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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

Unlike the negative but well-known precepts of the Old Testement--the Ten Commandments--the commands of Jesus are postitive and relatively overlooked, despite their superb relevance to the challenges people face today. In "Come, Follow Me: The Commandments of Jesus, " Anthony J. Gittins helps the reader hear Christ's message and live it in everyday life. Gittins explores some of the positive and specific things that Jesus would have the reader do to follow him.
144-page paperback

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.

"The book of Job always constituted essential and formative reading about the ways of the soul. This has always been the conviction of the spiritual classics through the centuries. Yet, for some reason, the figure of Job is elusive to us-possibly because by seems so comfortably distant; or perhaps because he seems so frightfully close. What Fr. Patrick Reardon achieves with this book is to render Job comprehensible, tangible and accessible. Ultimately, all of us identify with one or another aspect of Job's life. As life inevitably informs and as this book intuitively confirms, one cannot sing Psalms without having read Job." - Fr. John Chryssavgis

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.

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.

You've already been set free by Christ.
When are you going to start experiencing that freedom?
What does it look like when a man lives out a truly authentic, loving walk with Jesus Christ? It looks like freedom.
The Apostle Paul, a man made new by the gospel of Jesus Christ, presents one of the clearest images of the godly man in action. He's committed to a life of faith, focused on the Spirit instead of the flesh, set free to love others. No longer focused on himself, he demonstrates his faith by serving others. You can be that kind of man by claiming your freedom in Christ. Being God's man means""being set free to exemplify Christ's love.
"Being God's Man by Claiming Your Freedom "will stimulate personal reflection and honest dialogue with God and other men. The goal is that you will strive to be God's man in every way-"feeling" his heart for others, and "doing" his will obediently and joyfully.
"Special Features:
"-Practical studies-for individual use or group settings-facilitate personal encounters with God and other men
-Questions encourage genuine reflection and help build godly convictions
-"Real Life" case studies show how the truths you discover have worked out in other men's lives
-"Standing Strong" section gives you the opportunity to identify action steps for lasting change.

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.

The Abingdon Old Testament Commentaries provide compact, criticalcommentaries on the books of the Old Testament for the use of theological studentsand pastors. The commentaries are also useful for upper-level college or universitystudents and for those responsible for teaching in congregational settings. Inaddition to providing basic information and insights into the Old Testamentwritings, these commentaries exemplify the tasks and procedures of carefulinterpretation, all to assist students of the Old Testament in coming to an informedand critical engagement with the biblical texts themselves.

Thepresent volume gives an up-to-date, readable commentary on the books of First andSecond Chronicles. The commentary covers critical issues section by section whileemphasizing the larger theological and literary issues in Chronicles andillustrating its relevance for modern readers.

This volume collects the best articles on the Pauline writings from the first fifty issues of the Journal for the Study of the New Testament. The range of the volume reflects the breadth of the journal itself. Here the reader will find ground-breaking studies which introduce new critical questions and move into fresh areas of enquiry, surveys of the state of play in this particular topic of New Testament studies, and articles which engage with each other in specific debates. For students this book offers an invaluable critical introduction to Pauline studies. More advanced students and scholars can use it to find background material or to gain an overview of the research in this area of scholarship. This builds on the reputation of JSNT as a conduit for first-class research and a major influence within the scholarly community.

In The Children of Israel, Danna Nolan Fewell explores how imaginative readings of selected scriptural texts might raise adult consciousness and responsibility toward children. Through stories, quotes, vignettes, and notes, Fewell provides different kinds of reading experiences, with different levels of coherence and disjunction, depending on how much the reader decides to delve into the critical apparatus or the framing dialogues. This work is designed to unsettle, to plant suggestions and questions, and to create space for reflection and conversation. It is an experiment to see if a postmodern reading of the Bible can provide a credible ethical vision that can inspire us to do a better job of caring for our children.

"The ways in which Fewell addresses the theme is inspiring. The text is imaginatively crafted and skillfully written." --Leslie J. Francis, from The Expository Times, volume 116, Number 8, May 2005

This book offers an ideal introduction to the complex field of modern biblical studies. In nine short chapters, readers are introduced to questions of inspiration, canon and authority. Chapters follow on historical approaches to the Bible, such as source, form and redaction criticism. Comparisons with other literature, such as ancient flood stories or Egyptian psalms help to set the context for this, as well as an analysis of the purpose of each of the four Gospels.;The historical approaches conclude with a discussion of the text of the Bible, asking such questions as, How did we get the Bible? Why do modern versions of the Bible differ from one another? In the second section, Moyise considers a number of approaches that seek to explain why people interpret the Bible in such different ways. Beginning with literary criticism, the book considers how texts 'speak' to readers and influence their attitudes, emotions, and behaviour. This is followed by liberation and feminist approaches, which consider how gender, ethnicity, and social location affect what people regard as important and hence how they interpret the Bible. The book concludes with a variety of theological approaches used b

Budgets, friendships, entertainment, and conversations--not things that immediately come to mind when we think of spiritual growth. However, according to the Old Testament wisdom books (Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs), the hundreds of little decisions we make every day are essential parts of developing godly character.

With clarity and depth, authors Curtis and Brugaletta explore essential principles for spiritual growth including developing self-control, nurturing good relationships, practicing fairness and justice, speaking appropriately, and responding properly to difficulty and suffering. This much needed, practical book will help you live in constant awareness of God's concern for every aspect of your relationship with Him.

Cameron Lee illustrates the nature of God's kingdom by contrasting each Beatitude from Jesus' Sermon on the Mount with the ways that our self-centered culture tugs at us. His exposition helps us reevaluate our cultural assumptions and challenge the world's values.

This book is a completely revised and reset edition of the best-selling A Concordance to the Greek Testament edited by W. F. Moulton and A. S. Geden. Originally published in 1897, it has remained in print ever since. It is beyond any doubt the most useful basic tool available for the student of the New Testament. The original edition was primarily based on the Greek text of Westcott and Hort, but gave all the variants in the edition of Tischendorf and in the Greek text underlying the Revised Version of the English Bible; quotations are given with grammatical completeness as far as possible; a significant feature is the inclusion of the Hebrew text of direct quotations from the Old Testament; asterisks and daggers indicate whether the vocabulary items in the New Testament are found in Classical Greek and in the Septuagint.This new edition retains all the features of the earlier editions, but it is primarily based on the Greek text in The Greek New Testament (4th edition), which is identical with that in Novum Testamentum Graece (27th edition), currently the two most widely used editions of the Greek New Testament; it incorporates the main marginal readings in the former of these texts; references to the variants in the older editions are preserved, so that the student has to hand every reading which by even a remote probability might be regarded as forming part of the true text of the New Testament. The Supplement incorporating the prepositions has been included in the main text of the Concordance. Where the same word occurs twice in the same verse, these occurrences are now printed on separate lines and individually verse-numbered so that it is easier to count the number of occurrences of any given word. Special new Greek fonts have been created to enable great clarity in the printing.