Romans - Constitution of Your Faith - Precepts for Life Study Guide for the radio / tv broadcast series by Kay Arthur. (Covers Romans chapters 1-5.) Learn about the righteousness of God and understand the bondage of sin in Paul's life-changing letter to the Romans. Study how God's solution to man's sinful dilemma through justification by faith in Jesus and the free gift of grace. Understanding these essential doctrines will strengthen your faith

Romans - Constitution of Your Faith - Precepts for Life Study Companion for the radio / tv broadcast series by Kay Arthur. (Covers Romans chapters 1-5.) Learn about the righteousness of God and understand the bondage of sin in Paul's life-changing letter to the Romans. Study how God's solution to man's sinful dilemma through justification by faith in Jesus and the free gift of grace. Understanding these essential doctrines will strengthen your faith

Among the classics of ancient Greek and Jewish literature, the story of Luke-Acts has few rivals. Yet we moderns miss much of the meaning of Luke's two-part drama because we read it like any other text and not as it would have been "heard" by ancient listeners -- in public performance by a skilled storyteller.

"The Way according to Luke" unlocks the big picture of Jesus' mission by attending to the repetition, patterns, and other clues of oral narrative. In this single volume Paul Borgman lays out a holistic view of the organic unity between Luke and Acts while demonstrating that the meaning of Luke-Acts is uniquely embedded in its narrative. Borgman's distinctive work makes available both the satisfying pleasure of reading the Bible as great literature and the rewarding insight gained from receiving Scripture as it was originally delivered.

This is a collection of recent articles by one of the bestselling Old Testament professors in the U.S. Collins wrote the Fortress Press volume Introduction to the Hebrew Bible with CD-ROM (2004). An engaging writer, Collins explores a diversity of topics, from the role of the Bible in culture to major themes within the Bible: messianism, revelation, natural theology, and so on.

Revelation - God's Message to the Church - Precepts for Life Study Companion for the radio / tv broadcast series by Kay Arthur. (Covers Revelation chapters 1-3 & 21.) Study the first three chapters of Revelation that record God's messages to the seven churches, and learn why they are relevant to the Church - and to you - today

Revelation - God's Message to the Church - Precepts for Life Study Guide for the radio / tv broadcast series by Kay Arthur. (Covers Revelation chapters 1-3 & 21.) Study the first three chapters of Revelation that record God's messages to the seven churches, and learn why they are relevant to the Church - and to you - today

This six-session short-term study from Jim Moore is organized around the general theme of parables of life. Each chapter will focus on a particular parable, and will feature Dr. Moore telling readers what Jesus was saying through the parable, both to listeners of his day and to us today in our own lives.
Parables studied are:
The Laborers in God's Vineyard
The Pharisee and the Tax Collector
The Weeds Among the Wheat
The Ten Pounds
Dives and Lazarus
The Unmerciful Servant

Knowing the historical and cultural background of the Bible is crucial to properly understanding and interpreting it. But the passing of 2,000 years often prevents today's reader from fully understanding the significance of various actions and teachings of Jesus in the Gospels. For example, the radical nature of Jesus's healings on the Sabbath may go unnoticed without an awareness of first-century Jewish teaching on what was and was not permissible.
Pastors and other serious Bible students may not have access to important early writings that would provide this background, nor the time to wade through volumes of source material to find relevant tidbits. This unique reference work gathers into one handy volume the key extrabiblical texts that provide the necessary background for passages in the Gospels, along with introductory comments by the editors.

Brooke illuminates the first-century world shared by the Qumran community and the writers of the New Testament. The Dead Sea Scrolls have provided Old Testament scholars with an enormous wealth of data for textual criticism as well as theology. But, as Brooke skillfully demonstrates, New Testament scholars can use the Scrolls to learn more about the linguistic, historical, religious, and social contexts of Palestine in the first century. A wide range of topics and themes is discussed, including Matthew's Beatitudes, the lost song of Miriam, Levi and the Levites, women's authority, and the use of scripture in the parable of the vineyard.

1 Samuel - Part 1 - The Heart of a Leader - Precepts for Life Study Companion for the radio/tv broadcast series by Kay Arthur. (Covers 1 Samuel chapters 1-14.) Study the stories of Eli, Hannah and Samuel, David and Goliath, David and Jonathan, David and Abigail - all recorded in God's Word so you can know and trust God, experience His grace and forgiveness, and pray more effectively, relying on the precious promises in His Word.

For over a century the ten-volume Dictionary of the Bible has been the definitive reference. "It is a Dictionary of the Old and New Testaments, together with the Old Testament Apocrypha, according to the Authorized and Revised English Versions, and with constant reference to the original tongues. ... Articles have been written on the names of all Persons and Places, on the Antiquities and Archaeology of the Bible, on its Ethnology, Geology, and Natural History, on Biblical Theology and Ethic, and even on the obsolete or archaic words occurring in the English Versions." James Hastings (1852-1922) was a distinguished scholar and pastor. He was founder and editor of the Expository Times and is also well known for editing the Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, the Dictionary of Christ and the Gospels, and the Dictionary of the Apostolic Church.

An experienced and respected teacher of homiletics offers seven practical steps (and attendant missteps to avoid) for all preachers who seek to improve their homiletic style and content.

As a single man, you're in a war against sexual temptation.
But God has given you powerful ammunition.
"A comprehensive workbook for personal or group study!
You're bombarded by sexual images. You're constantly battling inner urges. You want to do right-in fact, you want to meet God's standard of avoiding any hint of sexual immorality. But accomplishing that goal is a challenge.
If you are a single man struggling to remain sexually pure, you are not alone. Now there's practical, hard-hitting help from the authors of the blockbuster Every Man series. "Every Single Man's Battle Workbook guides you-or your men's group-through an honest and clear exploration of God's Word. You'll undertake a personal journey into key Scriptures, wrestle with questions for reflection and examination, and discover the practical tools and Biblical strategies you need to live the pure life God is calling you to-- even while living in a sexually soaked culture.
Make a frontal assault on the temptation every single man faces. This workbook provides all the resources you need.

It's not exactly how one would expect God to occupy himself. Lord of space and time, newly resurrected from the dead, and what is he doing? Sitting quietly by the lakeside, cooking up breakfast and waiting for the disciples to drop by. The Gospels are full of odd quirks that most people never notice because the stories are so familiar. But Conrad Gempf notices. He uses his knowledge of Jesus' life and times to light up the meditations in this book. The forty short encounters in this book focus on Jesus as a teacher, Jesus as a miracle worker, on Jesus' radical spirituality and on his death and resurrection. Seasoning its unique insights with humor, Mealtime Habits of the Messiah both satisfies the hungry soul and piques the reader's appetite for prayer. "Gempf's well-balanced approach ...will put fuel in the tanks of all our journeys toward wholeness and purpose." - Rob Lacey, from the foreword "Conrad's book is a delight. It's like its subject, Jesus: alive, fun, engaging, warm, and occasionally wonderfully dangerous." - Jeff Lucas "An Inspiring and startling portrait of Jesus which will nourish your spirit and feed your soul." - Steve Chalke

A brilliant new biography of Saint Paul, whose interpretations of the life and teachings of Jesus transformed a loosely organized, grassroots peasant movement into the structured religion we know today
Without Paul, there would be no Christianity. His letters to various churches scattered throughout the Roman Empire articulated, for the first time, the beliefs that make up the heart of Christian practice and faith. In this extraordinary biography, Bruce Chilton explains the changing images of Paul, from the early Church period when he was regarded as the premiere apostle who separated Christianity from Judaism to more recent liberal evaluations, which paint him as an antifeminist, homophobic figure more dedicated to doctrine than to spiritual freedom. By illuminating Paul's thoughts and contributions within the context of his time, Chilton restores him to his place as the founding architect of the Church and one of the most important figures in Western history.
"Rabbi Paul" is at once a compelling, highly readable biography and a window on how Jesus' message was transformed into a religion embraced by millions around the world. Drawing on Paul's own writings as well as historical and scholarly documents about his life and times, Chilton portrays an all-too-human saint who helped to create both the most beautiful and the most troublesome aspects of the Church. He shows that Paul sought to specify the correct approach to such central concerns as sexuality, obedience, faith, conscience, and spirit, to define religion as an institution, and to clarify the nature of the religious personality--issues that Christians still struggle with today.

Walk in the footsteps of St. Paul in his mission to the Gentiles through chapters 16-27 of the Acts of the Apostles. ? Completes the journey begun in the popular study, Witnesses of the Messiah, on the Acts of the Apostles 1-15. ? Includes nine lessons, with stimulating discussion questions at the end of each lesson. ? Discussion questions bring the lessons of the Acts of the Apostles to life by challenging the reader to follow St. Paul's example in concrete situations.

In this compelling study, renowned author James D. G. Dunn provides a critique of the quest for the historical Jesus. Dunn claims that the quest has been misguided from the start in its attempt to separate the historical Jesus from the Christ of faith.
Dunn argues that Jesus scholars have consistently failed to recognize how the early disciples' pre-Easter faith and a predominantly oral culture shaped the way the stories about Jesus were told and passed on. Dunn also examines the implications of oral transmission for our understanding of Synoptic relationships.
A New Perspective on Jesus proposes a change in direction for Jesus scholarship. It will be of interest to pastors, church leaders, students, and thoughtful laypersons wanting a fresh perspective on Jesus studies.

This volume examines characterization in the four Gospels and in the Sayings Gospel Q. Peter in Matthew, Lazarus in John, and Jesus as Son of Man in Q are examples of the characters studied. The general approach is narrative-critical. At the same time, each contribution takes special effort to widen the scope beyond the narrated world to include the text's ideological and real-life setting as well as its effective history. New ways of doing narrative criticism are thus proposed. The concluding essay by David Rhoads delineates the development and envisions the future of narrative criticism in Gospel studies.