This study reconstructs the apocalyptic eschatology in Matthew's Gospel so we may understand his time and concerns. Sociological analysis of apocalypticism in Judaism and early Christianity shows that such a world view is adopted by a minority group in a time of great crisis. Matthew's distinctive and often vengeful vision must be set against his community's conflict with Judaism, Gentiles and the larger Christian movement and his acute need to enhance his community's sense of identity and out of pastoral concern.

This volume describes how the rhetorical devices used in Judges inspire its readers to support a divinely appointed Judahite king who endorses the deuteronomic agenda to rid the land of foreigners, to maintain inter-tribal loyalty to YHWH's cult, and to uphold social justice.
Matters of rhetorical concern interpreted here include the superimposed cycle-motif and tribal-political schemata, concerns reflected in the plot-layers of each hero story, the force of narrative analogy for characterization, the strategy of entrapment which foreshadows portrayals of Saul and David in 1 Samuel, and the relation between Judges' implied situation of composition and its compiler's intention.
In addition to offering new insights into the rhetorical strategy of the Judges compiler, this book illustrates a new method for understanding how plot-layered stories work.

Whether you are searching for your calling or wholeheartedly pursuing your life's purpose, Brian Houston's transformative approach to life will help you navigate a faith path that is all your own and discover unique gifts tailored perfectly for your journey. Thirty-five years ago when Brian Houston set out to pioneer a church with thirty people in a school hall, he had no idea how many highs and lows, sacrifices and miraculous opportunities he would face. Over time, his tiny church grew into the worldwide Hillsong ministry, leading people all over the globe to follow the greatest Guide who ever walked the path of life - Jesus. In this ninety-day devotional adapted from his bestselling book Live, Love, Lead, Brian Houston shares his own life-tested experiences and the powerful biblical truths he's learned that will enable you to live fully, love completely, and lead boldly - the hallmarks of Jesus' time on earth. Each page includes: * Scripture to meditate on * Excerpt: a key truth about living, loving, and leading * Thought: an uplifting, liberating, and meaningful thought to start the day * Reflection: a place to write your thoughts and reflections * Prayer: a simple but powerful prayer to help you express yourself.

The book of Numbers is the story of the people of Israel in the wilderness as they departed from slavery in Egypt to the freedom of the promised land of Canaan. It contains a variety of materials relating to this transition from the old generation of Israel to the new, including stories and laws, census lists, instructions for worship, reports of military battles, and accounts of legal disputes. Numbers chronicles a community faced with many competing interests, groups, and issues, endeavoring to define itself and its mission in the world. Dennis Olson offers readers a comprehensive interpretation of this often overlooked book. He provides a thoroughly contemporary reading of Numbers that enlightens the modern church as it navigates the contemporary wilderness of pluralism, competing voices, and shifting foundations in the journey toward the twenty-first century.

Spanning a variety of disciplines, this 1995 enquiry focuses on one particular Pauline characteristic: the apostle's habit of making matters of faith the object of logical appraisal. A tracing of the elliptical patterns of argument in Romans 1-8 illustrates this habit and, at the same time, displays how Paul's vigorous persistence in it seems often not to be matched by the solidity, or at any rate the lucidity, of his logic. By viewing Paul against the background of semiology, more especially the semiological theory of Umberto Eco, new light is shed on the genesis of Paul's reasoning. The discussion which ensues is marked by an interesting and productive combination of modern linguistics and classical logic. Moreover, the singular potential of today's techniques of 'fuzzy' logical analysis for measuring the intellectual muscle of Paul's argumentation is brought out dramatically by the uniqueness of his semiological situation. His rationality takes on a new face.

This volume in the popular Interpretation series presents the book of Leviticus. It focuses on the history of Israel during this time when Israel's life was marked by the various ritual sacrifices and observances commanded by God for the ordering of the nation's life.

Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching is a distinctive resource for those who interpret the Bible in the church. Planned and written specifically for teaching and preaching needs, this critically acclaimed biblical commentary is a major contribution to scholarship and ministry.

Paul's letters are the earliest surviving Christian writings and therefore the earliest documentary evidence for what Jesus' followers knew and said about him. The present volume deals with questions frequently asked about Paul, examines what can be known about Jesus from Paul's letters, and enquires how Paul himself interpreted Jesus' significance. A closing chapter considers how several writers in the Pauline tradition variously continued and altered the apostle's views about Jesus.

This commentary on the book of Job is a non-technical commentary but it is full of Whybray's most mature reflections on the book. The Introduction deals with the nature and purpose of the book, its specific and distinctive theology, its themes and its various parts and their mutual relationship. Thereafter, Norman Whybray, who is renowned for his insightful commentaries, usually comments on small sections of the text, and verse-by-verse in some especially difficult passages. As a whole, his commentary is illustrative of the fact that the book of Job is more concerned with the nature of God than with the problem of suffering. This is a reprint of the original edition in 1998.

In many ways, the Old Testament book of Daniel is an enigma. It consists of two different kinds of material: stories about Judean exiles working in the court of pagan kings (chapters 1-6) and accounts of visions experienced by one of these exiles (chapters 7-12). It is written in two languages, Hebrew and Aramaic, and the language division does not match the subject division. Whether the book's affinities lie more with the Hebrew prophets or with later Jewish apocalypses is debated, as are its affinities with the wisdom traditions of both Israel and Babylon. Refreshingly, Enest Lucas postpones much of the discussion of such issues to an Epilogue, and invites the reader to an investigation of the meaning of the text in the form in which we now have it. He identifies the central theme of the book as the sovereignty of the God of Israel. With even-handedness and clarity, Lucas demonstrates that, for preachers and teachers, there is much in Daniel that is fairly readily understandable and applicable, and that there are also theological depths that are rewarding for those willing to plumb them and wrestle with the issues they raise.

Jesus' life is a song that still resonates down through the ages. His deeds and words speak with beauty and mystery, both comforting and confounding us. Who is this man? Over the course of his career, singer-songwriter Michael Card has explored the depths of Scripture by bringing together biblical study and the power of the imagination. Now he sheds light on the life of Jesus through lyrical reflections on the four Gospels. These forty meditations lead us to a place where Jesus becomes real and we can hear him with both hearts and minds. Listen again to the life of the Nazarene. And discover anew the music of Christ in your soul.

It is not surprising that non-academic bible readers largely ignore Nahum. Comprising only a few pages, it is easily overlooked in the midst of the twelve Minor Prophets. When a reader does stop in passing, the book appears to be brief, brutish, and uncomfortably violent. Looking more closely, however, readers may observe echoes of other much greater prophets, such as Isaiah and Ezekiel, perhaps even of the Psalms, and conclude that the book is a rather second-rate pastiche of other writings, although some rather brilliant poetry is woven into it. Who Will Lament Her? takes a fresh look at Nahum. It explores further the presence of the feminine in the book of Nahum, the extent to which it is present in the text, how the structure of the text makes the feminine both present and absent, and the possible reasons why this is so. Lanner takes two methodological approaches. The first sets out to show that it is possible that a feminine deity is present in the text of Nahum. The second approach engages three theories of the literary fantastic with the text, taking into consideration the findings of the historical and exegetical work. Using these two approaches hand in hand results in a fresh reading of Nahum.

Luke's Gospel was written to transform. In its original context, readers would have seen a portrait of Jesus as an ideal teacher and king, able to shape his people through exemplary leadership. They would have come to the Gospel expecting to be changed for God's purposes through the imitation of Jesus' lifestyle and adoption of his teaching. When today's readers approach the text in the same way, they can be transformed too. Spiritual Practices of Jesus explores Luke's portrait of the spirituality of Jesus, focusing on the themes of simplicity, humility, and prayer in his life and teaching. After establishing the likely thought patterns of Luke's first readers, Catherine Wright considers how Jesus models these three values and then explores how different readers have understood and employed key Lukan passages for spiritual formation, beginning with a first-century audience and tracing the reception of these texts in the ancient church. Demonstrating a theological interpretation of Jesus' spirituality grounded in church tradition, this accessible book combines New Testament studies and spiritual formation to provide fresh insight into the biblical text. Wright invites readers to join with Luke's earliest readers in adopting ancient spiritual practices that still hold the potential to revolutionize our relationships with money, ourselves, others, and God. Luke's Gospel reveals that as we individually and corporately imitate Jesus, we live lives of greater authenticity, are oriented toward his kingdom, and are transformed by his manner of life.

Was the Gospel of John written in critical response to the Gospel of Thomas, an early collection of Jesus's sayings? Or was it directed to the Christians among whom Thomas originated? Ismo Dunderberg challenges these views, arguing that the two gospels were written at about the same time but without knowledge of each other. He also offers a thorough discussion of the identity and functions of the enigmatic Beloved Disciple in the Gospel of John, throwing new light on this figure by comparing it to other `beloved' disciples of Jesus in early Christian literature. This part of Dunderberg's analysis also helps to evaluate the portrayal of Judas in the recently published Gospel of Judas, although this text was not yet available, when this study was completed.

Come and experience the Scriptures in a fresh and life-giving way. In this collaboration between Alabaster Co. and IVP, the full text of Psalms 72-150 is presented alongside beautiful full-color photographs and guided meditations by author and Bible teacher Kathy Khang. Carefully designed as a practical, study-focused version of Alabaster's other bible books, the Alabaster Guided Meditations invite readers into deeper reflection by incorporating the church's ancient lectio divina and visio divina traditions. Though the intersection of New Living Translation Bible passages, photography, thoughtfully designed layouts, and meditations, readers are invited to experience Psalms 72-150 anew.

Exceptionally popular author, with several titles selling well over 100,000 copies.

This book is a wide-ranging study of Johannine exegesis in the sixteenth century, centered on the John commentary of Wolfgang Musculus (1497-1563), an influential leader of the Protestant Reformation. Farmer compares Musculus's exegesis of the Johannine miracle stories not only with that of other sixteenth-century commentators but also with ancient and medieval commentaries.

The series Beihefte zur Zeitschrift fur die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft (BZAW) covers all areas of research into the Old Testament, focusing on the Hebrew Bible, its early and later forms in Ancient Judaism, as well as its branching into many neighboring cultures of the Ancient Near East and the Greco-Roman world.

The Pastoral Epistles present difficult questions for the modern interpreter, including such matters as their authorship, literary characteristics, and social orientations. Raymond Collins carefully leads the reader through the texts of these three documents, attending to the flow of the Pastor's thought and locating it within the Jewish and Hellenistic culture of his day.

The New Testament Library offers authoritative commentary on every book and major aspect of the New Testament, as well as classic volumes of scholarship. The commentaries in this series provide fresh translations based on the best available ancient manuscripts, offer critical portrayals of the historical world in which the books were created, pay careful attention to their literary design, and present a theologically perceptive exposition of the text.

Through the Year with John Wesley refreshes and presents some of the theological and reflective writings of the Reverend John Wesley, renowned as 'The father of Methodism'. A deeply spiritual man of high integrity and indomitable character, Wesley strove to present great Christian truths to the non-churchgoing masses of England throughout the 1700s, making a powerful impact upon the nation; the like of which has rarely been felt since. Each daily reading is a pure extract from Reverend John Wesley's prolific output as an intelligent, thoughtful and passionate writer. Married to appropriate verses of Scripture and a daily prayer, the words he left behind carry an ancient power.

Do you long for a closer, deeper walk with God? Would you like to know more about what the Bible says about spiritual intimacy? We say we know about God's love in our heads, but has it really percolated through to our hearts? The Bible employs the metaphor of Christ, the Lover, and believers, his beloved. Yet this rich relationship potential is relatively unexplored in modern popular books, and we are the poorer for it. Using Song of Songs and other Bible sources, the author explores the dynamics of our relationship. We come to understand more fully what it is for Christ to love us and for us to love him. Contents Desire - You're the one I want Show me your face Jesus is not my boyfriend, but... Is the Song of Songs really about me and Jesus? Insecurity Delight Springtime Belonging Distance Christ finds us beautiful Christ gets crazy for love Finally, consummation Distant again Spiritual intimacy betrayed and lost through porn Porn-spoiled lives restored Reconciled Still beautiful to him Spirals of longing and love Conclusion: the power of spiritual marriage in the storms This portrayal of the living dynamics of a believer's relationship with Christ cannot fail to transform our devotional life profoundly.

In the view of St. Benedict of Nursia, the Lenten journey is an inner pilgrimage with Christ into the deepest parts of ourselves, to be marked not so much by external observances, such as fasting and self-denial, as by a deepening of our relationship with God. Benedictine monk Albert Holtz develops that journey theme through meditations written during a fifteen-country pilgrimage while on sabbatical. At the heart of each reflection is the lesson it teaches about our inner spiritual journey. By applying Benedict s monastic wisdom to the everyday concerns and aspirations of modern Christians, Pilgrim Road helps contemporary spiritual seekers travel along and experience the journey of Lent in the most positive, meaningful, and fruitful manner. Revised edition of a classic Lenten devotional guide from Morehouse Includes a revised introduction and questions for reflection "

'And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.' Micah 6:8 NIV This book contains 365 short daily devotions on the theme of mercy. Each day's reading will take about one minute to read, and is accompanied by a short scripture passage and a gentle tug on your heart to be the light of mercy in someone's life each day, because a merciful heart looks beyond its own difficulties and encourages others. Written by Don Stephens, bestselling author of Ships of Mercy, and founder of the charity Mercy Ships which offers free surgical care to people in desperate need in Africa, these daily devotional readings are inspired by the very best stories from the work of the people who volunteer on the ship. But each day's reflection points to the need for mercy everywhere... not just across the ocean, but down the street, next door, and even in our very own homes.