This stunning biography looks at the German religious reformer and his influence on Western civilization.

    After traveling the globe and speaking to thousands of churches worldwide, Paul David Tripp has discovered a serious problem within pastoral culture.He is not only concerned about the spiritual life of the pastor, but also with the very community of people that trains him, calls him, relates to him, and restores him if necessary.Dangerous Calling reveals the truth that the culture surrounding our pastors is spiritually unhealthy--an environment that actively undermines the wellbeing and efficacy of our church leaders and thus the entire church body.Here is a book that both diagnoses and offers cures for issues that impact every member and church leader, and gives solid strategies for fighting the all-important war that rages in our churches today.

    During these seven decades, more than 130 men were enrolled in Geneva's Venerable Company of Pastors (as it was called), including notable reformed leaders such as Pierre Viret, Theodore Beza, Simon Goulart, Lambert Daneau, and Jean Diodati. Aside from these better-known epigones, Geneva's pastors from this period remain hidden from view, cloaked in Calvin's long shadow, even though they played a strategic role in preserving and reshaping Calvin's pastoral legacy.Making extensive use of archival materials, published sermons, catechisms, prayer books, personal correspondence, and theological writings, Manetsch offers an engaging and vivid portrait of pastoral life in sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century Geneva, exploring the manner in which Geneva's ministers conceived of their pastoral office and performed their daily responsibilities of preaching, public worship, moral discipline, catechesis, administering the sacraments, and pastoral care. Manetsch demonstrates that Calvin and his colleagues were much more than ivory tower theologians or quasi-agents of the state, concerned primarily with dispensing theological information to their congregations or enforcing magisterial authority. Rather, they saw themselves as spiritual shepherds of Christ's Church, and this self-understanding shaped to a significant degree their daily work as pastors and preachers.

    It is called to look like a corporate Jesus, dying on the cross for those who crucified him, not a religious version of Caesar. It is called to manifest the kingdom of the cross in contrast to the kingdom of the sword. Whenever the church has succeeded in gaining what most American evangelicals are now trying to get – political power – it has been disastrous both for the church and the culture. Whenever the church picks up the sword, it lays down the cross. The present activity of the religious right is destroying the heart and soul of the evangelical church and destroying its unique witness to the world. The church is to have a political voice, but we are to have it the way Jesus had it: by manifesting an alternative to the political, “power over,” way of doing life. We are to transform the world by being willing to suffer for others – exercising “power under,” not by getting our way in society – exercising “power over.”

    Spurgeon (1834-1892) is best-remembered today for the remarkable ministry he exercised in London during the Victorian era. His influence was incalculable. Thousands listened to his preaching every week, while hundreds of thousands throughout the world later read his sermons in published form. A man of great natural gifts, charm and wit, Spurgeons master passion was evident in everything he did to preach Jesus Christ to all as the only Saviour. But as early as 1855 this brought him into a serious and prolonged doctrinal controversy with Hyper-Calvinism. By tracing this conflict, exploring the issues involved in it and showing what was at stake in them.

    In "The Body," Chuck Colson sounds a clarion call for the church to rise above sectarian divisions and market-driven programs and to be once again the people of God. "Why does Christianity fail to make a visible difference in the lives of so many believers?" Colson dares to ask. "Why, in the midst of a surge of religious interest and activity, do moral values continue to plummet?" Sucked into the tastes and values of secular culture, many Christians today have a "McChurch" mentality. They expect the church to cater to their felt needs with a broad menu of quick fixes and entertaining programs. For all God's people who are discontent with such a low view of the Body of Christ, this book offers a refreshing, invigorating challenge that can inspire us to rise above a stunted Jesus-and-me faith and reclaim God's holy vision for His church.

    A challenging look at today's evangelical church in the light of the early Christians.

    Dr. Timothy Paul Jones gives easy-to-understand answers to popular questions on the Bible's reliability and accuracy.

    What shapes the message of the church? The Bible and Spirit? Or society and culture? Os Guinness points out perils of compromise in the church growth movement.

    But you might not love what you think.In this book, award-winning author James K. A. Smith shows that who and what we worship fundamentally shape our hearts. And while we desire to shape culture, we are not often aware of how culture shapes us. We might not realize the ways our hearts are being taught to love rival gods instead of the One for whom we were made. Smith helps readers recognize the formative power of culture and the transformative possibilities of Christian practices. He explains that worship is the "imagination station" that incubates our loves and longings so that our cultural endeavors are indexed toward God and his kingdom. This is why the church and worshiping in a local community of believers should be the hub and heart of Christian formation and discipleship.Following the publication of his influential work Desiring the Kingdom, Smith received numerous requests from pastors and leaders for a more accessible version of that book's content. No mere abridgment, this new book draws on years of Smith's popular presentations on the ideas presented in Desiring the Kingdom to offer a fresh, bottom-up rearticulation. The author creatively uses film, literature, and music illustrations to engage readers and includes material on marriage, family, youth ministry, and faith and work. He also suggests individual and communal practices for shaping the Christian life.

    The volume includes substantial excerpts from notable women theologians and from black and liberation perspectives, plus a new section from deceased theologians such as Thomas Merton, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Karl Rahner. Each passage is prefaced by detailed introductory comments on the life and thought of each theologian and the significance of his/her work.

    Is it time to consider the Reformation to be a 500-year experiment gone wrong?World-renowned evangelical theologian Kevin Vanhoozer thinks not. While he sees recent critiques as legitimate, he argues that retrieving the Reformation's core principles offers an answer to critics of Protestant biblical interpretation. Vanhoozer explores how a proper reappropriation of the five solas—sola gratia (grace alone), sola fide (faith alone), sola scriptura (Scripture alone), solus Christus (in Christ alone), and sola Deo gloria (for the glory of God alone)—offers the tools to constrain biblical interpretation and establish interpretive authority. He offers a positive assessment of the Reformation, showing how a retrieval of "mere Protestant Christianity" has the potential to reform contemporary Christian belief and practice.This provocative response and statement from a top theologian is accessibly written for pastors and church leaders.

    Orthodoxy continues to be a subject of enormous interest among Western Christians and the author believes that an understanding of its standpoint is necessary before the Roman Catholic and Protestant Churches can be reunited. In this newly revised and updated edition he explains the Orthodox views on widely ranging matters as Ecumenical Councils, Sacraments, Free Will, Purgatory, the Papacy and the relationship between the different Orthodox churches.In Part One he describes the history of the Eastern Church over the last two thousand years with particular reference to its problems in twentieth-century Russia: and in Part Two he explains the beliefs and worship of the Orthodox Church today. Finally, he considers the possibilities of reunion between the East and the West. In this latest edition, he takes full account of the totally new situation confronting Eastern Christians since the collapse of Communism.

    But do you understand it?The Apostles’ Creed has united Christians from different times, places, and traditions. It proclaims eternal truths for life today. We believe them, we recite them, but do we build our lives on them?The fact that so many in the early church died for their faith means they were caught up in something greater than themselves. What were those truths? How did they empower a revolution? How did early church pastors and theologians use the Apostles’ Creed as the essential guide to the basics of the Christian life?Ben Myers re-introduces that creed. He shows us what about the Christian faith is so counter-cultural, and what truths embedded in the Apostles’ Creed we’ve come to assume, when really they should amaze us and earn our allegiance unto death.

    The author calls the present-day church to once again be the contrast society, which attracts non-believers by living what it preaches and by being different without being narrowly sectarian.