Download or read book Cross Vision written by Gregory A. Boyd and published by Fortress Press. This book was released on 2017-08-15 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Renowned pastor-theologian Gregory A. Boyd tackles the BibleÕs biggest dilemma. Ê The Old Testament God of wrath and violence versus the New Testament God of love and peaceÑitÕs a difference that has troubled Christians since the first century. Now, with the sensitivity of a pastor and the intellect of a theologian, Gregory A. Boyd proposes the Òcruciform hermeneutic,Ó a way to read the Old Testament portraits of God through the lens of JesusÕ crucifixion. Ê In Cross Vision, Boyd follows up on his epic and groundbreaking study, The Crucifixion of the Warrior God. He shows how the death and resurrection of Jesus reframes the troubling violence of the Old Testament, how all of Scripture reveals GodÕs self-sacrificial love, and, most importantly, how we can follow JesusÕ example of peace.

Download or read book Making Sense of the Bible Leader Guide written by Adam Hamilton and published by Abingdon Press. This book was released on 2014-09-15 with total page 76 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this six week video study, Adam Hamilton explores the key points in his new book, Making Sense of the Bible. With the help of this Leader Guide, groups learn from Hamilton as his video presentations lead groups through the book, focusing on the most important questions we ask about the Bible, its origins and meaning.

Download or read book The God Who Loves written by John F. MacArthur and published by Thomas Nelson. This book was released on 2008-07-06 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "God is love." It's the most basic definition of God in Scriptures, but so profound that it's often misunderstood. In this probing book, a brilliant Bible expositor brings us into the very heart of God by answering such questions as: If God is love, how could He send anyone to hell? What's the difference between the loving God of the New Testament and the angry God of the Old Testament? If God is love, why did He require His Son to die such a cruel death on the Cross? How can God be both loving and jealous? The author argues against the two polar views of God as a sentimental grandfather whose doting love could not bring him to punishment of the disobedient and God as an angry tyrant who would rule by threats. "Both extremes paint a distorted picture of God and further confuse the issue of understanding God's love," Dr. MacArthur writes. He insists that what God loves is actually defined by what He hates, and that neither His love nor His wrath can be understood in isolation from the other. Although the author is clearly aware of the way great men have grappled with these issues in the history of the Church, his doctrinal presentations arise more from the biblical text than from dogmatic theology. He examines in detail the way John?"the apostle of love"?treats love in his First Epistle, then fleshes out the doctrine of God's love in vivid representations of real people interacting with divine love.

Download or read book Marriage and the Mystery of the Gospel written by Ray Ortlund and published by Crossway. This book was released on 2016-10-13 with total page 117 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church." — Ephesians 5:32 Marriage reveals something of eternal significance. From the beginning, God designed marriage to convey a greater reality—the passionate, unfailing, redeeming love of God for sinners, the eternal romance between Christ and his bride. In this volume, Ray Ortlund traces marriage throughout Scripture—from the first marriage in the garden of Eden to the ultimate marriage in the book of Revelation—laying out a transcendent vision of marriage that dignifies our own imperfect unions as a display of the gospel. This book offers insight and hope to every married person today. Part of the Short Studies in Biblical Theology series.

Download or read book The Gospel written by Ray Ortlund and published by Crossway. This book was released on 2014-04-30 with total page 146 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How does the church portray the beauty of Christ? The gospel is the greatest message of all time addressing the greatest need of all people. However, the good news about Jesus does more than just promise eternal life to all who believe. In the latest addition to the 9Marks: Building Healthy Churches series, pastor Ray Ortlund explains the gospel's power to transform individuals from the inside out and create beautiful human relationships. This short book helps readers experience the power of God as they are encouraged to trust in Christ and allow him to transform their beliefs, perspectives, and practices. For everyone who wants to be true to the Bible and honest with themselves, this book offers a practical guide to the fundamental teachings of the gospel and how they affect our relationships with others.

Download or read book Paradigms on Pilgrimage written by Stephen J. Godfrey and published by Clements Pub. This book was released on 2005 with total page 207 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this provocative book two authors--one a scientist, the other a biblical scholar and pastor--recount the pilgrimages of understanding that have led them from the young-earth, "scientific creationist" position they were taught in their youths to new perspectives on what it can mean to believe in God as Creator.

Download or read book Love Wins written by Rob Bell and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2011-03-15 with total page 149 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Millions of Christians have struggled with how to reconcile God's love and God's judgment: Has God created billions of people over thousands of years only to select a few to go to heaven and everyone else to suffer forever in hell? Is this acceptable to God? How is this "good news"? Troubling questions—so troubling that many have lost their faith because of them. Others only whisper the questions to themselves, fearing or being taught that they might lose their faith and their church if they ask them out loud. But what if these questions trouble us for good reason? What if the story of heaven and hell we have been taught is not, in fact, what the Bible teaches? What if what Jesus meant by heaven, hell, and salvation are very different from how we have come to understand them? What if it is God who wants us to face these questions? Author, pastor, and innovative teacher Rob Bell presents a deeply biblical vision for rediscovering a richer, grander, truer, and more spiritually satisfying way of understanding heaven, hell, God, Jesus, salvation, and repentance. The result is the discovery that the "good news" is much, much better than we ever imagined. Love wins.

Download or read book Salvation by Allegiance Alone written by Matthew W. Bates and published by Baker Academic. This book was released on 2017-03-14 with total page 371 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We are saved by faith when we trust that Jesus died for our sins. This is the gospel, or so we are taught. But what is faith? And does this accurately summarize the gospel? Because faith is frequently misunderstood and the climax of the gospel misidentified, the gospel's full power remains untapped. While offering a fresh proposal for what faith means within a biblical theology of salvation, Matthew Bates presses the church toward a new precision: we are saved solely by allegiance to Jesus the king. Instead of faith alone, Christians must speak about salvation by allegiance alone. The book includes discussion questions for students, pastors, and church groups and a foreword by Scot McKnight.

Download or read book Vertical Marriage written by Dave Wilson and published by Zondervan. This book was released on 2019-01-29 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For anyone who is married, preparing for marriage, or desperate to save a relationship teetering on the brink of divorce, marriage coaches Dave and Ann Wilson offer hope and strategies gleaned from personal experience and Scripture that really work. Vertical Marriage will give you the insight, applications, and inspiration to transform your marriage into everything you hoped it would be. Honest to the core and laugh-out-loud funny, Dave and Ann Wilson share the one secret that brought them from the brink of divorce to a healthy and vibrant relationship. If you had asked Dave how their marriage was doing on the night of their tenth wedding anniversary, Dave would have rated it a 9.8 out of 10, and he would have even guaranteed that Ann would say the same. But instead of giving him a celebratory kiss, Ann whispered, "I've lost my feelings for you." Divorce seemed inevitable for the Wilsons, but starting that night, God began to reveal to Dave and Ann the most overlooked secret of getting the marriage we are looking for: a horizontal marriage relationship just doesn't work until your vertical relationship with Christ is first. As founders of a multi-campus church and marriage coaches with 30 years of experience, Dave and Ann share the hard-earned but easy-to-apply biblical principles that ensure a strong marriage. Written in a highly relatable dialogue between both husband and wife, Vertical Marriage will guide you toward building a vibrant relationship at every level, giving you the tools you need to embrace: Effective communication Fair conflict True romance A deeper connection Through their unique perspectives, Dave and Ann share an intimate, sometimes hilarious, and at times deeply poignant narrative of one couple's journey to reconnecting with God and discovering the joy and power of a vertical marriage.

Download or read book You Are What You Love written by James K. A. Smith and published by Brazos Press. This book was released on 2016-03-29 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: You are what you love. But you might not love what you think. In this book, award-winning author James K. A. Smith shows that who and what we worship fundamentally shape our hearts. And while we desire to shape culture, we are not often aware of how culture shapes us. We might not realize the ways our hearts are being taught to love rival gods instead of the One for whom we were made. Smith helps readers recognize the formative power of culture and the transformative possibilities of Christian practices. He explains that worship is the "imagination station" that incubates our loves and longings so that our cultural endeavors are indexed toward God and his kingdom. This is why the church and worshiping in a local community of believers should be the hub and heart of Christian formation and discipleship. Following the publication of his influential work Desiring the Kingdom, Smith received numerous requests from pastors and leaders for a more accessible version of that book's content. No mere abridgment, this new book draws on years of Smith's popular presentations on the ideas in Desiring the Kingdom to offer a fresh, bottom-up rearticulation. The author creatively uses film, literature, and music illustrations to engage readers and includes new material on marriage, family, youth ministry, and faith and work. He also suggests individual and communal practices for shaping the Christian life.

Download or read book Sinners in the Hands of a Loving God written by Brian Zahnd and published by WaterBrook. This book was released on 2017-08-15 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Pastor Brian Zahnd began "to question the theology of a wrathful God who delights in punishing sinners, and has started to explore the real nature of Jesus and His Father. The book isn’t only an interesting look at the context of some modern theological ideas; it’s also offers some profound insight into God’s love and eternal plan." —Relevant Magazine (Named one of the Top 10 Books of 2017) God is wrath? Or God is Love? In his famous sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” Puritan revivalist Jonathan Edwards shaped predominating American theology with a vision of God as angry, violent, and retributive. Three centuries later, Brian Zahnd was both mesmerized and terrified by Edwards’s wrathful God. Haunted by fear that crippled his relationship with God, Zahnd spent years praying for a divine experience of hell. What Zahnd experienced instead was the Father’s love—revealed perfectly through Jesus Christ—for all prodigal sons and daughters. In Sinners in the Hands of a Loving God, Zahnd asks important questions like: Is seeing God primarily as wrathful towards sinners true or biblical? Is fearing God a normal expected behavior? And where might the natural implications of this theological framework lead us? Thoughtfully wrestling with subjects like Old Testament genocide, the crucifixion of Jesus, eternal punishment in hell, and the final judgment in Revelation, Zanhd maintains that the summit of divine revelation for sinners is not God is wrath, but God is love.

Download or read book Intertwined written by Mark Ballenger and published by . This book was released on 2017-07-15 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Don't you just want to be happy? Why does it seem so hard sometimes? Perhaps we struggle to consistently live with joy because we do not consistently live with purpose. God made you for a specific reason, and until you embrace his mission for your life, the roller coaster ride of emotions will just keep going. Happiness, purpose, and freedom are available, but it all depends on intertwining your good with God's glory. God's plan for our joy is not tied to life events but to the life of Christ. Intertwined is meant to dust off the cobwebs of the most profound phrase ever given to humanity, "The glory of God." When we rediscover what this means, we have rediscovered the path to everything good.

Download or read book One Blood written by John Perkins and published by Moody Publishers. This book was released on 2018-04-03 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dr. Perkins’ final manifesto on race, faith, and reconciliation We are living in historic times. Not since the civil rights movement of the 60s has our country been this vigorously engaged in the reconciliation conversation. There is a great opportunity right now for culture to change, to be a more perfect union. However, it cannot be done without the church, because the faith of the people is more powerful than any law government can enact. The church is the heart and moral compass of a nation. To turn a country away from God, you must sideline the church. To turn a nation to God, the church must turn first. Racism won't end in America until the church is reconciled first. Then—and only then—can it spiritually and morally lead the way. Dr. John M. Perkins is a leading civil rights activist today. He grew up in a Mississippi sharecropping family, was an early pioneer of the civil rights movement, and has dedicated his life to the cause of racial equality. In this, his crowning work, Dr. Perkins speaks honestly to the church about reconciliation, discipleship, and justice... and what it really takes to live out biblical reconciliation. He offers a call to repentance to both the white church and the black church. He explains how band-aid approaches of the past won't do. And while applauding these starter efforts, he holds that true reconciliation won't happen until we get more intentional and relational. True friendships must happen, and on every level. This will take the whole church, not just the pastors and staff. The racial reconciliation of our churches and nation won't be done with big campaigns or through mass media. It will come one loving, sacrificial relationship at a time. The gospel and all that it encompasses has always traveled best relationally. We have much to learn from each other and each have unique poverties that can only be filled by one another. The way forward is to become "wounded healers" who bandage each other up as we discover what the family of God really looks like. Real relationships, sacrificial love between actual people, is the way forward. Nothing less will do.

Download or read book Seeing and Savoring Jesus Christ Revised Edition written by John Piper and published by Crossway. This book was released on 2004-10-27 with total page 130 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Who is Jesus Christ? You've never met him in person, and you don't know anyone who has. But there is a way to know who he is. How? Jesus Christ-the divine Person revealed in the Bible-has a unique excellence and a spiritual beauty that speaks directly to our souls and says, "Yes, this is truth." It's like seeing the sun and knowing that it is light, or tasting honey and knowing that it is sweet. The depth and complexity of Jesus shatter our simple mental frameworks. He baffled proud scribes with his wisdom but was understood and loved by children. He calmed a raging storm with a word but would not get himself down from the cross. Look at the Jesus of the Bible. Keep your eyes open, and fill them with the portrait of Jesus in God's Word. Jesus said, "If anyone's will is to do God's will, he will know whether the teaching is from God or whether I am speaking on my own authority." Ask God for the grace to do his will, and you will see the truth of his Son. John Piper has written this book in the hope that all will see Jesus for who he really is and will come to enjoy him above all else.

Download or read book Reconciling All Things written by Emmanuel Katongole and published by InterVarsity Press. This book was released on 2009-12-09 with total page 169 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Conflict resolution and peacemaking are not enough. What makes real reconciliation possible? Emmanuel Katongole and Chris Rice work from their experiences in Uganda and Mississippi to recover distinctively Christian practices that will help the church be both a sign and an agent of God's reconciling love in the fragmented world of the twenty-first century.

Download or read book When Words Matter Most written by Cheryl Marshall and published by Crossway. This book was released on 2021-09-10 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When a friend or family member is struggling spiritually, do you ever feel uncertain about what to say? You may sense your loved ones need to hear biblical encouragement or advice but, feeling inadequate for the task, you might simply commiserate or say nothing. God calls you to something more. In When Words Matter Most, Cheryl Marshall and Caroline Newheiser help you discern spiritual needs and give biblical, heartfelt guidance. Through real-life stories and carefully chosen Scripture passages, they model what to say to those who are worried, weary, wayward, or weeping. You'll learn how to speak truth to others in your sphere of influence and strengthen the body of Christ as a whole.

Download or read book Letting Go written by Dave Harvey and published by Zondervan. This book was released on 2016-11-08 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What do you do when someone you love leaves? And how do you pursue someone who has hurt you, who has sinned against you? In Letting Go, pastors Dave Harvey and Paul Gilbert share stories of pain and stories of hope as they reveal how to care for the prodigal who has strayed. Whether you are dealing with an unfaithful marriage partner, a rebellious child, or a wayward friend, the counsel they offer will help you to pursue a gospel-rooted approach, grounded in truth and practiced in the midst of Christian community. While each situation is unique, most stories deal with common themes of shame, guilt, confusion, uncertainty, and struggle. You will understand the spiritual dynamics at work in the heart of the prodigal and how you as a family member, spouse, friend, or church leader can best relate to them in love. You will learn how to practice “redemptive release” through confrontation and discipline as well as how to forgive the person who has hurt you through a process of reconciliation. For those in a time of waiting and wondering if their loved one will ever return home, there is a reminder of the hope of the gospel and the necessity of depending upon the Holy Spirit through prayer. A must-have resource for every believer struggling to love the prodigal back home again, it is ideal for parents and siblings, counselors, pastors, and those ministering to hurting families and churches.