Download or read book Comforts from the Cross written by Elyse M. Fitzpatrick and published by Crossway. This book was released on 2009-03-23 with total page 154 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Daily comforts from the gospel of Christ provide busy Christian women with brief but deep reminders of how his truths powerfully connect to their daily lives. Nothing comforts a woman's soul more than a fully understood and embraced gospel. But many women aren't finding solace in their relationship with Christ because they don't see how his life, death, and resurrection connect with soccer practices and swim lessons. Besides, they just don't have time to sit down and read a theology book, no matter how much they might hunger for God's truths. That's where Elyse Fitzpatrick's latest book comes in. Comforts from the Cross provides those well-intentioned women with bite-sized readings to remind them of their place in Christ and of his love and ministry in their busy lives. It also dusts off the facts of the gospel to show how ancient truths such as justification, sanctification, and redemption can free and enliven their souls every day. Even more, these five-minute celebrations of the gospel relieve readers of legalistic condemnation and empower them for joyful obedience by engendering fresh love for the Savior. A perfect choice for gift-giving or personal encouragement, Fitzpatrick's book helps active women grasp the practicality of the gospel message and experience its deep comforts.
Download or read book Lazarus Awakening written by Joanna Weaver and published by WaterBrook. This book was released on 2011-02-08 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: You believe that God loves the world… but sometimes you wonder if He truly loves you. For many of us, moving the truth of God’s love from our heads to our hearts is a lifelong process. As we consider our inadequacies or grieve our shattered dreams, we find it difficult to believe that God cares for us personally. In this life-giving book, Joanna Weaver shows you how to embrace the truth that Jesus loves you apart from anything you accomplish, apart from anything you bring. Just as He called Lazarus forth to new life, Jesus wants to free you to live fully in the light of His love, unbound from the graveclothes of fear, regret, and self-condemnation. Love is calling your name. Combining unforgettable real-life illustrations with unexpected biblical insights, Joanna Weaver invites you to experience a spiritual resurrection that will forever change your understanding of what it means to be the one Jesus loves. Includes 10-week Bible study (adaptable for 8 weeks) for both individual reflection and group discussion.
Download or read book Between Cross and Resurrection written by Alan E. Lewis and published by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. This book was released on 2003-06-20 with total page 496 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For much of Christian history the church has given no place to Holy Saturday in its liturgy or worship. Yet the space dividing Calvary and the Garden may be the best place from which to reflect on the meaning of Christ's death and resurrection. This superb work by the late Alan Lewis develops on a grand scale and in great detail a theology of Holy Saturday.The first comprehensive theology of Holy Saturday ever written, Between Cross and Resurrectionshows that at the center of the biblical story and the church's creed lies a three-day narrative. Lewis explores the meaning of Holy Saturday -- the restless day of burial and waiting -- from the perspectives of narrative (hearing the story), doctrine (thinking the story), and ethics (living the story). Along the way he visits as many spiritual themes as possible in order to demonstrate the range of topics that take on fresh meaning when viewed from the vantage point of Holy Saturday.Between Cross and Resurrection is not only incisive and elegantly written, but it is also a uniquely moving work deeply rooted in Christian experience. While writing this book Lewis experienced his own Holy Saturday in suffering from and finally succumbing to cancer. He considered Between Cross and Resurrection to be the culmination of his life's work.
Download or read book The Cross written by Robin M. Jensen and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2017-04-17 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The cross stirs intense feelings among Christians as well as non-Christians. Robin Jensen takes readers on an intellectual and spiritual journey through the two-thousand-year evolution of the cross as an idea and an artifact, illuminating the controversies—along with the forms of devotion—this central symbol of Christianity inspires. Jesus’s death on the cross posed a dilemma for Saint Paul and the early Church fathers. Crucifixion was a humiliating form of execution reserved for slaves and criminals. How could their messiah and savior have been subjected to such an ignominious death? Wrestling with this paradox, they reimagined the cross as a triumphant expression of Christ’s sacrificial love and miraculous resurrection. Over time, the symbol’s transformation raised myriad doctrinal questions, particularly about the crucifix—the cross with the figure of Christ—and whether it should emphasize Jesus’s suffering or his glorification. How should Jesus’s body be depicted: alive or dead, naked or dressed? Should it be shown at all? Jensen’s wide-ranging study focuses on the cross in painting and literature, the quest for the “true cross” in Jerusalem, and the symbol’s role in conflicts from the Crusades to wars of colonial conquest. The Cross also reveals how Jews and Muslims viewed the most sacred of all Christian emblems and explains its role in public life in the West today.
Download or read book The Cross and the Lynching Tree written by James H. Cone and published by Orbis Books. This book was released on 2011 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A landmark in the conversation about race and religion in America. "They put him to death by hanging him on a tree." Acts 10:39 The cross and the lynching tree are the two most emotionally charged symbols in the history of the African American community. In this powerful new work, theologian James H. Cone explores these symbols and their interconnection in the history and souls of black folk. Both the cross and the lynching tree represent the worst in human beings and at the same time a thirst for life that refuses to let the worst determine our final meaning. While the lynching tree symbolized white power and "black death," the cross symbolizes divine power and "black life" God overcoming the power of sin and death. For African Americans, the image of Jesus, hung on a tree to die, powerfully grounded their faith that God was with them, even in the suffering of the lynching era. In a work that spans social history, theology, and cultural studies, Cone explores the message of the spirituals and the power of the blues; the passion and of Emmet Till and the engaged vision of Martin Luther King, Jr.; he invokes the spirits of Billie Holliday and Langston Hughes, Fannie Lou Hamer and Ida B. Well, and the witness of black artists, writers, preachers, and fighters for justice. And he remembers the victims, especially the 5,000 who perished during the lynching period. Through their witness he contemplates the greatest challenge of any Christian theology to explain how life can be made meaningful in the face of death and injustice.
Download or read book Exclusion Embrace written by Miroslav Volf and published by Abingdon Press. This book was released on 2010-03-01 with total page 453 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Life at the end of the twentieth century presents us with a disturbing reality. Otherness, the simple fact of being different in some way, has come to be defined as in and of itself evil. Miroslav Volf contends that if the healing word of the gospel is to be heard today, Christian theology must find ways of speaking that address the hatred of the other. Reaching back to the New Testament metaphor of salvation as reconciliation, Volf proposes the idea of embrace as a theological response to the problem of exclusion. Increasingly we see that exclusion has become the primary sin, skewing our perceptions of reality and causing us to react out of fear and anger to all those who are not within our (ever-narrowing) circle. In light of this, Christians must learn that salvation comes, not only as we are reconciled to God, and not only as we "learn to live with one another", but as we take the dangerous and costly step of opening ourselves to the other, of enfolding him or her in the same embrace with which we have been enfolded by God.
Download or read book The Sign of the Cross written by Bert Ghezzi and published by Loyola Press. This book was released on 2009-06-10 with total page 107 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Christians worldwide have been blessing themselves with the sign of the cross for centuries. But few who use this simple, familiar gesture know its impact as a powerful prayer. Author Bert Ghezzi shows how this potent prayer engages the Holy Spirit and affirms Christian identity. With insights derived from Scripture, church teachings, and personal experience, Ghezzi encourages people to utilize this powerful sign in their daily life. Drawing on the fascinating history of the sign of the cross, Ghezzi reveals six dynamic truths of the spiritual life that God gives. The Sign of the Cross brings forth an opening to God, renewal of baptism, mark of discipleship, acceptance of suffering, defense agains the devil, and victory over self-indulgence. This inspirational book brings to life the blessings of this ancient prayer and guides Christians to a renewed experience of God.
Download or read book Proclaiming the Scandal of the Cross written by Mark D. Baker and published by Baker Academic. This book was released on 2006-12-01 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Because many modern Christians can offer a reasonable explanation of the meaning of Jesus' death on the cross, they find it hard to understand the confusion displayed by the disciples after the events in the last pages of the Gospels. But if Paul were alive today, he would find it inexplicable that we modern believers are not scandalized by the cross. Proclaiming the Scandal of the Cross introduces pastors, church leaders, students, and lay readers to the need for contextualized atonement theology, offering creative examples of how the cross can be proclaimed today in culturally relevant and transformative ways. It makes helpful suggestions on how this vision for a culturally relevant message might be developed. The impressive list of contributors includes writings from C. S. Lewis, Rowan Williams, Frederica Mathewes-Green, Brian McLaren, and many more who are actively working out just how to make this life-transforming proclamation.
Download or read book The Two Fears written by Chris Poblete and published by Cruciform Press. This book was released on 2012-04 with total page 92 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: You can fear God or everything else. Fear wisely. Most Christians will agree that we ought to love our God. But what about fearing God? The Bible says that "the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom" (Proverbs 9:10), yet a broad survey of modern evangelicalism reveals that the fear of God is hardly regarded as such anymore. Many Christians seem to wrongly assume that the gospel of grace trumps the fear of the Lord. Yet it is only the God of the gospel who is truly worthy of our reverential fear. The purpose of this book is to equip Christians with a healthy view of fearing God and to illustrate how it reconciles with the gospel of God's grace to sinners.
Download or read book The Cross written by John Stott and published by InterVarsity Press. This book was released on 2009-01-16 with total page 81 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: John Stott presents Bible studies based on his book The Cross of Christ on the meaning and purpose of the cross in our lives. These thirteen-session LifeGuide® Bible Study provide the ever-increasing understanding of the cross needed by every believer.
Download or read book Cruciform written by Jimmy Davis and published by Cruciform Press. This book was released on 2011-03-30 with total page 72 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is the Cross-Shaped Life? It is the vertical life of loving God with all your head, heart, and hands; and the horizontal life of loving others as Christ has loved you. Employing the symbols of the cruciform cathedral and the Celtic cross, Jimmy Davis uses personal stories, both humorous and heart-breaking, to encourage and equip the reader to gain a cross-shaped perspective on how he or she can be an active participant in God's community-on-mission. This book casts a vision for living as disciples of Jesus who are being shaped by the cross (gospel) into people and churches who share and show the cross (gospel) by living as sons and servants of God. As we embrace the gospel in this way we can live: in relationship to God as seekers who exalt God; in relationship to other disciples as shepherds who encourage one another; in relationship to the resources God has given us as stewards; and in relationship to those who are not disciples as sowers of the gospel of grace, engaging our neighbors, the nations, and the next generation with cross-shaped words and works. Finally, the Cruciform Life involves growing through cross-shaped spiritual disciplines and cross-shaped suffering, which together enable us to embrace and express the Cruciform Life to God, one another, and the world.
Download or read book Conspiracies and the Cross written by Timothy Paul Jones and published by Charisma Media. This book was released on 2008 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Join Jones on a faith-strengthening journey through the remnants of long-faded civilizations as he examines historical evidence of the life of Jesus. Outlining 10 major conspiracy theories about the deity of Christ, he reveals the fallacies in each and examines the various media outlets---books, movies, documentaries---where these schemes have recently surfaced. 224 pages, hardcover from Frontline.
Download or read book The Crucified King written by Jeremy R. Treat and published by Zondervan. This book was released on 2014-05-27 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The kingdom of God and the atonement are two of the most important themes in all of Scripture. Tragically, theologians have often either set the two at odds or focused on one to the complete neglect of the other. In The Crucified King, Jeremy Treat demonstrates that Scripture presents a mutually enriching relationship between the kingdom and atonement that draws significantly from the story of Israel and culminates in the crucifixion of Christ the king. As Israel’s messiah, he holds together the kingdom and the cross by bringing God’s reign on earth through his atoning death. The kingdom is the ultimate goal of the cross, and the cross is the means by which the kingdom comes. Jesus’ death is not the failure of his messianic ministry, nor simply the prelude to his royal glory, but is the apex of his kingdom mission. The cross is the throne from which he rules and establishes his kingdom. Using a holistic approach that brings together the insights of biblical and systematic theology, this book demonstrates not only that the kingdom and the cross are inseparable, but how they are integrated in Scripture and theology.
Download or read book The Crucifixion written by Fleming Rutledge and published by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. This book was released on 2015 with total page 695 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Few treatments of the death of Jesus Christ have made a point of accounting for the gruesome, degrading, public manner of his death by crucifixion, a mode of execution so loathsome that the ancient Romans never spoke of it in polite society. Rutledge probes all the various themes and motifs used by the New Testament evangelists and apostolic writers to explain the meaning of the cross of Christ. She shows how each of the biblical themes contributes to the whole, with the Christus Victor motif and the concept of substitution sharing pride of place along with Irenaeus's recapitulation model.
Download or read book The Beauty of the Cross written by Richard Viladesau and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2005-12-01 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the earliest period of its existence, Christianity has been recognized as the "religion of the cross." Some of the great monuments of Western art are representations of the brutal torture and execution of Christ. Despite the horror of crucifixion, we often find such images beautiful. The beauty of the cross expresses the central paradox of Christian faith: the cross of Christ's execution is the symbol of God's victory over death and sin. The cross as an aesthetic object and as a means of devotion corresponds to the mystery of God's wisdom and power manifest in suffering and apparent failure. In this volume, Richard Viladesau seeks to understand the beauty of the cross as it developed in both theology and art from their beginnings until the eve of the renaissance. He argues that art and symbolism functioned as an alternative strand of theological expression -- sometimes parallel to, sometimes interwoven with, and sometimes in tension with formal theological reflection on the meaning of the Crucifixion and its role insalvation history. Using specific works of art to epitomize particular artistic and theological paradigms, Viladesau then explores the contours of each paradigm through the works of representative theologians as well as liturgical, poetic, artistic, and musical sources. The beauty of the cross is examined from Patristic theology and the earliest representations of the Logos on the cross, to the monastic theology of victory and the Romanesque crucified "majesty," to the Anselmian "revolution" that centered theological and artistic attention on the suffering humanity of Jesus, and finally to the breakdown of the high scholastic theology of the redemption in empirically concentrated nominalism and the beginnings of naturalism in art. By examining the relationship between aesthetic and conceptual theology, Viladesau deepens our understanding of the foremost symbol of Christianity. This volume makes an important contribution to an emerging field, breaking new ground in theological aesthetics. The Beauty of the Cross is a valuable resource for scholars, students, and anyone interested in the passion of Christ and its representation.
Download or read book Why Do We Have Creeds written by Burk Parsons and published by P & R Publishing. This book was released on 2012 with total page 39 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The pluralist society is wrong! Everyone's beliefs are not equally valid - truth is not down to who is the biggest bully! Creeds give direction, unity, and fellowship - and show the world what we believe.
Download or read book The Misery of Job and the Mercy of God written by John Piper and published by Crossway Bibles. This book was released on 2002 with total page 78 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The words of Job, in an epic poem by the talented John Piper, will touch readers' hearts. For while the story of Job's misery is not unfamiliar, we don't often think of God's mercy in the midst of it. Piper's beautiful words, combined with the stunning photography of Ric Ergenbright, will remind readers of the Lord's sovereignty, and His provision for His servant--and for us all.
