Interesting, understandable, and practical are words that are rarely used to characterize the Minor Prophets, and it is not unusual for believers to "hurry through" when they come to them in the normal sequence of their Bible reading. For them, reading through the Minor Prophets is simply an exercise in discipline, and little, if any, positive, recognizable benefit is gained from the effort. Yet II Timothy 3:16 tells us that "All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness." No exclusion is made for the Minor Prophets. Studies in the Minor Prophets is written from the perspective of a pastor seeking to help his people overcome that obstacle. Historical setting, contemporary relevance, and prophetic significance are all carefully examined in each prophecy. Sensible, easy to understand outlines are included and a practical application is offered for each believer. As the study unfolds, certain truths become obvious. It is impossible to ignore God's incomprehensible holiness, His unconditional love for His people, and His eternal commitment to fulfill His promises. He hasn't changed. Though He deals with us differently, (we are, after all, on the other side of the cross), His plan and purpose have not changed. As God concluded His communication to the people of Israel for 400 years with the message of His prophet Malachi, He stated, "I am the LORD, I change not" (Malachi 3:6). Studies in the Minor Prophets reminds us of the never changing character of our sovereign God.

Before the Bible Belt fastened itself across the South, competing factions of evangelicals fought over their faith's future, and a contrarian sect, self-named the Primitive Baptists, made its stand. Joshua Guthman here tells the story of how a band of antimissionary and antirevivalistic Baptists defended Calvinism, America's oldest Protestant creed, from what they feared were the unbridled forces of evangelical greed and power. In their harrowing confessions of faith and in the quavering uncertainty of their singing, Guthman finds the emotional catalyst of the Primitives' early nineteenth-century movement: a searing experience of doubt that motivated believers rather than paralyzed them. But Primitives' old orthodoxies proved startlingly flexible. After the Civil War, African American Primitives elevated a renewed Calvinism coursing with freedom's energies. Tracing the faith into the twentieth century, Guthman demonstrates how a Primitive Baptist spirit, unmoored from its original theological underpinnings, seeped into the music of renowned southern artists such as Roscoe Holcomb and Ralph Stanley, whose ""high lonesome sound"" appealed to popular audiences searching for meaning in the drift of postwar American life. In an account that weaves together religious, emotional, and musical histories, Strangers Below demonstrates the unlikely but enduring influence of Primitive Baptists on American religious and cultural life.

This is a letter explaining the great love of Jesus and how it is inside of you and how you can use it in a world that is ignorant of it.

An instruction manual for people that have recently been saved.

Between 1776 and the mid-1800s, the number of Baptists in the United States grew at a staggering rate, rising from fifty thousand at the outbreak of revolution to more than a million as the nation edged toward civil war. As the Second Great Awakening swept through the Old Southwest, it generated religious enthusiasm among Methodist and Baptist converts who were intent upon replacing old forms of Protestantism with an evangelical vibrancy that reflected and often contributed to the unsettled social relations of the new republic. No place was better suited to embrace this enthusiasm than Kentucky. In Born of Water and Spirit, Richard C. Traylor explores the successes and failures of Baptists in this area, using it as a window into the elements of Baptist life that transcended locale. Traylor argues that the achievements of Baptists in Kentucky reflect, in many ways, their success and coming of age in the early national period of America. The factionalism that characterized frontier Baptists, he asserts, is an essential key to understanding who the colonial Baptists had been, who they were becoming in the late eighteenth through the mid-nineteenth centuries, and who they would become after the Civil War. In this highly nuanced study, Traylor looks at the denomination in light of what he calls its "Baptist impulse"-the movement's fluid structure and democratic spirit. These characteristics have proven to be its greatest strength as well as the source of its most terrible struggles. Yet, confronting theological clashes, along with the challenges that come with growth, forged the Baptist identity and shaped its future. The first three chapters examine the primary elements of the impulse: rituals of conversion, baptism, and communion; the Baptist preacher; and the significance of the local church to the sect. Following these chapters are explorations of the reformations and forces of change in the early to mid-1800s, the role of women and African Americans in developing the group, and the refinement and reorientation of priorities from 1840 to 1860. This important denominational history will be of great value to scholars of American religious history and the history of the early American republic.

The book is a collection of essays from the International Conference of Baptist Studies VI that was held at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, Wake Forest, North Carolina in July 2012. The topic of Baptist Identity remains important for Baptists across the globe. This collection of essays reveals the richness and the diversity of conceptions about Baptist identity that have been shared by and about Baptists. The essays, written by an international set of authors, examine issues of Baptist origins and questions of identity up to the present. Written with attention to historical context and grounded in primary source research, the essays will contribute to current and future debates about Baptist history and identity past and present. -Publisher

The Perversion and Subversion of John 3:16 reveals a rancid putrid cancer in the Christian realm today. The Bible is being rewritten and reinterpreted in the new versions. Ancient heresies cloaked in a new garb have found a new venue. A battle for true Biblical Christianity rages out of sight and mind of the average Christian. This book documents, without a doubt, the most important Christian issue in our time. It is time for Bible believing Christians to return to our true Biblical heritage and take a firm stand with our traditional conservative Biblical faith.