Recognizing only key terms relating to predestination or the five points, many Christians want a better explanation of the concepts and beliefs that make up a Reformed perspective. What is Reformed Theology? is an introduction to a doctrine that has eluded so many evangelical Christians. And who better to teach about Reformed theology than R. C. Sproul? In thoroughly expounding the foundational doctrines and five points, Sproul asserts the reality of God's amazing grace. For anyone wanting to know more about Reformed theology, this candid book offers a coherent and complete introduction to an established belief.

    Can we trust the Bible completely? Is it sufficient for our complicated lives? Can we really know what it teaches? And isn't it more important to focus on Jesus instead of the Bible?With his characteristic wit and clarity, Kevin DeYoung has written an accessible introduction to the Bible that answers important questions raised by Christians and non-Christians alike. This book will help readers understand what the Bible says about itself and the key characteristics that contribute to its lasting significance. Avoiding technical jargon, this winsome volume will encourage men and women to read and believe the Bible--confident that it truly is God's word.Free Study Guide by Pat Quinn.

    How can Yahweh be the same God as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ? What does genocide in the Bible have to do with the politics of the 21st century?Show Them No Mercy explores the Old Testament command of God to exterminate the Canaanite population and what that implies about continuity between the Old and New Testaments. The four views presented are:Strong Discontinuity – emphasizes the strong tension, regarding violence, between the two main texts of the Bible (C.S. Cowles)Moderate Discontinuity – provides a justification of God’s actions in the Old Testament with strong emphasis on exegesis (Eugene H. Merrill)Eschatological Continuity – a reading of the warfare narratives that ties them contextually to the book of Revelation and the Second Coming (Daniel L. Gard)Spiritual Continuity – incorporates the genocidal account into the full picture of the Old and New Testaments (Tremper Longman III)The Counterpoints series presents a comparison and critique of scholarly views on topics important to Christians that are both fair-minded and respectful of the biblical text. Each volume is a one-stop reference that allows readers to evaluate the different positions on a specific issue and form their own, educated opinion.

    But even so, the Christian faith includes many controversial beliefs that non-Christians find hard to accept. This book explores 12 issues that might cause someone to dismiss orthodox Christianity--issues such as the existence of suffering, the Bible's teaching on gender and sexuality, the reality of heaven and hell, the authority of the Bible, and more. Showing how the best research from sociology, science, and psychology doesn't disagree with but actually aligns with claims found in the Bible, these chapters help skeptics understand why these issues are signposts, rather than roadblocks, to faith in Christ.

    In this classic, one of the most brilliant Christian thinkers of our times and author of the acclaimed The Spirit of Disciplines, Dallas Willard, skillfully weaves together biblical teaching, popular culture, science, scholarship, and spiritual practice, revealing what it means to "apprentice" ourselves to Jesus. Using Jesus’s Sermon of the Mount as his foundation, Willard masterfully explores life-changing ways to experience and be guided by God on a daily basis, resulting in a more authentic and dynamic faith.

    Isn't it full of regressive views? Didn't it condone slavery? Why look to the Bible for guidance on how to have a more just society? But Timothy Keller sees it another way. In Generous Justice, Keller explores a life of justice empowered by an experience of grace: a generous, gracious justice. Here is a book for believers who find the Bible a trustworthy guide as well as those who suspect that Christianity is a regressive influence in the world.Keller's church, founded in the eighties with fewer than one hundred congregants, is now exponentially larger. More than five thousand people regularly attend Sunday services, and another twenty-five thousand download Keller's sermons each week. A recent profile in New York magazine described his typical sermon as "a mix of biblical scholarship, pop culture, and whatever might have caught his eye in The New York Review of Books or on Salon.com that week." In short, Timothy Keller speaks a language that many thousands of people yearn to comprehend. In Generous Justice, he offers them a new understanding of modern justice and human rights.

    I. Packer's classic has been an important tool to help Christians around the world discover the wonder, the glory and the joy of knowing God. In 2006, Christianity Today voted this title one of the top 50 books that have shaped evangelicals. This edition is updated with Americanized language and spelling and a new preface by the author. Stemming from Packer's profound theological knowledge, Knowing God brings together two important facets of the Christian faith: 1. Knowing about God and 2. Knowing God through the context of a close relationship with the person of Jesus Christ. Written in an engaging and practical tone, this thought-provoking work seeks to transform and enrich the Christian understanding of God. Explaining both who God is and how we can relate to him, Packer divides his book into three sections: The first directs our attention to how and why we know God, the second to the attributes of God and the third to the benefits enjoyed by a those who know him intimately. This guide leads readers into a greater understanding of God while providing advice to gaining a closer relationship with him as a result.

    He takes cues from preachers and teachers down through the ages, setting key doctrines of creation, the person and work of Christ, and life in the Spirit into a simple framework of the Christian life. A rich and enjoyable read on the basic beliefs of Christianity that avoids dumbing down its profound and life changing truths.

    It brings alive the people, dramatic events, and ideas that shaped the first fifteen centuries of Europe, such as the Spanish and Portuguese conquest of the New World. Historian Justo Gonzalez shows how various social, political, and economic movements affected Christianity's internal growth.Gonzalez skillfully weaves in relevant details from the lives of prominent figures from the apostles to John Wycliffe, tracing out core theological issues and developments as reflected in the lives and struggles of leading thinkers within the various traditions of the church. "The history of the church, while showing all the characteristics fo human history, is much more than the history of an institution or movement," Gonzalez stresses. "It is a history of the deeds of the spirit in and through the men and women who have gone before in the faith." The Story of Christianity demonstrates at each point what new challenges and opportunities faced the church, and how Christians struggled with the various options open to them, thereby shaping the future direction of the church.The Story of Christianity will serve as a fascinating introduction to the panoramic history of Christianity for students and teachers of church history, for pastors, and for general readers.

    Gregory Koukl demonstrates how to get in the driver's seat, keeping any conversation moving with thoughtful, artful diplomacy. You'll learn how to maneuver comfortably and graciously through the minefields, stop challengers in their tracks, turn the tables and—most importantly—get people thinking about Jesus. Soon, your conversations will look more like diplomacy than D-Day. Drawing on extensive experience defending Christianity in the public square, Koukl shows you how to:- Initiate conversations effortlessly- Present the truth clearly, cleverly, and persuasively- Graciously and effectively expose faulty thinking- Skillfully manage the details of dialogue- Maintain an engaging, disarming style even under attackTactics provides the game plan for communicating the compelling truth about Christianity with confidence and grace.

    This book by Jamie Smith is a small field guide to Taylor's genealogy of the secular, making it accessible to a wide array of readers. Smith's How (Not) to Be Secular is also, however, a philosophical guidebook for practitioners a kind of how-to manual that ultimately offers guidance on how to live in a secular age. It's an adventure in self-understanding and a way to get our bearings in postmodernity. Whether one is proclaiming faith to the secularized or is puzzled that there continue to be people of faith in this day and age, this is a philosophical story meant to help us locate where we are and what's at stake.

    But why have efforts to change the world by Christians so often failed or gone tragically awry? And how might Christians in the 21st century live in ways that have integrity with their traditions and are more truly transformative? In To Change the World, James Davison Hunter offers persuasive—and provocative—answers to these questions.Hunter begins with a penetrating appraisal of the most popular models of world-changing among Christians today, highlighting the ways they are inherently flawed and therefore incapable of generating the change to which they aspire. Because change implies power, all Christian eventually embrace strategies of political engagement. Hunter offers a trenchant critique of the political theologies of the Christian Right and Left and the Neo-Anabaptists, taking on many respected leaders, from Charles Colson to Jim Wallis and Stanley Hauerwas. Hunter argues that all too often these political theologies worsen the very problems they are designed to solve. What is really needed is a different paradigm of Christian engagement with the world, one that Hunter calls "faithful presence"—an ideal of Christian practice that is not only individual but institutional; a model that plays out not only in all relationships but in our work and all spheres of social life. He offers real-life examples, large and small, of what can be accomplished through the practice of "faithful presence." Such practices will be more fruitful, Hunter argues, more exemplary, and more deeply transfiguring than any more overtly ambitious attempts can ever be.Written with keen insight, deep faith, and profound historical grasp, To Change the World will forever change the way Christians view and talk about their role in the modern world.

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    He reflects that there are ultimately only three philosophies of life and each one is represented by one of these books of the Bible—life is vanity; life is suffering; life is love.In these three books Kreeft shows how we have Dante's great epic The Divine Comedy played out, from Hell to Purgatory to Heaven. But it is an epic played out in our hearts and lives, here and now. Just as there is movement in Dante's epic, so there is movement in these books, from Ecclesiates to Job, from Job to Song of Songs. Love is the final answer to Ecclesiastes' quest, the alternative to vanity, and the true meaning of life. Finally, Kreeft sees in these books the epitome of theological virtues of faith, hope and love and "an essential summary of the spiritual history of the world".

    Join Dr. Bryan Litfin as he guides you through Scripture and other ancient literature to sift fact from fiction, real-life from legend. Skillfully researched and clearly written, After Acts is as accurate as it is engaging. Gain a window into the religious milieu of the ancient and medieval church. Unearth artifacts and burial sites. Learn what really happened to your favorite characters and what you should truly remember them for.Did Paul ever make it to Spain' Was he beheaded in Rome'Is it true that Peter was crucified upside down'Was the Virgin Mary really bodily assumed into heaven'The book of Acts ends at chapter 28. But its characters lived on.