Scott opens a door into the Jewish world and literature leading up to the development of Christianity. He also offers an accessible overview of the data through helpful charts, maps, and diagrams incorporated throughout the text to engage his readers.

    In the modern church it tends to be the last part of the Bible that anyone looks at seriously. Because Leviticus is largely concerned with subjects that seem incomprehensible and irrelevant today — rituals for sacrifice and regulations concerning uncleanness — it appears to have nothing to say to twenty-first-century Christians. In this excellent commentary on Leviticus, Gordon Wenham takes with equal seriousness both the plain original meaning of the text and its abiding theological value. To aid in reconstructing the original meaning of the text, Wenham draws from studies of Old Testament ritual and sacrifice that compare and contrast biblical customs with the practices of other Near Eastern cultures. He also closely examines the work of social anthropologists and expertly utilizes the methods of literary criticism to bring out the biblical author’s special interests. In pursuit of his second aim, to illumine the enduring theological value of Leviticus, Wenham discusses at the end of each section how the Old Testament passages relate to the New Testament and to contemporary Christianity. In doing so, he not only shows how pervasive Levitical ideas are in the New Testament but also highlights in very practical ways the enduring claim of God’s call to holiness on the lives of Christians today.

    He points out that the Psalms are poems, intended to be sung, not doctrinal treatises or sermons. Proceeding with his characteristic grace, he guides readers through both the form and the meaning of these beloved passages in the Bible.

    Unfortunately she finds herself about to be sacrificed. Someone must have told her evil master about her plans to kill him and take over. After that, things just seem to go downhill. She has no choice but to escape the kingdom of Zual, something that to her knowledge has never been done before. She will need to deal with many issues she never had to face before. Among those issues, the white mages, and her conscience. Note: This is a standalone book, not the beginning of a series.

    Paul is known throughout the world as the first Christian writer, authoring fourteen of the twenty-seven books in the New Testament. But as Karen Armstrong demonstrates in St. Paul: The Apostle We Love to Hate, he also exerted a more significant influence on the spread of Christianity throughout the world than any other figure in history. It was Paul who established the first Christian churches in Europe and Asia in the first century, Paul who transformed a minor sect into the largest religion produced by Western civilization, and Paul who advanced the revolutionary idea that Christ could serve as a model for the possibility of transcendence. While we know little about some aspects of the life of St. Paul—his upbringing, the details of his death—his dramatic vision of God on the road to Damascus is one of the most powerful stories in the history of Christianity, and the life that followed forever changed the course of history.

    This accessible biography chronicles Wilberforce's extraordinary role as a human rights activist, cultural reformer, and member of Parliament.At the center of this heroic life was a passionate twenty-year fight to abolish the British slave trade, a battle Wilberforce won in 1807, as well as efforts to abolish slavery itself in the British colonies, a victory achieved just three days before his death in 1833.Metaxas discovers in this unsung hero a man of whom it can truly be said: he changed the world. Before Wilberforce, few thought slavery was wrong. After Wilberforce, most societies in the world came to see it as a great moral wrong.To mark the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the British slave trade, HarperSanFrancisco and Bristol Bay Productions have joined together to commemorate the life of William Wilberforce with the feature-length film Amazing Grace and this companion biography, which provides a fuller account of the amazing life of this great man than can be captured on film.This account of Wilberforce's life will help many become acquainted with an exceptional man who was a hero to Abraham Lincoln and an inspiration to the anti-slavery movement in America.

    For frankness, directness, intensity and intimacy, they are unrivaled in all of Scripture. Somehow the psalmists seem to have anticipated all our awe, desires and frustrations. No wonder Christians have used the Psalms in worship from the earliest times to the present. Yet the Psalms cause us difficulties when we look at them closely. Their poetry is unfamiliar in form. Many images they use are foreign to us today. And the psalmists sometimes express thoughts that seem unworthy of Scripture. Tremper Longman gives us the kind of help we need to overcome the distance between the psalmists' world and ours. He explains the various kinds of psalms, the way they were used in Hebrew worship and their relationship to the rest of the Old Testament. Then he looks at how Christians can appropriate their message and insights today. Turning to the art of Old Testament poetry, he explains the use of parallelism and imagery. Step-by-step suggestions for interpretating the psalms on our own are followed by exercises for further study and reflection. Also included is a helpful guide to commentaries on the Psalms. Here is a book for all those who long to better understand these mirrors of the soul.

    The apostle Paul found that spiritual closeness in his own fellowship with the Father. "A Call to Spiritual Reformation" investigates the Epistles, claiming that Christians today can still achieve the confidence Paul enjoyed by following his life-shaping principles and searching for a deeper devotional experience. (67)

    delivered his famous "I Have a Dream" speech, calling on all Americans to view others not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. Yet King included another powerful word, one that is often overlooked. Warning against the "tranquilizing drug of gradualism," King emphasized the fierce urgency of now, the need to resist the status quo and take immediate action.King's call to action, first issued over fifty years ago, is relevant for the church in America today. Churches remain racially segregated and are largely ineffective in addressing complex racial challenges. In The Color of Compromise, Jemar Tisby takes us back to the root of this injustice in the American church, highlighting the cultural and institutional tables we have to flip in order to bring about progress between black and white people.Tisby provides a unique survey of American Christianity's racial past, revealing the concrete and chilling ways people of faith have worked against racial justice. Understanding our racial history sets the stage for solutions, but until we understand the depth of the malady we won't fully embrace the aggressive treatment it requires. Given the centuries of Christian compromise with bigotry, believers today must be prepared to tear down old structures and build up new ones. This book provides an in-depth diagnosis for a racially divided American church and suggests ways to foster a more equitable and inclusive environment among God's people.

    What happens after you die? What happens if you die with Christ or without Christ? What happens when Jesus returns if you have or haven’t accepted Christ? What exactly comes next?Randy Frazee, popular pastor of Oak Hills Church and general editor of the wildly successful Believe and The Story programs, answers these questions and more. Born out of a deeply personal search for truth after the death of his mother, What Happens After You Die is a straightforward exploration of what the Bible says about life after death. From heaven and hell to the Lake of Fire and the actual presence of God, Frazee uncovers what is simply cultural tradition and what is truly biblical. He shows readers not only the death Jesus came to save us from but the life he came to save us for.Based on a teaching series that has had more online views than any other series Frazee has done to date, What Happens After You Die is a guide to the perennial questions about life and death, what comes next, and how we should live until then.

    Maybe you already know that. The question is, does adolescence really need to be a frustrating time for parents and teenagers? If your child isn’t a teenager yet, can you make preparations now to avoid many of the pitfalls parents of adolescents go through? With so much information and differing viewpoints, how can a parent really know that they are "doing it right?”In Feeding The Mouth That Bites You, Dr. Ken Wilgus outlines a clear and practical path through the confusion of parenting adolescents in today’s world. Engaging, accessible, and funny, Feeding The Mouth That Bites You summarizes Dr. Wilgus’s best teachings on how to parent teenagers, collected over twenty-five years of work with adolescents and their families as well as two decades of teaching on parenting.Though trends and technology will always change, the adolescent need for autonomy remains the one foundational issue that is the largest obstacle to a healthy parent/teenager relationship. Feeding The Mouth That Bites You explains this need and the effect it has on a wide range of teenage behavior. Dr. Wilgus clearly outlines his method for safely and effectively meeting this need: Planned Emancipation. Once parents clearly understand adolescents’ needs and know how to respond, parenting a teenager becomes much less frustrating. Even their teenagers join in to help out!Knowing what your teenager needs and being able to provide for that need is truly the art of Feeding The Mouth That Bites You.

    Drawing on cutting-edge historical and archeological research, he traces the story of how, when, and why Jews and Christians gradually granted authority to texts that had long lay dormant in a dusty temple archive. The Bible, Satlow maintains, was not the consecrated book it is now until quite late in its history. He describes how elite scribes in the eighth and seventh centuries B.C.E. began the process that led to the creation of several of our biblical texts. It was not until these were translated into Greek in Egypt in the second century B.C.E., however, that some Jews began to see them as culturally authoritative, comparable to Homer’s works in contemporary Greek society. Then, in the first century B.C.E. in Israel, political machinations resulted in the Sadducees assigning legal power to the writings. We see how the world Jesus was born into was largely biblically illiterate and how he knew very little about the texts upon which his apostles would base his spiritual leadership. Synthesizing an enormous body of scholarly work, Satlow’s groundbreaking study offers provocative new assertions about commonly accepted interpretations of biblical history as well as a unique window into how two of the world’s great faiths came into being.

    With examples from history, a brief but thorough exploration of the major interpretations, and a look into the particular significance of the creation of human beings, Lennox suggests that Christians can heed modern scientific knowledge while staying faithful to the biblical narrative. He moves beyond a simple response to the controversy, insisting that Genesis teaches us far more about the God of Jesus Christ and about God’s intention for creation than it does about the age of the earth. With this book, Lennox offers a careful yet accessible introduction to a scientifically-savvy, theologically-astute, and Scripturally faithful interpretation of Genesis.

    Over two volumes, author Gregory A. Boyd argues that we must take seriously the full range of Scripture as inspired, and the centrality of the crucified and risen Christ as the supreme revelation of God.

    Palmer Robertson presents the richness of a covenantal approach to understanding the Bible. He treats the Old Testament covenants from a successive standpoint--that each covenant builds on the previous one.