Download or read book God written by Reza Aslan and published by Random House. This book was released on 2017-11-07 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The bestselling author of Zealot and host of Believer explores humanity’s quest to make sense of the divine in this concise and fascinating history of our understanding of God. In Zealot, Reza Aslan replaced the staid, well-worn portrayal of Jesus of Nazareth with a startling new image of the man in all his contradictions. In his new book, Aslan takes on a subject even more immense: God, writ large. In layered prose and with thoughtful, accessible scholarship, Aslan narrates the history of religion as a remarkably cohesive attempt to understand the divine by giving it human traits and emotions. According to Aslan, this innate desire to humanize God is hardwired in our brains, making it a central feature of nearly every religious tradition. As Aslan writes, “Whether we are aware of it or not, and regardless of whether we’re believers or not, what the vast majority of us think about when we think about God is a divine version of ourselves.” But this projection is not without consequences. We bestow upon God not just all that is good in human nature—our compassion, our thirst for justice—but all that is bad in it: our greed, our bigotry, our penchant for violence. All these qualities inform our religions, cultures, and governments. More than just a history of our understanding of God, this book is an attempt to get to the root of this humanizing impulse in order to develop a more universal spirituality. Whether you believe in one God, many gods, or no god at all, God: A Human History will challenge the way you think about the divine and its role in our everyday lives. Praise for God “Timely, riveting, enlightening and necessary.”—HuffPost “Tantalizing . . . Driven by [Reza] Aslan’s grace and curiosity, God . . . helps us pan out from our troubled times, while asking us to consider a more expansive view of the divine in contemporary life.”—The Seattle Times “A fascinating exploration of the interaction of our humanity and God.”—Pittsburgh Post-Gazette “[Aslan’s] slim, yet ambitious book [is] the story of how humans have created God with a capital G, and it’s thoroughly mind-blowing.”—Los Angeles Review of Books “Aslan is a born storyteller, and there is much to enjoy in this intelligent survey.”—San Francisco Chronicle

Download or read book The History of God Speaking written by Les Martin and published by Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.. This book was released on 2021-08-12 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Surely most evangelicals would affirm the Bible is the Word of God. It is the record of what God has spoken, what He wanted us to know; it is the revelation of Himself and His will. He has declared that what He has given to us is sufficient for us. If all we can know about God can only be found in the pages of Scripture, is that enough? Does He still speak, and if so, how? If He speaks personal revelation to individual believers, what is to be done with such revelation? Is that assumed revelation as authoritative and accurate as the biblical text? Can we know for sure that it came from God? The answers to these questions carry serious consequences. We need to carefully examine what God has recorded in order to accurately understand how God has spoken and how He continues to speak.

Download or read book When God Talks Back written by T.M. Luhrmann and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2012-11-13 with total page 466 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A New York Times Notable Book A Kirkus Reviews Best Book of 2012 A bold approach to understanding the American evangelical experience from an anthropological and psychological perspective by one of the country's most prominent anthropologists. Through a series of intimate, illuminating interviews with various members of the Vineyard, an evangelical church with hundreds of congregations across the country, Tanya Luhrmann leaps into the heart of evangelical faith. Combined with scientific research that studies the effect that intensely practiced prayer can have on the mind, When God Talks Back examines how normal, sensible people—from college students to accountants to housewives, all functioning perfectly well within our society—can attest to having the signs and wonders of the supernatural become as quotidian and as ordinary as laundry. Astute, sensitive, and extraordinarily measured in its approach to the interface between science and religion, Luhrmann's book is sure to generate as much conversation as it will praise.

Download or read book God Speaks My Language written by Aloo Osotsi Mojola and published by Langham Publishing. This book was released on 2020-03-31 with total page 358 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the fascinating and important story of how God’s Word came to East Africa. Beginning with the pioneering efforts of Krapf and Rebmann, Aloo Osotsi Mojola traces the history of Bible translation in the region from 1844 to the present. He incorporates four decades of personal conversations and interviews, along with extensive research, to provide the first comprehensive account of the translations undertaken in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi, and eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. The maps and tables included assist the reader, as does a history of the Swahili language – its standardization, role as lingua franca, and impact on the work of translation. Mojola’s writing is a tribute to those who sacrificed much in their quest to see the word of God accessible to all people, in all places – and the many who continue to sacrifice for the peoples of East Africa. This book is a key contribution to the important and ongoing narrative of how God has met us, and continues to meet us, in our own contexts and our own languages.

Download or read book The God who Speaks written by Ben Campbell Johnson and published by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. This book was released on 2004 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a print on demand book and is therefore non- returnable. As Christians we believe that God speaks -- that God has spoken to people down through the centuries and still speaks to us today. But just how does God speak to us? Has his speech changed over time? And how do we "hear" the voce of God? In this insightful book Ben Campbell Johnson explores the subject of divine speech, highlighting its importance to faith and leading Christian believers into the practice of listening for God's voice in daily life. Johnson first explores the biblical foundations of divine communication, tracing the ways that God has spoken to humankind from the calling of Abraham, to the appearance of Jesus, to the continuing work of the Spirit in the early church. He then gleans important lessons about God's language from a wide range of Christian figures throughout history -- Polycarp, Julian of Norwich, Teresa of Avila, Henri Nouwen, and others. As this historical record shows, God communicates with us in a variety of ways. In exploring these different modes of "GodSpeech," Johnson deftly guides readers into the practice of "intensive listening," a way of posing issues to God and discerning his response. Numerous anecdotes illuminate Johnson's discussion, and each chapter ends with questions for reflection and discussion as well as suggestions for journaling. Johnson concludes the book by recounting a number of personal experiences that vividly illustrate the value of learning to listen to God's voice. At a time when many Christians hunger for a more personal, meaningful connection with God, this book shows readers how to discern divine language and forge a closer, richer relationship with "the God who speaks."

Download or read book When God Spoke Greek written by Timothy Michael Law and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2013-08-15 with total page 229 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Most readers do not know about the Bible used almost universally by early Christians, or about how that Bible was birthed, how it grew to prominence, and how it differs from the one used as the basis for most modern translations. Although it was one of the most important events in the history of our civilization, the translation of the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek in the third century BCE is an event almost unknown outside of academia. Timothy Michael Law offers the first book to make this topic accessible to a wider audience. Retrospectively, we can hardly imagine the history of Christian thought, and the history of Christianity itself, without the Old Testament. When the Emperor Constantine adopted the Christian faith, his fusion of the Church and the State ensured that the Christian worldview (which by this time had absorbed Jewish ideals that had come to them through the Greek translation) would leave an imprint on subsequent history. This book narrates in a fresh and exciting way the story of the Septuagint, the Greek Scriptures of the ancient Jewish Diaspora that became the first Christian Old Testament.

Download or read book The Message of the Word of God written by Tim Meadowcroft and published by InterVarsity Press. This book was released on 2011-11-14 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What does the Bible say about itself? Before this question can be addressed, Tim Meadowcroft argues, we have to address the wider notion that God speaks. Accordingly, Meadowcroft offers fresh, wide-ranging expositions of key passages in both Testaments on the character and power of God's word.

Download or read book Listening to the God Who Speaks written by Klaus Bockmuehl and published by Helmers & Howard Pub. This book was released on 1990-01-01 with total page 164 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this call to listen to the God who speaks, Dr. Klaus Bockmuehl (formerly professor of theology at Regent College, Vancouver, BC) encourages the cultivation of a "listening heart" -- a day-by-day, obedient sensitivity to the voice of God. Tracing themes in divine guidance first through the Old and New Testaments, Dr. Bockmuehl then turns to the "living testimonies" of church history and a crucial doctrinal struggle rooted in the Reformation that has left its legacy in secular and religious ideology alike. Insightful and devotional, "Listening to the God Who Speaks" instructs and motivates readers for a life attentive to God's voice, liberated by a "new creativity and spontaneity that go beyond peraonsl piety to implementation of the Kingdom of God in all human affairs."

Download or read book Discerning the Voice of God written by Priscilla Shirer and published by Moody Publishers. This book was released on 2012-01-01 with total page 221 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Do you feel that the ability to hear God's voice is for other people and not for you? Is it only for people who lived in Biblical times? Not at all! The God who loved you enough to die for you loves you enough to talk to you. And wherever you are in your spiritual walk, God will find a way to speak to you in a way you will understand. Become acquainted with the Voice that has spoken from a fire and a cloud; with visible signs and an invisible Spirit; through a burning bush and burning hearts. Hear from some of the most well-known Christians in history about how God speaks to them—and discover for yourself how you can discern the voice of God.

Download or read book Is God Speaking to Me written by Lysa TerKeurst and published by Harvest House Publishers. This book was released on 2020-09-01 with total page 66 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Living with a deeper awareness of God’s leading isn’t just for a select few…it’s for you too! Have you ever wondered if God still speaks to us today? Or do you worry that what you’re perceiving as God’s voice is really just your own thoughts? You’re not alone. In Is God Speaking to Me?, Lysa TerKeurst shares her own wrestling with these questions and how God has taught her to more clearly discern His direction in her everyday life. Using Scripture, encouraging personal stories, and practical application, Lysa will help you: Stop merely going through the motions of life by learning how to recognize and respond to the Lord’s divine appointments for you. Uncomplicate the idea of listening to God as you use five key questions to help you determine if what you’re discerning is from Him or not. Discover the joy of truly walking with the Lord as you learn how to live in expectation of hearing from Him. Is God Speaking to Me? is both an invitation to a life of adventure with the Lord and the tender reminder that we serve a God who loves us deeply and longs to speak to us personally.

Download or read book God Speaks to Us Too written by Susan M. Shaw and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2014-10-17 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Raised as a Southern Baptist in Rome, Georgia, Susan M. Shaw earned graduate degrees from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, was ordained a Southern Baptist minister, and prepared herself to lead a life of leadership and service among Southern Baptists. However, dramatic changes in both the makeup and the message of the Southern Baptist Convention during the 1980s and 1990s (a period known among Southern Baptists as "the Controversy") caused Shaw and many other Southern Baptists, especially women, to reconsider their allegiances. In God Speaks to Us, Too: Southern Baptist Women on Church, Home, and Society, Shaw presents her own experiences, as well as those of over 150 other current and former Southern Baptist women, in order to examine the role, identity, and culture of women in the largest Protestant denomination in the country. The Southern Baptist Convention was established in the United States in 1845 after a schism between Northern and Southern brethren over the question of slavery. Shaw sketches the history of the Southern Baptist faith from its formation, through its dramatic expansion following World War II, to the Controversy and its aftermath. The Controversy began as a successful attempt by fundamentalists within the denomination to pack the leadership and membership of the Southern Baptist Convention (the denomination's guiding body) with conservative and fundamentalist believers. Although no official strictures prohibit a Southern Baptist woman from occupying the primary leadership role within her congregation -- or her own family -- rhetoric emanating from the Southern Baptist Convention during the Controversy strongly discouraged such roles for its women, and church leadership remains overwhelmingly male as a result. Despite the vast difference between the denomination's radical beginnings and its current position among the most conservative American denominations, freedom of conscience is still prized. Shaw identifies "soul competency," or the notion of a free soul that is responsible for its own decisions, as the principle by which many Southern Baptist women reconcile their personal attitudes with conservative doctrine. These women are often perceived from without as submissive secondary citizens, but they are actually powerful actors within their families and churches. God Speaks to Us, Too reveals that Southern Baptist women understand themselves as agents of their own lives, even though they locate their faith within the framework of a highly patriarchal institution. Shaw presents these women through their own words, and concludes that they believe strongly in their ability to discern the voice of God for themselves.

Download or read book God Speaks written by Charles Robb and published by Villard Books. This book was released on 2000 with total page 162 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Wherever you go, there I am." The celebrated, award-winning billboard campaign of quotes from God, called "God Speaks, " now becomes a hit book.

Download or read book The Pietist Option written by Christopher Gehrz and published by InterVarsity Press. This book was released on 2017-10-03 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Historian Mark Noll has written that historic Pietism "breathed a badly needed vitality" into post-Reformation Europe. Now the time has come for Pietism to revitalize Christianity in post-Christendom America. In The Pietist Option, Christopher Gehrz, a historian of Pietism, and Mark Pattie, a pastor in the Pietist tradition, show how Pietism holds great promise for the church—and the world—today. Modeled after Philipp Spener's 1675 classic, Pia Desideria, this timely book makes a case for the vitality of Pietism in our day. Taking a hard look at American evangelicalism and why it needs renewal, Gehrz and Pattie explore the resources that Pietism can provide the church of the twenty-first century. This concise and winsome volume serves as a practical guide to the Pietist ethos for life and ministry, pointing us toward the renewal so many long for. The Pietist Option introduces Pietism to those who don't know it—and reintroduces it to those who perceive it as an outdated and inward-focused spirituality, a nitpicking divisiveness, or an anti-intellectual withdrawal. With its emphasis on our walk with Jesus and its vibrant hope for a better future, Pietism connects decisively with the ideas and issues of our day. Here is a revitalizing option for all who desire to be faithful and fruitful in God's mission.

Download or read book Making Sense of God written by Timothy Keller and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2016-09-20 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We live in an age of skepticism. Our society places such faith in empirical reason, historical progress, and heartfelt emotion that it’s easy to wonder: Why should anyone believe in Christianity? What role can faith and religion play in our modern lives? In this thoughtful and inspiring new book, pastor and New York Times bestselling author Timothy Keller invites skeptics to consider that Christianity is more relevant now than ever. As human beings, we cannot live without meaning, satisfaction, freedom, identity, justice, and hope. Christianity provides us with unsurpassed resources to meet these needs. Written for both the ardent believer and the skeptic, Making Sense of God shines a light on the profound value and importance of Christianity in our lives.

Download or read book When God Spoke English written by Adam Nicolson and published by HarperCollins UK. This book was released on 2011 with total page 79 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A fascinating, lively account of the making of the King James Bible. James VI of Scotland -- now James I of England -- came into his new kingdom in 1603. Trained almost from birth to manage rival political factions, he was determined not only to hold his throne, but to avoid the strife caused by religious groups that was bedevilling most European countries. He would hold his God-appointed position and unify his kingdom. Out of these circumstances, and involving the very people who were engaged in the bitterest controversies, a book of extraordinary grace and lasting literary appeal was created: the King James Bible. 47 scholars from Cambridge, Oxford and London translated the Bible, drawing from many previous versions, and created what many believe to be the greatest prose work ever written in English -- the product of a culture in a peculiarly conflicted era. This was the England of Shakespeare, Marlowe, Jonson and Bacon; but also of extremist Puritans, the Gunpowder plot, the Plague, of slum dwellings and crushing religious confines. Quite how this astonishing translation emerges is the central question of this book. Far more than Shakespeare, this Bible helped to create and shape the language. It is the origin of many of our most familiar phrases, and the foundations of the English-speaking world. It was a generous and deliberate decision to make the Bible available to the common man: not an immediate commercial success, but which later became a bestseller, and has remained one ever since. Adam Nicolson gives a fascinating and dramatic account of the early years of the first Stewart ruler, and the scholars who laboured for seven years to create the world's greatest book; immersing us in a world of ingratiating bishops, a fascinating monarch and London at a time unlike any other.

Download or read book The Case for God written by Karen Armstrong and published by Knopf Canada. This book was released on 2009-09-22 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the bestselling author of A History of God and The Great Transformation comes a balanced, nuanced understanding of the role religion plays in human life and the trajectory of faith in modern times. Why has God become incredible? Why is it that atheists and theists alike now think and speak about God in a way that veers so profoundly from the thinking of our ancestors? Moving from the Paleolithic Age to the present, Karen Armstrong details the lengths to which humankind has gone to experience a sacred reality that it called God, Brahman, Nirvana, Allah, or Dao. She examines the diminished impulse toward religion in our own time when a significant number of people either want nothing to do with God or question the efficacy of faith. With her trademark depth of knowledge and profound insight, Armstrong elucidates how the changing world has necessarily altered the importance of religion at both societal and individual levels. And she makes a powerful, convincing argument for structuring a faith that speaks to the needs of our dangerously polarized age.

Download or read book Surprised by the Voice of God written by Jack S. Deere and published by Zondervan. This book was released on 2010-06-15 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: If You Believe Miraculous Gifts Have Ceased, You’re in for a Big Surprise! What caused a former Dallas Seminary professor to believe that the miraculous gifts of the Holy Spirit are being given today? What convinced someone skeptical about miracles that God still speaks and heals? A dramatic change took place in Jack Deere’s life when he took a fresh look at the Scriptures. He discovered that his arguments against miraculous gifts were based more on prejudice and lack of personal experience than on the Bible. As soon as Deere became a seeker instead of a skeptic, the Holy Spirit revealed himself in new and surprising ways. In Surprised by the Power of the Spirit, Deere provides a strong biblical defense for the Spirit’s speaking and healing ministries today. He also describes several reliable cases of people who were miraculously healed or who heard God speak in an unmistakable way. Finally, he gives sound advice for using spiritual gifts in the church. Written in a popular style, with the care of a scholar but the passion of personal experience, this book explores: - The real reason Christians do not believe in miraculous gifts - Responding to Charismatic abuses - Were miracles meant to be temporary? - Why God still heals "‘Must’ reading for all Bible-believing Christians. I wish with all my heart I could place it in the hands of every conservative evangelical." - James Robison, Life Outreach International