A young wife meets her daily struggles with equanimity and courage. She holds poverty and hunger at bay, fights to keep her child healthy and strong, and navigates the unpredictability of her husband's temperament. But into the midst of her daily fears and worries, a new hope appears: a teaching that challenges her society's most basic assumption. What is this new teaching? And what will it demand of her? In this gripping novel, Holly Beers introduces us to the first-century setting where the apostle Paul first proclaimed the gospel. Illuminated by historical images and explanatory sidebars, this lively story not only shows us the rich tapestry of life in a thriving Greco-Roman city, it also foregrounds the interior life of one courageous woman--and the radical new freedom the gospel promised her.

    The sun fled. From noon until three, the darkness of death hovered over the hill where the Son of God was dying. As Christians, we know the story well?the nails in His hands, the thorns on His head, the gambling soldiers, the taunting thieves.Charles Swindoll invites us to "return with me to those epochal days when our Lord walked into the awful darkness?which He did not deserve?only to arise into the sunlit dawn of triumph, providing us a victory from which we shall never know defeat." Go with him and you will find that, as only he can, Dr. Swindoll uncovers new meaning in the Cross and the Resurrection for those who face death and darkness today. His fresh perspectives on these core events of faith can help you see beyond the darkness to the new light of dawn.