Dr. Stephen De Young, creator of the popular The Whole Counsel of God blog and podcast, traces the lineage of Orthodox Christianity back to the faith and witness of the apostles, which was rooted in a first-century Jewish worldview. The Religion of the Apostles presents the Orthodox Christian Church of today as a continuation of the religious life of the apostles, which in turn was a continuation of the life of the people of God since the beginning of creation.

    An achievement in 'narrative theology, ' illuminating the social world of Jesus from rich sources and imaginative reconstruction, this book combines scholarship and story.

    The more unusual the portrait, the more it departs from the traditional view of Jesus, the more attention it gets in the popular media. Why are scholars so prone to fabricate a new Jesus? Why is the public so eager to accept such claims without question? What methods and assumptions predispose scholars to distort the record? Is there a more sober approach to finding the real Jesus? Commenting on such recent releases as Bart Ehrman's Misquoting Jesus, James Tabor's The Jesus Dynasty, Michael Baigent's The Jesus Papers and The Gospel of Judas, for which he served as an advisory board member to the National Geographic Society, Craig Evans offers a sane approach to examining the sources for understanding the historical Jesus.

    Ched Myers has produced a commentary that is potentially as revolutionary as the very gospel account it portrays." — Sojorners"Myers has produced a commanding and coherent political commentary on the Gospel of Mark, distinguished in its grasp of biblical and social scientific scholarship and amazing lucid in its style and argument... A cogent and venturesome biblical embodiment of liberation theology." — Norman K. Gottwald"Twenty years later Binding the Strong Man still has the ability to push its readers into a fresh new perspective on what it means to be in discipleship with the Human One who seeks to realize the Reign of God in our social, historical, spiritual, and political landscape." — Brian Blount, President, Union Theological Seminary"This book is a primary source used the Holy Spirit Among Us for the building of the Beloved Community of God on earth as it is heaven." — Ed Loring, The Open Door CommunitySince its publication in 1998, Binding the Strong Man has been widely recognized as a landmark in contemporary biblical criticism. Applying a multidisciplinary approach called "socio-literary method," Myers integrates literary criticism, socio-historical exegesis, and political hermeneutics in his investigation of Mark as a "manifesto of radical discipleship."

    And while many people are encouraged to know that the Bible is about Christ, they end up discouraged when they can't explain how the Bible's various parts relate to him. Some attempt to force the pieces of the Bible together, making superficial jumps to Jesus. Others give up trying to understand the Bible altogether, losing confidence in God's Word.So, how can we read the Bible in such way as to grow in the knowledge of Jesus Christ on every page of Scripture? We need a full reading of Scripture, one that reads the Bible according to its nature, its structure, and its own agenda. You'll learn how to: read the Bible according to according to three biblical contexts: the immediate context, the unfolding context, and the final context recognize how different parts of the Bible interlock with other parts of the Bible, fitting together like a puzzle embrace the story of the Bible as our own, to live this story out, and to share this story with our neighbors and the nations Along the way, Wellum and Hunter explore the connecting thread of covenant and how it ties several key biblical figures together. They also unpack some of the trickier questions Bible readers face today including how the Old Testament law applies today as well as several apologetic challenges to the Old Testament. For the first time, you will be able to see the Bible's multi-layered story and how it is held together by one plan of God to glorify himself in salvation. You'll come away with a clearer and more profound vision of our own need as sinners, of God in all of his grace, and of Jesus in all of his glory.X

    Tracing the significance of the concept of "covenant" through both the Old and New Testaments, this book charts a middle way between covenant theology and dispensationalism--exploring the covenantal framework undergirding the history of redemption.

     What is my purpose in life? What is a good life? Why is there so much wrong with our world? What can I do to help make it right? These are some of the big questions that everyone must answer. And any lasting change in our lives will start with a change to one or more of our answers to these questions.    Jesus changed the life of every person he met in the Gospels, through powerful experiences and words that led them to unexpected and transforming answers to their big questions. These conversations can still address our questions and doubts today. Originally published as an eSeries, Encounters with Jesus focuses on several of these meetings — including with a skeptical student, a religious insider, an outcast, even Jesus’ mother — and shows how the central events in Jesus’ life provide ways for us to encounter him again or for the first time.

    He believes that many modern translations take liberties with the biblical text that would not be allowed with any other type of literary work. Also, what readers are presented with as biblical text is actually far from the original text. In literature, a simplified version of Milton's work is not Milton, and neither is an edition written in contemporary English. Anyone who is interested in Milton would find any version that changes his words unacceptable for serious study. Ryken argues that the same dedication to reproducing literature texts as closely as possible needs to be present in biblical translation. To do so it is necessary to take into account the difficulty of working with original languages. Only an essentially literal, "word for word" translation of the Bible can achieve sufficiently high standards in terms of literary criteria and fidelity to the original text.Ryken does not contest that many modern translations have been used for good, and believes that there is a place for a range of Bible translations, including children's Bibles and Bible paraphrases. His purpose is not to say that the only Bible available should be one that is essentially literal. Instead, he defines the translation theory and principles that would result in the best Bible for English-speaking people and serious students of the Bible, and also for the English-speaking church as a whole. He believes that an essentially literal translation is the natural result of following these principles.Along with a short history of translation, Ryken evaluates presuppositions that impact translation theory. He also examines fallacies about the Bible, translations in general, and Bible readers that influence what translation decisions are made. Believing that those who undertake the serious work of translating God's Word have an obligation both to God and to others, he assesses the theological, ethical, and hermeneutical issues involved and surveys difficulties with modern translations. Ryken's literary expertise gives him the perspective needed to provide Christians with a standard for comparing contemporary Bible translations, as well as an understanding of why some translations may not convey the very words of God.

    As the youngest-ever op-ed columnist for The New York Times and the author of the critically acclaimed books Privilege and Grand New Party, Ross Douthat has emerged as one of the most provocative and influential voices of his generation. Now he offers a masterful and hard-hitting account of how American Christianity has gone off the rails — and why it threatens to take American society with it.In a story that moves from the 1950s to the age of Obama, Douthat brilliantly charts traditional Christianity’s decline from a vigorous, mainstream, and bipartisan faith — which acted as a “vital center” and the moral force behind the Civil Rights movement — through the culture wars of the 1960s and 1970s down to the polarizing debates of the present day. He argues that Christianity’s place in American life has increasingly been taken over, not by atheism, but by heresy: Debased versions of Christian faith that breed hubris, greed, and self-absorption. Ranging from Glenn Beck to Eat Pray Love, Joel Osteen to The Da Vinci Code, Oprah Winfrey to Sarah Palin, Douthat explores how the prosperity gospel’s mantra of “pray and grow rich”; a cult of self-esteem that reduces God to a life coach; and the warring political religions of left and right have crippled the country’s ability to confront our most pressing challenges, and accelerated American decline.His urgent call for a revival of traditional Christianity is sure to generate controversy, and it will be vital reading for all those concerned about the imperiled American future.

    This third edition is revised throughout.

    To understand Christ correctly is to understand the very heart of God, Scripture, and the gospel. To get to the core of this belief, this latest volume in the Foundations of Evangelical Theology series lays out a systematic summary of Christology from philosophical, biblical, and historical perspectives--concluding that Jesus Christ is God the Son incarnate, both fully divine and fully human. Readers will learn to better know, love, trust, and obey Christ--unashamed to proclaim him as the only Lord and Savior.Part of the Foundations of Evangelical Theology series.

    Although the position is for which it argues was hardly new, having already taken shape in several of his theological essays written during the 1920s, it is nevertheless the classic formulation of this position and as such incomparable in the Bultmann corpus.

    Gregory of Nyssa This great spiritual master of the fourth century was born as the general persecution of Christians was ending. One of the Greek Cappadocian Fathers (the other two were Gregory's brother, St. Basil the Great, and their mutual friend, St. Gregory Nazianzen), Gregory has come to be regarded increasingly as the most brilliant and subtle thinker and most profound mystical teacher of the three. Whether or not one agrees with Jean Danielou who saw Gregory as the founder of mystical importance within the Christian tradition.The Life of Moses has special significance because it reflects Gregory's spiritual sense of the Scriptures. He maintained that the ultimate purpose of the Bible was not its historical teachings but its capacity for elevating the soul to God. Gregory saw the totality of the spiritual life as an epektasis, a continual growth or straining ahead, as in the words of St. Paul, Forgetting the past, I strain for what is still to come. Gregory frames an immensely significant synthesis of the earlier Hellenistic and Jewish traditions in this work. He describes the spiritual ascent as taking place in three stages, symbolized by the Lord's revelation of Himself to Moses, first in light, then in the cloud and, finally, in the dark. This translation and introduction, winner of the Christian Research Foundation Award, has been expertly rendered by Professors Abraham Malherbe of Yale University and Everett Ferguson of Abilene Christian University.

    Questions about the factuality of its colorful stories of heroes, villains, and kings, for example, have led many critics to see the entire Hebrew Bible as little more than pious fiction. In this fascinating book, noted ancient historian K. A. Kitchen takes strong issue with today's "revisionist" critics and offers a firm foundation for the historicity of the biblical texts. In a detailed, comprehensive, and entertaining manner, Kitchen draws on an unprecedented range of historical data from the ancient Near East -- the Bible's own world -- and uses it to soundly reassess both the biblical record and the critics who condemn it. Working back from the latest periods (for which hard evidence is readily available) to the remotest times, Kitchen systematically shows up the many failures of favored arguments against the Bible and marshals pertinent permanent evidence from antiquity's inscriptions and artifacts to demonstrate the basic honesty of the Old Testament writers.  Enhanced with numerous tables, figures, and maps, On the Reliability of the Old Testament is a must-read for anyone interested in the question of biblical truth.

    But the Bible's story comes not from humanity, but from God. Author, T. Desmond Alexander, suggests that God has given us the reasons for creation and our existence in the Bible. "by resolving an intricate plot that sheds light on the entire story," Alexander writes. Using this theory to start from the denouement, or resolution, in Revelation's last verses and work backward, Alexander pieces together the Bible's overarching plot. The resulting picture reveals the reasons for creation and life that have eluded those who seek to answer life's biggest questions without first placing themselves in God's story.