Whether used as an individual Bible study or used for studying with a group, the "Nelson Impact Bible Study Guide Series" will deepen your knowledge and understanding of the Bible, book by book.

Written in an easy-to-read, interesting style, each study guide will help you to experience the true meaning of the messages of the Bible, and in turn, empower you to truly make a difference in the world for Christ.

Key Features Include: Timelines Fun cultural facts and probing questions Plenty of room for taking notes Biblical and present-day maps

Other study guides in the series include: 1 Corinthians ISBN: 1418506192 Exodus ISBN: 1418506168 Genesis ISBN: 1418506087 Isaiah ISBN: 1418506095 John ISBN: 1418506109 Mark ISBN: 1418506184 Romans ISBN: 1418506117 Ruth & Esther ISBN: 1418506176

Elizabeth Achtemeier examines the often-neglected Minor Prophets and explains them as they reflect the church at worship and at work. She sets the Minor Prophets in their canonical context emphasizing the relationship between the message of these prophets and the New Testament. Unique in the use of brief quotations from great preachers' sermons on the prophets, Nahum-Malachi is enriched with the vast insightful store of homiletical interpretation available today.

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.

The KJV Journal Reference Edition Bible helps you study and reflect on Scripture in a tangible and meaningful way. Regardless of whether you write prayers, jot down sermon notes, or express your thoughts with art, this Bible is an essential resource for anyone who seeks to engage with Scripture. In addition to the dedicated space for writing, the Bible features an extensive cross-reference system to enhance your study of God's truth. As part of the Verse Art Cover Collection, this edition is designed with a powerful verse from Psalms that helps focus your heart and mind on the truths and promises within its pages. A great gift idea or a treasured keepsake, this Bible gives you the ability-and room-to grow in your relationship with God. This edition is published in large KJV Comfort Print type, which was designed exclusively for Thomas Nelson to be the most readable at any size. Features include: Wide, lined margins provide space to reflect, journal, or create art next to your favorite verses Extensive cross-references allow you to find related passages quickly and easily Premium paper limits bleed-through, ideal for taking notes Lays flat in your hand or on your desk Words of Christ in red quickly identify verses spoken by Jesus 1 double-faced satin ribbon Clear and readable 8-point KJV Comfort Print (R)

New York pastor Timothy Keller is known for his ability to connect a deep understanding of the Bible with contemporary thought and the practical issues we all face in our lives. My Rock; My Refuge - his first devotional, consisting of all new material - offers inspiration for every day of the year, based on the book of Psalms. Here Keller helps readers apply the principles he laid out in his book Prayer: Experiencing Awe and Intimacy with God. He walks them verse by verse through the entire Psalter, the one biblical book designed to teach us how to pray, how to spiritually handle every possible life situation, and how to actually know God. This title is published in the US as The Songs of Jesus.

The image of the historical Jesus takes form in the words of the Gospel Q. The Lost Gospel Q represents the very first Gospel, older than the traditional Gospels and written by Jesus's contemporaries. It preserves Jesus's original words -- the Sermon on the Mount, Beatitudes, the Lord's Prayer, parables, and his counsel for a compassionate life.

The original of the Gospel Q was lost for 2,000 years, but for the past 150 years historians and theologians have been digging through the many layers of the New Testament to uncover the original Gospel.

Recent research on the book of Isaiah has been dominated by discussions of its unity and authorship. Professor Williamson's important study provides a major and highly original contribution to these key issues, and is based upon a more rigorous methodology than ever used before. Isaiah is usually regarded as the work of two authors - the so-called Isaiah of Jerusalem (Isaiah 1-39) and Deutero-Isaiah (the author of Isaiah 40-55). Professor Williamson argues that the author of Isaiah 40-55 was in fact strongly influenced by the work of the earlier writer. Secondly, he demonstrates that the earlier work was regarded as a book which had been sealed up until the time when judgement was past and the day of salvation had arrived, and that Deutero-Isaiah believed himself to be heralding the arrival of that day. Thirdly, and most provocatively, Professor Williamson argues that Deutero-Isaiah both included and edited a version of the earlier prophecies along with his own, intending from the start that they should be read togather as a complete whole. This innovative and scholarly work, which sheds much new light on some of the more neglected passages, has had significant implications for future work on this much-loved prophetic book.

The Apocalypse of John is a work of immense importance and learning. Yet among the major works of early Christianity included in the New Testament it has received relatively little scholarly attention.This work is a significant contribution to remedying this neglect. The author examines the meticulous literary artistry, creative imagination, radical political critique and profound theology of the Apocalypse of John. It is a sustained enterprise to understand both the form and the message of the Apocalypse in its literary and historical contexts.An invaluable and illuminating work for students, scholars and ministers>

This 2004 book in English integrates detailed literary criticism of the exorcism stories in Luke-Acts with wide-ranging comparative study of ancient sources on demonology, spirit affliction and exorcistic healing. Methods from systemic functional linguistics and critical theory are explained and then applied to each story. Careful focus is placed on each narrative's linguistic functions and also on relevant aspects of its literary co-text and the wider context of culture. Implications of the analysis for the new perspective on Luke-Acts, especially the implied author's relationship with Judaism, are explored in relation to the Lukan stories' original context of reception. Largely neglected interfaces between Luke's narrative representation of exorcism and emerging academic discourse about religious experience, shamanism, health care in antiquity, ritual performance and ancient Jewish systems of impurity are probed in ways that shed fresh light on this supremely alien part of the Lukan writings.

Researchers on Greco-Roman slavery, formative Christianity, and New Testament theology will surely benefit from this groundbreaking book, a study of the Apostle Paul's slave metaphors in Galatians using the New Rhetoric Model as the lens of analysis. From Roman slave laws in the first century C.E. to the text of Galatians, this book provides an excellent test case for all other studies of first-century metaphors, parables, analogies, and other related genres. Moreover, this book demonstrates explicitly, using examples and a clear step-by-step method to clarify the meanings behind Paul's metaphors.

A respected expert on Paul's writings, Klaus Haacker presents this introduction to the theology of the Letter to the Romans to complete Cambridge's New Testament Theology series. Haacker focuses on themes such as righteousness, mission, the "mystery of Israel", suffering and hope, and preaching. Engaging with Paul's rhetoric, he reveals how ancient Rome and the Christian reinterpretation of the legal heritage of Israel provide contexts for the Letter. The book will be of interest to teachers, pastors, and students of theology and the New Testament.

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 1-72 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 1-72 anew.

Wesley Olmstead examines the parables of the Two Sons, the Tenants and the Wedding Feast against the background of the wider Matthean narrative. He explores Matthew's characterization of the Jewish leaders, assessing the respective roles of Israel and the nations in the plot of Matthew's Gospel. Against the current of contemporary Matthean scholarship, Olmstead argues that these parables indicate the future inclusion of other nations in the "nation" that God had promised to raise up from Abraham.

This book examines the question of how God might relate to the realm of human history. It explores this question partly through a study of a particular New Testament text, the Book of Revelation, and partly through analysis of the work of two contemporary theologians, JÜrgen Moltmann and Wolfhart Pannenberg. Michael Gilbertson, therefore, brings New Testament studies and historical theology into dialogue. Although Pannenberg and Moltmann have been heavily influenced by apocalyptic literature, this is the first detailed analysis of their theology of history in the light of Revelation.

Storytelling is as ancient as humanity, and Jesus was a master of the art. Forty of His parables are presented here with a fresh simplicity, bringing our minds to greater understanding and our hearts to deeper openness.

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.

The author of Hebrews is not preoccupied with the concepts of the Hellenistic philosophers but with the ideas of the ancient world is frequently conveyed by the notion of 'sacred space', which the worshipper wishes to approach in order to gain access to the deity. Standing as he does within the religious tradition of Judaism, the author of Hebrews inherited notions of sacred space whereby it was identified with the land, Jerusalem, Zion and the sanctuary. He shares priestly concern, so Isaacs argues, to guard the sacred, to protect it from the profane, and to regulate the means whereby the worshipper can approach the holy.>

This book arises from the conviction that much in current research on the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Old Testament) needs to be subjected to rigorous scrutiny and that much is radically mistaken. Professor Nicholson argues that the work of Julius Wellhausen just over a century ago, for all that it needs revision and development in detail, remains the securest basis for understanding the Pentateuch.

Matthew's Jesus is typically described as the humble, compassionate messiah. However, Matthew's theologically rich quotation of Isaiah 42.1-4 underscores the manifestation of justice in Jesus' powerful message and deeds, that is thought to accompany the arrival of the kingdom of God. The study concludes that this citation was central to Matthew's highly ethical understanding of Jesus' life and mission.

The first biography of David from a purely historical perspective reveals not a hero but a holy terrorist and a ruthless despot.

In Saint Saul, Donald Harman Akenson offers a lively and provocative account of what we can learn about Jesus by reading the letters of Paul. As the only direct evidence of Jesus we have that were composed before the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE forever altered the outlook of the Christian and Jewish faiths, Akenson claims that these letters are the most reliable source of information. He dismisses the traditional method of searching for facts about Jesus by looking for parallels among the four gospels because they were handed down to us as a unit by a later generation. Akenson painstakingly recreates the world of Christ, a time rich with ideas, prophets, factions, priests, savants, and god-drunk fanatics. As an eminent historian, Akenson approaches his subject with a fresh eye and a scholarly rigor that is all too rare in this hotly disputed field.

This study argues that the authors of Deuteronomy - a corpus of laws purportedly given to Israel through Moses - radically transformed ancient Israelite religion and society. Their new vision, says author Bernard Levinson, was completely without precedent and included matters of worship, justice, political administration, family life, and theology. Where their agenda and the conventions of Jewish law conflicted, Levinson shows, the authors of Deuteronomy appropriated the problematic laws in question and reworked them in order to erase the conflict and to further their own program.

Beginning with the Gospels, interpretations of the life of Jesus have flourished for nearly two millennia, yet a clear and coherent picture of Jesus as a man has remained elusive. In Rabbi Jesus, the noted biblical scholar Bruce Chilton places Jesus within the context of his times to present a fresh, historically accurate, and revolutionary examination of the man who founded Christianity.

Drawing on recent archaeological findings and new translations and interpretations of ancient texts, Chilton discusses in enlightening detail the philosophical and psychological foundations of Jesus’ ideas and beliefs. His in-depth investigation also provides evidence that contradicts long-held beliefs about Jesus and the movement he led. Chilton shows, for example, that the High Priest Caiaphas, as well as Pontius Pilate, played a central role in Jesus’ execution. It is, however, Chilton’s description of Jesus’ role as a rabbi, or "master," of Jewish oral traditions, as a teacher of the Cabala, and as a practitioner of a Galilean form of Judaism that emphasized direct communication with God that casts an entirely new light on the origins of Christianity.

Seamlessly merging history and biography, this penetrating, highly readable book uncovers truths lost to the passage of time and reveals a new Jesus for the new millennium.

Do you ever feel like Jesus couldn't possibly know what you are going through? He's the God of the universe after all! Does he really know your daily struggles? The good news is: he does. For thirty-three years Jesus felt everything you have ever felt: weakness, weariness, sadness, rejection. His feet got tired and his head ached. He was tempted and his strength was tested. And you know why? Because in becoming human, Jesus made it possible for us to see God. His tears, God's tears. His voice, God's voice. Want to know what matters to God? Find out what matters to Jesus. Want to know what in the world God is doing? Ponder the words and life of Jesus. For more than three decades, pastor and bestselling author Max Lucado has shown us Jesus. In this capstone book, he takes us further on the journey to know the life and character of the Savior. This book describes both the person Jesus was on earth and how to live in a personal relationship with him. It is divided into six sections: Immanuel Friend Teacher Miracle Worker Lamb of God Returning King This compilation from Max Lucado gives readers the chance to become more familiar with the man at the center of the greatest story ever told. Max explores Jesus' life, death, and resurrection, including how Jesus interacted with his friends and his enemies, what he did with time alone, and how he acted at a party. Max writes, "Don't settle for a cursory glance or a superficial understanding. Look long into the heart of Christ and you'll see it. Grace and life. Forgiveness of sin. The defeat of death. This is the hope he gives." Jesus wants you to know him. As you read these pages, may the hero of all history talk to you personally, and may you find in him the answer to your deepest needs.

Money. Fame. Relationships. Knowledge. Having all these things-or even one-would make you happy, right? Well, maybe for a second. At least that's what King Solomon learned-and he tried all those things on a HUGE scale and still wasn't content. In fact, chasing those ideas and getting what he wanted actually made him more depressed. So what are we supposed to do if the wisest man in history couldn't make those things work? Thankfully, Solomon left us a whole book of his trials and errors. Maybe you've looked at other people's lives and thought, "If only I had that, my life would be perfect." The problem is, those same people are asking the same question when they come across someone else. Even the wisest man in the world, Solomon, struggled with it. In Living a Life that Matters, author and "wisdom expert" Mark Matlock unpacks Solomon's big "If only" questions on happiness in the book of Ecclesiastes to connect his timeless questions to yours, and explores what really makes a perfect life. Living a Life That Matters lets you gaze over Solomon's shoulder as he indulges every pleasure, exercises every power, and emerges with a radical conclusion about how to live. You'll also find ways that his search for meaning connects with yours today and how your story can connect with your friends' as they seek meaning in the world. Living a Life that Matters: makes the book of Ecclesiastes relevant to teens' lives-and also easy to understand contains contemporary examples from pop culture and everyday life explores what it means to live in the world today, as well as the real issue of depression and its effects

The Book of Revelation presents the reader with a frightening narrative world in which the people of God are tormented, threatened, and sometimes killed by various agents of Satan. Throughout the work, the Apocalyse points to Rome as the predominant demonic agent. Scholars have traditionally thought that Revelation was written in order to encourage believers to stand fast in the face of the Roman persecutation of the early Church. More recently, however, it has been argued that no such crisis existed at the time the book was written. In this study, Paul Duff offers a different viewpoint on the origin of the Book of Revelation is a rhetorically sophisticated response to an internal leadership crisis within the churches. In support of this argument Duff marshals evidence from the social and economic context of the time, and from literary and rhetorical analyses of the text. The result is a work that substantially advances the implication of the current consensus and sheds new light on this influential yet enigmatic text.