calamity. Where are the prophets--the Jeremiahs--to lead the way out of the gated communities of overindulgence, the high rises of environmental disaster, and the darkness at the core of an apostate consumer society? Walter Brueggemann--a scholar, a preacher, a prophetic voice in our own time--challenges us again to examine our culture, turn from the idols of abundance and abuse, and turn to lives of meaning and substance.

A Case for Historic Premillennialism: An Alternative to Left Behind Eschatology


Craig L. Blomberg - 2009
    The contributors, all respected scholars in their respective fields, suggest that classic premillennialism offers believers a more coherent and viable approach to understanding eschatology. Their studies, which examine eschatology from biblical, theological, historical, and missiological approaches, provide a broadly accessible argument for returning to the perspectives of historic premillennial eschatology.

Out of Time - Five Tales of Time Travel


Janet Guy - 2013
    Fools tampering with Einstein's laws of physics.Here are adventures that offer readers humanity at its best and worst.100% of royalties donated to Doctors Without Borders.

Our Great Big American God: A Short History of Our Ever-Growing Deity


Matthew Paul Turner - 2014
    We stamp God on our money, our bumper stickers, and our bodies. With a church on nearly every street, it's hard to deny our country's deep connection with the divine. Yet culture critic Matthew Paul Turner says that God didn't just change America-America changed God. As a result, do we even recognize the "real" God? Whip-smart and provocative, Turner explores the United States' vast influence on God, told through an amazing true history of faith, politics, and evangelical pyrotechnics. From Puritans to Pentecostals, from progressives to mega-pastors, Turner examines how American history and ideals transformed our perception of God. Fearless and funny, this is the definitive guide to the American experience of the Almighty-a story so bizarre, incredible, and entertaining that it could only be made in the U.S.A. No matter what your political or religious affiliation, this book will challenge and delight with its razor sharp wit, social commentary, and savvy historical insight. It will make you reconsider the way you think about America as a "Christian nation," and help you re-imagine a better future for God and country. Ultimately, Turner dares to ask: Does God control the future of America-or is it the other way around?

Laying Down the Sword: Why We Can't Ignore the Bible's Violent Verses


Philip Jenkins - 2011
    But fanaticism is no more hard-wired in Christianity than it is in Islam. In Laying Down the Sword, “one of America’s best scholars of religion” (The Economist) explores how religions grow past their bloody origins, and delivers a fearless examination of the most violent verses of the Bible and an urgent call to read them anew in pursuit of a richer, more genuine faith.Christians cannot engage with neighbors and critics of other traditions—nor enjoy the deepest, most mature embodiment of their own faith—until they confront the texts of terror in their heritage. Philip Jenkins identifies the “holy amnesia” that, while allowing scriptural religions to grow and adapt, has demanded a nearly wholesale suppression of the Bible’s most aggressive passages, leaving them dangerously dormant for extremists to revive in times of conflict. Jenkins lays bare the whole Bible, without compromise or apology, and equips us with tools for reading even the most unsettling texts, from the slaughter of the Canaanites to the alarming rhetoric of the book of Revelation.Laying Down the Sword presents a vital framework for understanding both the Bible and the Qur’an, gives Westerners a credible basis for interaction and dialogue with Islam, and delivers a powerful model for how a faith can grow from terror to mercy.

War and the American Difference: Theological Reflections on Violence and National Identity


Stanley Hauerwas - 2011
    He also examines the views of nonviolence held by Martin Luther King Jr. and C. S. Lewis, how Jesus constitutes the justice of God, and the relationship between congregational ministry and Christian formation in America.

Crazy Stories, Sane God: Lessons from the Most Unexpected Places in the Bible


John Alan Turner - 2014
    These get mentioned everywhere from popular literature to your local church. But there are other stories in the Bible that preachers and Sunday school teachers tend to skip over because . . . well . . . because they seem crazy—the kind of stories that make us change the subject quickly when children bring them up, because we don’t know why they’re in the Bible or what they could possibly mean. You want examples? There's the time a prophet calls a couple of bears out of the woods to maul a gang of rowdy teenagers. There's also a story about a woman who dresses provocatively and tricks her father-in-law into getting her pregnant. And their son ends up in the genealogy of Jesus! What are we to make of these strange, sometimes cryptic, sometimes even off-color stories? What are they doing in the Bible? In Crazy Stories, Sane God popular author and teacher John Alan Turner takes us on a wild and unpredictable ride through the weirdest and least familiar stories in the Bible. Through it all, Turner shows us how even these odd episodes reveal important things about the character and nature of God and, consequently, what they mean for us today.

Secondhand Jesus: Trading Rumors of God for a Firsthand Faith


Glenn Packiam - 2009
    Yet so often, we too easily settle for someone else's descriptions, the Cliff notes from another's spiritual journey. We are content for "God-experts" to do the heavy lifting and then give us the bottom line. And like any secondhand information, after enough times through the grapevine, the truth about God deteriorates and crumbs of rumor are all that remain.But when life derails, and things don't go as we had planned, our thin view of God is challenged. In those critical moments, we can choose to walk away from God, or to let our questions lead us home. When we choose to wrestle with God, to engage Him for ourselves, we-like Jacob and Job and David-will see rumors die and revelation come alive.It's time to hear the magnificent, Divine Invitation. It's time to take God up on His offer and embrace the mystery and majesty of knowing Him for ourselves.

The Gospel of Inclusion: Reaching Beyond Religious Fundamentalism to the True Love of God


Carlton D. Pearson - 2007
    His church, Higher Dimensions, drew 5,000 people every Sunday. He was Oral Roberts? beloved prot?g?. Then, Pearson watched everything he had built crumble due to scandal. He didn?t have an affair. He didn?t embezzle church funds. He stopped believing in Hell. Following a revelation, he began to preach that a loving God would not condemn most of the human race to burn in the fires of Hell for eternity. Shocked, the Pentecostal community made him an outcast. This book is the story of one man's turning his back on fifty-plus years of religious teachings and on a ?family? of millions to preach a new truth?The Gospel of Inclusion. In this book, Pearson shows that all of God's children are already saved by the sacrifice of Christ?gays, Muslims, Jews, atheists, everyone. Weaving theology, biblical scholarship and cultural history, Pearson asserts that the dogma of Hell is nothing more than a device to control the faithful, that authoritarian religion is at the heart of the world's troubles, that God is not a Christian, but indeed belongs to all humankind.