Download or read book Unholy Allegiances written by David A. DeSilva and published by Hendrickson Publishers. This book was released on 2022-05-03 with total page 121 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Amidst the fervor for popular apocalyptic books and unfounded "end-times" theology, New testament scholar David deSilva has written a book to help readers thoughtfully and properly approach Revelation as it was intended to be read. A very helpful treatise, deSilva's Unholy Allegiances: Heeding Revelation's Warning explores the world of first-century Roman Asia, the context in which Revelation was written, explaining why John wrote such a graphic and startling message to the people of God. While many books today offer innovative "decodings" of Revelation, deSilva reminds us that John's letter is, in fact, not a historical blueprint for prophecy and prognosticism but a letter about the dangers that the church faced under the rule of Rome following the resurrection of Jesus-a warning that is apt today as it was almost two-thousand years ago. The true power of the book of Revelation is not in a mystical unfolding of the future but in its confrontation with the unholy allegiances already at work in the world. It's time to pay attention without playing ender's games. It's time to take Revelation seriously.
Download or read book Uncovering the Treasures of the Apocalypse written by David L. Mathewson and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2022-07-15 with total page 134 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book of Revelation continues to baffle and confound present-day readers. Its strange imagery and the bewildering number of interpretations of the book have left most readers paralyzed with fear. What is needed is a book that introduces the reader to the most important keys to keep in mind when interpreting the last book of the Bible. This book provides just that: it offers, explains, and illustrates five of the most crucial keys for unlocking the message of the Apocalypse. These keys grow directly out of the kind of book Revelation is and reads it as the word of God for the church. It leads the reader to take Revelation seriously as a message first addressed to seven historical churches in the first century, before reading it as the word of God for today. These five keys can instill greater confidence in understanding the book that has always been out of the reach of most readers.
Download or read book Revelation written by Rob Dalrymple and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2024-06-27 with total page 491 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Could the cry “Come out of her My people” (Rev 18:4) not be needed more today than it was when John penned the Apocalypse? The book of Revelation begins and ends with the affirmation that God is the world’s true Lord, not Caesar. In telling this story, John lays out for us the fact that Christ’s kingdom is not like the kingdoms of the world. The kingdoms of the world rule by force and at the expense of the masses and for the benefit of those in power. Jesus’s kingdom, however, comes through love. In Christ’s kingdom, power is demonstrated by laying down one’s life for one’s enemies. Jesus, of course, demonstrated this kind of love on the cross, and he calls us to do the same. We have nothing to fear. After all, Jesus was dead and now he is alive and he has the keys to Death and Hades. Unfortunately, many interpreters have come to believe that the devastation and destruction depicted in the book of Revelation—in particular, in the accounts of the Seven Seals and the Seven Bowls—are God’s end-times wrath. But have we ever stopped to consider that this portrait of God is fundamentally at odds with the gospel? And with Jesus’s call for us to love one another even as he loved us? The book of Revelation tells a different story.
Download or read book The Apocalypse of John Among its Critics written by Alexander Stewart and published by Lexham Academic. This book was released on 2023-07-26 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Should Christians be embarrassed by the book of Revelation? The Revelation of John has long confused and disturbed readers. The Apocalypse of John among Its Critics confronts the book's difficulties. Leading experts in Revelation wrestle honestly with a question raised by critics: Should John's Apocalypse be in the canon? (Alan S. Bandy) Was John intentionally confusing? (Ian Paul) Was John a bully? (Alexander E. Stewart) Did John delight in violence? (Dana M. Harris) Was John a chauvinist? (Külli Tõniste) Was John intolerant to others? (Michael Naylor) Was John antisemitic? (Rob Dalrymple) Did John make things up about the future? (Dave Mathewson) Did John advocate political subversion? (Mark Wilson) Did John misuse the Old Testament? (G.K. Beale) Engaging deeply with Revelation's difficulties helps the reader understand the book's message—and respond rightly. The book of Revelation does not need to be avoided or suppressed. It contains words of life.
Download or read book Bloody Brutal and Barbaric written by William J. Webb and published by InterVarsity Press. This book was released on 2019-12-03 with total page 412 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Christians cannot ignore the intersection of religion and violence. In our own Scriptures, war texts that appear to approve of genocidal killings and war rape raise hard questions about biblical ethics and the character of God. Have we missed something in our traditional readings? Identifying a spectrum of views on biblical war texts, Webb and Oeste pursue a middle path using a hermeneutic of incremental, redemptive-movement ethics.
Download or read book Sociology as Method written by Paul Dowling and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2009-01-01 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dowling is using the term, forensics, to refer to approaches to research that claim to uncover truths about the world that are somehow independent of the means of their uncovering. For some time, now, such approaches have been widely regarded as naïve, but it is not clear that the implications of this recognition have always been adequately or appropriately taken into account. In attempting to do just that, Dowling presents a mature exposition of his organisational language, social activity method (SAM) in dialogue with a wide range of cultural settings, texts and technologies. SAM has been developed over a period of some twenty years via the transaction between a fundamental, theoretical principle and empirical data. This principle asserts that the sociocultural is to be understood in terms of strategic, autopoietic action directed at the formation, maintenance and destabilising of alliances and oppositions and the alliances and oppositions that are themselves emergent upon such action. This anti-forensic constructive description understands data texts, not as products of generative structures that lie behind them, but as instances of the organisational language, SAM, that will, ultimately, describe them and that is, in a sense, in front of them. Dowling describes himself as a theory engineer. The productivity of this work is in its potential to generate principled and articulated descriptions of empirical settings and texts, new ways of looking at them, not to direct, but to interrogate other practices relating to these settings and texts, to ask questions that would otherwise be left unasked. The origins of SAM lie in the analysis of mathematics education texts in the late 1980s and early 1990s and one of the chapters in this volume is again concerned with mathematics (and science) education in the first part of the twenty-first century. Other settings that come under scrutiny include classrooms, film, art, literature, knowledge in various domains, the internet, and so forth. The book also includes fundamental engagement with forensics, in particular, the work of and work inspired by Basil Bernstein. Paul Dowling is Professor of Education at the Institute of Education, University of London. Before joining the Institute in 1987, he had taught mathematics in secondary schools in and around London. His other publications include The Sociology of Mathematics Education: Mathematical Myths/Pedagogic Texts (1998, Falmer Press) and Doing Research/Reading Research: Re-interrogating education (with Andrew Brown, Routledge, 1998 and 2009).
Download or read book Ephesians written by David A. deSilva and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2022-04-28 with total page 391 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Exploring Ephesians in light of both the Jewish and Greco-Roman traditions and environment informing the audiences' reception of the text.
Download or read book He comes the Isles are living carelessly written by Tony Smits B.Th and Ian Traill D. Min and published by Traillblazer Bookshop. This book was released on 2015-02-16 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As we approach a study of the Return of the Lord, let us realize that this is an important and vital truth for us, in the days in which we live. The Second Coming of the Lord is the most prominent doctrine in the Bible. v In the New Testament alone there are more than 300 references to the Second Coming of the Lord. v It is spoken of once in every 25 verses in the N.T. v In the Old Testament there are 20 times as many references to Christ’s Second Coming as there are to His first coming. v The Second Advent is mentioned twice as many times as the atonement. In the face of this strong testimony it is evident that the integrity of the entire Bible is inextricably woven into the promise of Christ’s Return. If He does not come again the Word of God is made a lie, human destiny will lack fulfilment, the consummation of God’s glory will be denied, and the very foundations of the universe will be uprooted (Mark 13:31)!
Download or read book Nudge written by Leonard Sweet and published by David C Cook. This book was released on 2010-08-01 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Evangelism is about reaching out to others. Really? You think? Brace yourself. In Nudge, author Leonard Sweet sets out to revolutionize our understanding of evangelism. He defines evangelism as “nudge” – awakening each other to the God who is already there. Sweet’s revolution promises to affect your encounters with others, as well as shaking the very roots of your own faith. So brace yourself.
Download or read book Romans written by Gerald L. Stevens and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2021-05-25 with total page 684 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Stevens invokes a powerful synthesis of recent Pauline studies by insisting the category of Israel is the hermeneutical key to all of Romans. Through Jesus the Messiah and the power of the Spirit, Paul saw fulfilled Isaiah’s vision of Israel’s destiny to the nations to bring the good news of salvation. Recapturing Isaiah’s vision broke the spell for Paul of the Great Assembly’s postexilic take on Israel. Paul’s apostleship first and foremost was to Israel, not gentiles exclusively. Paul used his exposé of the gospel of God in Romans to challenge believers in Rome to embrace their place in the messianic Israel of God.
Download or read book Crilen and the War of False Prophets written by Donald I. Templeman and published by iUniverse. This book was released on 2014-07-08 with total page 365 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Lies. Charlatans. Greed. War. In the name of God, 200,000 Avarican civilians are savagely massacred. Therefore, the neighboring Gzadin homeworld is overrun by Avarican forces in the name of God. So the Gzadin enlist the aid of Crilen, the fiery interstellar champion of the living Lord, to liberate their planet in God's name. Only he quickly discerns that the purported faiths of both worlds have been subverted by ungodly ulterior motives. The sincerest soul Crilen encounters amidst a chaotic war mired in ruthless treachery is Captain Vicara Riks, an intrepid field officer whose thirst for righteousness runs concurrent with her struggle to trust Heaven. Her fearless leadership symbolizes the conundrum of the soldier who finds her sworn allegiance to duty opposed by the abandoned virtues of honor and truth. Every willing sacrifice Vicara makes painfully diminishes her odds for a loving reunion with her son. Crilen desperately wishes to save her, but war is fraught with cruelty?and death. To deliver interplanetary peace, sacrifices must be made. What price for the atonement of two lost worlds shall ultimately be paid?
Download or read book Discovering Revelation written by David A. deSilva and published by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. This book was released on 2021-04-29 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book of Revelation has been received over the past several centuries with both fascination and aversion, but one thing is certain: it has profoundly shaped Christian history and culture. And the way it has shaped history and culture has been determined, in large part, by how the book has been variously—and sometimes irresponsibly—interpreted. David A. deSilva addresses the interpretation and reception-history of Revelation in this compact, up-to-date, and student-friendly introduction to the book of Revelation, focusing on its structure, content, theological concerns, key interpretive debates, and historical reception. Discovering Revelation draws on a range of methodological approaches (author-, text-, and reader-centered) as complementary rather than mutually exclusive ways of interpreting the text. DeSilva pays special attention to defining features of Revelation, such as its use of sequences of seven as a major structuring device, its nonlinear plotline, and its deployment of contrast and parody. As deSilva writes, “A text as rich and multidimensional as Revelation calls for its readers to adopt a rich and multidimensional approach that draws upon a variety of interpretative angles and skills.”.
Download or read book The Letter to the Galatians written by David A. deSilva and published by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. This book was released on 2018-09-18 with total page 642 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New volume in a favorite Bible commentary series Writing a commentary on Galatians is a daunting task. Despite its relative brevity, this Pauline letter raises a number of foundational theological issues, and it has played a vital role in shaping Christian thought and practice over the centuries. In this replacement of Ronald Y. K. Fung’s 1988 New International Commentary volume, David deSilva ably rises to the challenge, providing a coherent account of Galatians as a piece of strategically crafted communication that addresses both the immediate pastoral challenges facing Paul’s converts in Galatia and the underlying questions that gave rise to them. Paying careful attention to the history, philology, and theology of the letter, and interacting with a wealth of secondary literature on both Galatians and the rest of the Pauline corpus, deSilva’s exegetically sound commentary will serve as an essential resource for pastors and theological students.
Download or read book A Companion to the Book of Revelation written by David L. Mathewson and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2020-03-19 with total page 166 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is meant to be a companion and guide through what many deem to be the most perplexing book of the New Testament. As such, it introduces the reader to the kind of literature Revelation is, how to interpret its pervasive symbolism, and sees it as a response to the unique circumstances of seven historical churches in first-century Asia Minor living under the shadow of the Roman Empire. This companion pays special attention to the literary context and flow of argument of John’s unique book, while also giving attention to the effect the visions would have had on the first churches. It also pays attention to the more perplexing details of the text. Revelation was primarily a book that called the churches to maintain their faithful witness in the face of a hostile environment. It also continues to speak to the church today, though perhaps not in the way we often think.
Download or read book Orphaned Believers written by Sara Billups and published by Baker Books. This book was released on 2023-01-24 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hope for the one who is weary, wandering, and wondering where things went wrong In the wake of the culture wars of the 1980s and 1990s, many young evangelical Christians found themselves untethered, disillusioned, and--ultimately--orphaned as they grappled with the legalistic, politically co-opted churches of their youth. Perhaps you are one of them. Perhaps, like Sara Billups, you have felt alone, misunderstood, and maligned in the American church, longing for a more loving, more biblical expression of the faith and discipleship taught by Jesus. Part spiritual memoir of an apocalyptic childhood and part commentary on growing up as an evangelical kid during the culture wars, Orphaned Believers follows the journey of a generation of Christian exiles reckoning with the tradition that raised them and searching for a new way to participate in the story of God. Because for all the baggage, we still belong, and a bigger, more beautiful story awaits. "As American Christianity changes, and as we change along with it, we need guides to remind us who we are and who we're not. Sara has been one such guide for me. She's brutally honest and hilarious, and her heart is wide open to the radical possibility that belonging to Jesus is identity enough for Christians. I couldn't be more grateful for her."--Jon Guerra, singer-songwriter and producer "Billups reminds us that no matter who we are or where we come from, God can move us from a place on the margins to a community of faith."--Foxy Davison, educator and activist "Sara helped me feel more 'found' than I did before--orphaned but also anchored in a much better story than the one the world's been selling me over the past decades. I needed this book more than I knew."--Chuck DeGroat, author, therapist, and professor of pastoral care and Christian spirituality at Western Theological Seminary
Download or read book Revelation written by Gerald L. Stevens and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2014-05-08 with total page 669 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This three-part study covers the history of interpretation, theological foundations, and exegesis. Copious illustrations from the author's worldwide travels enhance discussion of Rome's emperors, empire, and ideology as the premier horizon for understanding John's immediate context and meaning. Distinctive contributions include Stevens's effort to re-canonize Revelation by insisting on gospel concord, methodically interpreting all of Revelation through the lens of the seven churches and showing how Revelation's imagery consistently relates more to the incarnation than the Parousia. Stevens bypasses traditional millennial options to argue that Revelation is passion-millennial--the passion of Jesus predicates the passion of the church. Under Stevens's hands, Revelation becomes eminently sensible to the original audience and powerfully pertinent for today's church.
Download or read book 3 Crucial Questions about Spiritual Warfare Three Crucial Questions written by Clinton E. Arnold and published by Baker Academic. This book was released on 1997-08-01 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Knowledgeable, accessible answers to these provocative questions: What is spiritual warfare? Can a Christian be demon-possessed? Are we called to engage territorial spirits?
