Download or read book The Holy Spirit Before Christianity written by John R. Levison and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With his latest book, The Holy Spirit before Christianity, John R. Levison again changes the face and foundation of Christian belief in the Holy Spirit. The categories Christians have used, the boundaries they have created, the proprietary claims they have made--all of these evaporate, now that Levison has looked afresh at Scripture. In a study that is both poignant and provocative, Levison takes readers back five hundred years before Jesus, where he discovers history's first grasp of the Holy Spirit as a personal agent. The prophet Haggai and the author of Isaiah 56-66, in their search for ways to grapple with the tragic events of exile and to articulate hope for the future, took up old exodus traditions of divine agents--pillars of fire, an angel, God's own presence--and fused them with belief in God's Spirit. Since it was the Spirit of God who led Israel up from Egypt and formed them into a holy nation, now, the prophets assured their hearers, the Spirit of God would lead and renew those returning from exile. Taking this point of origin as our guide, Christian pneumatology--belief in the Holy Spirit--is less about an exclusively Christian experience or doctrine and more about the presence of God in the grand scheme of Israel's history, in which Christianity is ancient Israel's heir. This explosive observation traces the essence of Christian pneumatology deep into the heart of the Hebrew Scriptures. The implications are fierce: the priority of Israelite tradition at the headwaters of pneumatology means that Christians can no longer hold stubbornly to the Holy Spirit as an exclusively Christian belief. But the implications are hopeful as well, offering Christians a richer history, a renewed vocabulary, a shared path with Judaism, and the promise of a more expansive and authentic experience of the Holy Spirit.
Download or read book The Holy Spirit and Christian Experience written by Simeon Zahl and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2020-06-11 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In The Holy Spirit and Christian Experience, Simeon Zahl presents a fresh vision for Christian theology that foregrounds the relationship between theological ideas and the experiences of Christians. He argues that theology is always operating in a vibrant landscape of feeling and desiring, and shows that contemporary theology has often operated in problematic isolation from these experiential dynamics. He then argues that a theologically serious doctrine of the Holy Spirit not only authorizes but requires attention to Christian experience. Against this background, Zahl outlines a new methodological approach to Christian theology that attends to the emotional and experiential power of theological ideas. This methodology draws on recent interdisciplinary work on affect and emotion, which has shown that affects are powerful motivating realities that saturate all dimensions of human thinking and acting. In the process, Zahl also explains why contemporary theology has often been ambivalent about subjective experience, and demonstrates that current discourse about God's activity in the world is often artificially abstracted from experience and embodiment. At the heart of the book, Zahl proposes a new account of the theology of grace from this experiential and pneumatological perspective. Focusing on the work of the Holy Spirit in salvation and sanctification, he retrieves insights from Augustine, Luther, and Philip Melanchthon to present an affective and Augustinian vision of salvation as a pedagogy of desire. In articulating this vision, Zahl engages critically with recent emphasis on participation and theosis in Christian soteriology, and charts a new path forward for Protestant theology in a landscape hitherto dominated by the theological visions of Barth and Aquinas.
Download or read book The Spirit and the Church written by John Owen and published by Banner of Truth Trust. This book was released on 2021-11-15 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How do Christians come to the certainty that the Bible is the Word of God, and gain an understanding of His mind and will from it? How do they acquire the ability to pray, and lead others in prayer? how are they comforted and supported in all the difficulties they meet? And how can the church be led, taught and guided aright, when Christ is not here on earth? According to the great Puritan leader John Owen, the answer to all these questions is the same: by the gracious and powerful work of the Holy Spirit. He it is who convinces, assures, teaches, comforts and equips the church and all its members for all the work they are called to do. In an age when many think Christianity is nothing more than human effort, based on fallible human conclusions, Owen calls the church back to divine certainty and divine resources. The style in which the Puritans wrote can present difficulties for modern readers, but this updated abridgement of by Dr. R.J.K. Law of The Spirit and the Church will allow Owen to speak to Christians today on a theme which remains as vitally important for the well-being of the church in the twenty-first century as it was when Owen first wrote.
Download or read book The Holy Spirit written by Gregg Allison and published by B&H Publishing Group. This book was released on 2020-06-01 with total page 462 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book studies the Holy Spirit through the lens of both biblical and systematic theology. It provides a comprehensive look at the third person of the Trinity as revealed by Scripture, focusing on eight central themes and assumptions.
Download or read book Spirit Soul and Body written by Andrew Wommack and published by Destiny Image Publishers. This book was released on 2018-12-18 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Have you ever asked yourself what changed when you were "born again?" You look in the mirror and see the same reflection - your body hasn't changed. You find yourself acting the same and yielding to those same old temptations - that didn't seem to change either. So you wonder, Has anything really changed? The correct answer to that question is foundational for receiving from God. If you lack this basic understanding, you'll forever ask yourself doubt-filled questions like: "How could God love somebody like me?" and "How can I possibly expect to receive anything from the Lord? I don't deserve it, I'm not good enough!" Spirit, Soul, and Body will help you eliminate those and other doubt-filled questions that destroy your faith. If you have trouble receiving from God, this is a must-read!
Download or read book Spirit empowered Christianity in the Twenty first Century written by Vinson Synan and published by Charisma Media. This book was released on 2011 with total page 609 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Spirit-Empowered Christianity in the 21st Century is an authoritative compilation of the presentations from thirty leaders in the Charismatic/Pentecostal movement given at the Empowered 21 Conference in Tulsa, OK, in April 2010. These chapters share emerging insights on how the next generation will handle the profound issues facing Christians within the Charismatic/Pentecostal movement in the 21st century.
Download or read book Having the Spirit of Christ written by Giovanni B. Bazzana and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2020-01-07 with total page 333 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A provocative reinterpretation of accounts of spirit possession and exorcism in early Christianity The earliest Christian writings are filled with stories of possession and exorcism, which were crucial for the activity of the historical Jesus and for the practice of the earliest groups of his followers. Most critical scholarship, however, regularly marginalizes these topics or discards them altogether in reconstructing early Christian history. This innovative book approaches the study of possession from a different methodological angle by using a comparative lens that includes contemporary ethnographies of possession cross-culturally. Possession, besides being a harmful event that should be exorcized, can also have a positive role in many cultures. Often it helps individuals and groups to reflect on and reshape their identity, to plan their moral actions, and to remember in a most vivid way their past. When read in light of these materials, these ancient documents reveal the religious, cultural, and social meaning that the experience of possession had for the early Christ groups.
Download or read book The Spirit of Early Christian Thought written by Robert Louis Wilken and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2003-01-01 with total page 211 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Many of the problems afflicting American education are the result of a critical shortage of qualified teachers in the classrooms. The teacher crisis is surprisingly resistant to reforms and is getting worse. This analysis of the causes underlying the crisis seeks to offer concrete, affordable proposals for effective reform. Vivian Troen and Katherine Boles, two experienced classroom teachers and education consultants, argue that because teachers are recruited from a pool of underqualified candidates, given inadequate preparation, and dropped into a culture of isolation without mentoring, support, or incentives for excellence, they are programmed to fail. Half quit within their first five years. Troen and Boles offer an alternative, a model of reform they call the Millennium School, which changes the way teachers work and improves the quality of their teaching. When teaching becomes a real profession, they contend, more academically able people will be drawn into it, colleges will be forced to improve the quality of their education, and better-prepared teachers will enter the classroom and improve the profession.
Download or read book Christianity and the New Spirit of Capitalism written by Kathryn Tanner and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2019-01-01 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the world's most celebrated theologians argues for a Protestant anti-work ethic In his classic The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, Max Weber famously showed how Christian beliefs and practices could shape persons in line with capitalism. In this significant reimagining of Weber's work, Kathryn Tanner provocatively reverses this thesis, arguing that Christianity can offer a direct challenge to the largely uncontested growth of capitalism. Exploring the cultural forms typical of the current finance-dominated system of capitalism, Tanner shows how they can be countered by Christian beliefs and practices with a comparable person-shaping capacity. Addressing head-on the issues of economic inequality, structural under- and unemployment, and capitalism's unstable boom/bust cycles, she draws deeply on the theological resources within Christianity to imagine anew a world of human flourishing. This book promises to be one of the most important theological books in recent years.
Download or read book We Believe in the Holy Spirit written by Joel C. Elowsky and published by InterVarsity Press. This book was released on 2009-07-13 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume offers patristic comment on the first half of the third article of the Nicene Creed. Readers will gain insight into the history and substance of what the early church believed about the Holy Spirit and his work.
Download or read book Keep in Step with the Spirit second edition written by J I Packer and published by Inter-Varsity Press. This book was released on 2020-05-21 with total page 334 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit (Galatians 5:25). The Holy Spirit empowers us, guides us, and enables us to grow and endure in our relationship with the Father through Jesus Christ. Often the most misunderstood member of the Trinity, the person of the Spirit continues to attract attention today amidst church revivals and renewals. In this new edition of his classic Keep in Step with the Spirit, J. I. Packer seeks to help Christians reaffirm the biblical call to holiness and the Spirit s role in keeping our covenant with God. Packer guides us through the riches and depth of the Spirit s work, assesses versions of holiness and the charismatic life, and shows how Christ must always be at the centre of true Spirit-led ministry. A new chapter explores Christian assurance. With abiding relevance and significance, Keep in Step with the Spirit sets forth vital knowledge for healthy and joyous Christian living, through understanding and experience of God the Holy Spirit. Here is a book for every serious believer to read and re-read.
Download or read book The Warfare of the Spirit written by A. W. Tozer and published by Moody Publishers. This book was released on 2006-06-20 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The life of a Christian is packed full of conflict. The Warfare of the Spirit discusses the persistent struggle against the evil forces of the world, the flesh, and even the deceiving ways of Satan. Breaking down the spiritual warfare that is going on all around us, in both the physical and spiritual realms, Tozer examines many aspects of the human experience that can potentially damage us spiritually—like concerns about money, social status, conflict with others, or even confusing the meaning Christmas. Tozer also unapologetically states the dangers of adhering to a theology that absolves the unbeliever of any punishment. For if there is no hell, he warns, there is no heaven either. Beginning this book with a triumphant call to battle, A. W. Tozer inspires the believer to seek and destroy the evil forces working in this world. This book empowers its reader to eradicate complacency and sloth and live actively for the Lord every day.
Download or read book Jesus and the Spirit written by James D. G. Dunn and published by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. This book was released on 1997-06-11 with total page 532 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explores the religious experiences of Jesus, Paul, and the early church with special emphasis on the Holy Spirit and charismatic experiences.
Download or read book The Spirit Filled Church written by Terry Virgo and published by Monarch Books. This book was released on 2011-06-08 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A lucid account of the function of the Spirit in the growth of the church. Through the history of God's people the constant element has been the presence of the Almighty. The baptism in the Holy Spirit, which so galvanized the young church, equipped and empowered the believers, boosting courage, fostering fluency and granting insights to ordinary men and women. Terry Virgo was baptized in the Holy Spirit as a young believer, and delighted in the experience. 'As we began to welcome the presence of the Holy Spirit, our church life was transformed,' he explains. 'The presence of the Holy Spirit changed everything.' As the Spirit moves, so there are healings, often dramatic. But there is more: a discovery of God's grace. As people discover grace for themselves a far more profound healing takes place, leading first to worship, then a recognition that we are a prophetic people.
Download or read book What the Spirit Is Saying to the Churches written by Henry Blackaby and published by Multnomah Books. This book was released on 2003 with total page 98 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Identifies God's pattern for strengthening a church, counseling on how to be sensitive to the works of the Holy Spirit while discussing principles by which God leads a congregation toward a distinctive spiritual mission.
Download or read book The Spirit of Praise written by Monique M. Ingalls and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2015-06-18 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In The Spirit of Praise, Monique Ingalls and Amos Yong bring together a multidisciplinary, scholarly exploration of music and worship in global pentecostal-charismatic Christianity at the beginning of the twenty-first century. The Spirit of Praise contends that gaining a full understanding of this influential religious movement requires close listening to its songs and careful attention to its patterns of worship. The essays in this volume place ethnomusicological, theological, historical, and sociological perspectives into dialogue. By engaging with these disciplines and exploring themes of interconnection, interface, and identity within musical and ritual practices, the essays illuminate larger social processes such as globalization, sacralization, and secularization, as well as the role of religion in social and cultural change. Aside from the editors, the contributors are Peter Althouse, Will Boone, Mark Evans, Ryan R. Gladwin, Birgitta J. Johnson, Jean Ngoya Kidula, Miranda Klaver, Andrew Mall, Kimberly Jenkins Marshall, Andrew M. McCoy, Martijn Oosterbaan, Dave Perkins, Wen Reagan, Tanya Riches, Michael Webb, and Michael Wilkinson.
Download or read book The Christian Lives by the Spirit written by Ignace de La Potterie and published by . This book was released on 1971 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
