God Reached Down from Heaven with the Best Gift of All
A sacred season is about to unfold for three women whose hearts belong to God.
Elizabeth is barren, yet her trust in God remains fertile. Mary is betrothed in marriage, yet she is willing to bear God's Son. Anna is a widow full of years, yet she waits patiently, prayerfully for the Messiah to appear in the temple courts.
Following in their footsteps, you too can prepare for the Savior to enter your heart, your mind, and your life in a vibrant, new way. Best-selling author Liz Curtis Higgs explores the biblical stories of Elizabeth, Mary, and Anna, unwrapping each verse with tender care and introducing you afresh to The Women of Christmas.

* Daily Lenten reflections with a novel approach * Color images enhance message of text Lent is often a season given to denial of physical pleasure and sensation, but we're already denied these by a cultural atmosphere saturated with visual images, noise and air pollution, violence, and processed foods that dull the senses. The physical senses play an integral role in the human capacity for emotion and feeling. Overstimulation in the physical senses gradually erodes one's ability to feel emotion. Yet empathy-emotional identification and connection with others-is crucial to liturgical engagement, especially in the highly dramatic practices of the signal events of the Christian Year. Sam Portaro proposes to restore our ability to participate emotionally in the Lenten journey by revisiting the five physical senses-one per week-in Lent. The discipline of a 40-day preparation for Easter suggests the importance the Church places on this seasonal retelling of the central acts of Christian redemption. Sense and Sensibility encourages the reader to renew a relationship with the physical senses that is a prerequisite to a deeply attuned engagement with the biblical stories read, taught, and liturgically re-enacted in the rites of Ash Wednesday, Palm Sunday, Holy Week, and Easter.

The invitation to worship God is the highest privilege of human beings - a privilege squandered by sinful rebellion, but also gloriously restored to us through the death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ. Biblical worship is a response to God's revelation of himself, empowered by the Holy Spirit, which finds expression in every aspect of human life and experience. At the same time, there is a great deal of music and song in the Bible. Music is a wonderful gift of God in creation, and there is every reason to embrace its riches and harness its power responsibly for the glory of God and the blessing of his people. However, Christians have often been divided over the theology and practice of worship, with differing views about spiritual gifts, the place of liturgy, priorities attached to various functions of the church, the weight given to congregational and 'whole-life' worship, and the role and style of music. While many of these areas are touched on in John Risbridger's excellent exposition, his intention is not to court controversy, but simply to allow Scripture to speak, in the hope of establishing as much common ground as possible. He follows a loosely trinitarian structure, in which the main sections explore the connection between worship and the purpose of the Father, the supremacy of the Son and life of the Holy Spirit. Each section concludes with two chapters on the Psalms, in which we hear a variety of 'voices', and learn to join their distinctive song.

OVER 2.5 MILLION COPIES IN PRINT Discover the secrets to new joy and sexual fulfillment in marriage that have helped millions of Christian couples maximize their intimacy. Here are the insights into your spouse's body, psychosexual makeup, and need for tender, unselfish affection that can help you discover new depths of intimacy. It's the perfect book for: Engaged couples and newlyweds who want to make lovemaking a joy from the start Couples who have been married for years and want to maintain the flame or rekindle the embers Every husband or wife who wants to be a better lover The Act of Marriage enriches you and your spouse's physical relationship by offering biblical principles, goals, guidelines, and charts that cover an array of vital topics, such as: The sanctity of sex What sex means to a woman What sex means to a man The art of lovemaking Sane family planning Practical answers to common sex questions And more! Plus, this updated and expanded edition features sections that discuss "sex after sixty" and five reasons why God created sex, all supported by the very latest findings in the fields of medicine and sociology.

The rise of early Christianity has been examined from a myriad of perspectives, but until recently ritual has been a neglected topic. Ritual and Christian Beginnings: A Socio-Cognitive Analysis argues that ritual theory is indispensable for the study of Christian beginnings. It also makes a strong case for the application of theories and insights from the Cognitive Science of Religion, a field that has established itself as a vigorous movement in Religious Studies over the past two decades. Risto Uro develops a 'socio-cognitive' approach to the study of early Christian rituals, seeking to integrate a social-level analysis with findings from the cognitive and evolutionary sciences. Ritual and Christian Beginnings provides an overview of how ritual has been approached in previous scholarship, including reasons for its neglect, and introduces the reader to the emerging fields of Ritual Studies and the Cognitive Science of Religion. In particular, it explores the ways in which cognitive theories of ritual can shed new light on issues discussed by early Christian scholars, and opens up new questions and avenues for further research. The socio-cognitive approach to ritual is applied to a number of test cases, including John the Baptist, the ritual healing practiced by Jesus and the early Christians, the social life of Pauline Christianity, and the development of early Christian baptismal practices. The analysis creates building blocks for a new account of Christian beginnings, highlighting the role of ritual innovation, cooperative signalling, and the importance of bodily actions for the generation and transmission of religious knowledge.

Musical activity is one of the most ubiquitous and highly valued forms of social interaction in North America (to say nothing of world over), being engaged from sporting events to political rallies, concerts to churches. Moreover, music's use as an affective agent for political and religious programs suggests that it has ethical significance. Indeed, many have said as much. It is surprising then that music's ethical significance remains one of the most undertheorized aspects of both moral philosophy and music scholarship. Music for Others: Care, Justice, and Relational Ethics in Christian Music fills part of this scholarly gap by focusing on the religious aspects of musical activity, particularly on the practices of Christian communities. Based on ethnomusicological fieldwork at three Protestant churches and a group of seminary students studying in an immersion course at South by Southwest (SXSW), and synthesizing theories of discourse, formation, and care ethics oriented towards restorative justice, it first argues that relationships are ontological for both human beings and musical activity. It further argues that musical meaning and emotion converge in human bodies such that music participates in personal and communal identity construction in affective ways-yet these constructions are not always just. Thus, considering these aspects of music's ways of being in the world, Music for Others finally argues that music is ethical when it preserves people in and restores people to just relationships with each other, and thereby with God.

Respected Bible teacher Warren Wiersbe defines the essence of worship and discusses the key issues surrounding this often controversial topic within the church.

After resolving to become a Catholic Christian, Augustine spent a decade trying to clarify his understanding of 'contemplation,' the interior presence of God to the soul. That long struggle yielded his classic account in the Confessions. This study explores Augustine's developing understanding of contemplation, beginning with his earliest accounts written before his baptism and ending with the Confessions. Chapter One examines the pagan monotheism of the Roman Platonists and the role of contemplation in their theology. Augustine's pre-baptismal writings are then considered in Chapter Two, tracking his fundamental break from pagan Platonism. Chapter Three then turns to Augustine's developing understanding of contemplation in these pre-baptismal texts. Chapter Four concentrates on Augustine's thought during the decade after his baptism in 387, a period that encompasses his monastic life in Thagaste, and his years first as a presbyter and then as a bishop in Hippo Regius. This chapter follows the arc of Augustine's thought through these years of transition and leads into the Confessions, giving a vantage point to survey its theology of contemplation. Chapter Five concentrates on the Confessions and sets its most famous account of contemplation, the vision at Ostia from Book IX, into a larger polemical context. Augustine's defence of his transcendental reading of scripture in Confessions XII is analysed and then used to illuminate the Ostian ascent narrative. The book concludes with observations on the importance of Augustine's theology of contemplation to the emergence of Christian monotheism in late antiquity.

When the story of modernity is told from a theological perspective, music is routinely ignored-despite its pervasiveness in modern culture and the manifold ways it has been intertwined with modernity's ambivalent relation to the Christian God. In conversation with musicologists and music theorists, this collection of essays shows that the practices of music and the discourses it has generated bear their own kind of witness to some of the pivotal theological currents and counter-currents shaping modernity. Music has been deeply affected by these currents and in some cases may have played a part in generating them. In addition, Jeremy Begbie argues that music is capable of yielding highly effective ways of addressing and moving beyond some of the more intractable theological problems and dilemmas which modernity has bequeathed to us. Music, Modernity, and God includes studies of Calvin, Luther, and Bach, an exposition of the intriguing tussle between Rousseau and the composer Rameau, and an account of the heady exaltation of music to be found in the early German Romantics. Particular attention is paid to the complex relations between music and language, and the ways in which theology, a discipline involving language at its heart, can come to terms with practices like music, practices which are coherent and meaningful but which in many respects do not operate in language-like ways.

What was Jesus of Nazareth really like? What effect did he have on those he met and befriended? How did he impart his teachings and perform his miracles? These are the questions that James Harpur explores through Joseph of Arimathea, one of the most enigmatic characters of the gospel. After the crucifixion, Joseph embarks on a quest to find out who Jesus really was, seeking out those who knew him personally. These witnesses, all mentioned in the gospels, tell their stories, each contributing a unique insight into the Nazarene.

How did people think about listening in the ancient world, and what evidence do we have of it in practice? The Christian faith came to the illiterate majority in the early Church through their ears. This proved problematic: the senses and the body had long been held in suspicion as all too temporal, mutable and distracting. Carol Harrison argues that despite profound ambivalence on these matters, in practice, the senses, and in particular the sense of hearing, were ultimately regarded as necessary - indeed salvific -constraints for fallen human beings. By examining early catechesis, preaching and prayer, she demonstrates that what illiterate early Christians heard both formed their minds and souls and, above all, enabled them to become 'literate' listeners; able not only to grasp the rule of faith but also tacitly to follow the infinite variations on it which were played out in early Christian teaching, exegesis and worship. It becomes clear that listening to the faith was less a matter of rationally appropriating facts and more an art which needed to be constantly practiced: for what was heard could not be definitively fixed and pinned down, but was ultimately the Word of the unknowable, transcendent God. This word demanded of early Christian listeners a response - to attend to its echoes, recollect and represent it, stretch out towards it source, and in the process, be transformed by it.

Why go to church? What happens in church and why does it matter? The Empty Church presents fresh answers to these questions by creating an interdisciplinary conversation between theater directors and Christian theologians. This original study expands church beyond the sanctuary and into life. Shannon Craigo-Snell emphasizes the importance of liturgical worship in forming Christians as characters crafted by the texts of the Bible. This formation includes shaping how Christians know, in ways that involve the intellect, emotions, body, and will. Each chapter brings a theater director into dialogue with a theologian, teasing out the ways performance enriches hermeneutics, anthropology, and epistemology. Thinkers like Karl Barth, Peter Brook, Delores Williams, and Bertolt Brecht are examined for their insights into theology, worship, and theater. The result is a compelling depiction of church as performance of relationship with Jesus Christ, mediated by Scripture, in hope of the Holy Spirit. Liturgical worship, at its best, forms Christians in patterns of affections. This includes the cultivation of emotion memories influenced by biblical narratives, as well as a repertoire of physical actions that evoke particular affections. Liturgy also encourages Christians to step into various roles, enabling them to make intellectual and volitional choices about what roles to take up in society. Through liturgical worship, the author argues, Christians can be formed as people who hope, and therefore as people who live in expectation of the presence and grace of God. This entails a discipline of emptiness that awaits and appreciates the Holy Spirit. Church performance must therefore be provisional, ongoing, and open to further inspiration.

It is often claimed that we live in a secular age. But we do not live in a desacralized one. Sacred forms-whether in 'religious' or 'secular' guise-continue to shape social life in the modern world, giving rise to powerful emotions, polarized group identities, and even the very concept of moral society. Analyzing contemporary sacred forms is essential if we are to be able to make sense of the societies we live in and think critically about the effects of the sacred on our lives for good or ill. The Sacred in the Modern World is a major contribution to this task. Re-interpreting Durkheim's theory of the sacred, and drawing on the 'strong program' in cultural sociology, Gordon Lynch sets out a theory of the sacred that can be used by researchers across a range of humanities and social science disciplines. Using vividly drawn contemporary case material - including the abuse and neglect of children in Irish residential schools and the controversy over the BBC's decision not to air an appeal for aid for Gaza-the book demonstrates the value of this theoretical approach for social and cultural analysis. The key role of public media for the circulation and contestation of the sacred comes under close scrutiny. Adopting a critical stance towards sacred forms, Lynch reflects upon the ways in which sacred commitments can both serve as a moral resource for social life and legitimate horrifying acts of collective evil. He concludes by reflecting on how we might live thoughtfully and responsibility under the light and shadow that the sacred casts, asking whether society without the sacred is possible or desirable.

Ascetic Pneumatology from John Cassian to Gregory the Great presents three interconnected arguments. The first argument concerns scholarly readings of antiquity: there are developments in 5th and 6th century Latin pneumatology which we have overlooked. Theologians like John Cassian and Gregory the Great were engaged in a significant discussion of how the Holy Spirit works within Christian ascetics to reform their inner lives. Other theologians, like Leo the Great, participate to a lesser extent in a similar project. They applied pneumatology to theological anthropology. Thomas L. Humphries, Jr. labels that development "ascetic pneumatology," and beings to track some of the late antique schools of thought about the Holy Spirit. The second argument concerns the reception of Augustine in the two centuries immediately after his death: different people read Augustine differently. Augustine's theology was known and understood to varying degrees in various regions. Humphries demonstrates significant engagements with Augustine's theology as it was relevant to Pelagianism (evidenced in Prosper of Aquitaine), as it was relevant to Gallic Arians (evidenced with the Lerinian theologians), and as it was relevant to African Arians and certain questions posed of Nestorianism (evidenced with Fulgentius of Ruspe). Instead of attempting to rank various theologians as better and worse "Augustinians," Humphries argues that there were different kinds of "Augustinianisms" even in the years immediately after Augustine. The third argument concerns Gregory the Great and his sources. Once we see that ascetic pneumatology was a strain of thought in this era and see that there are different kinds of Augustinianisms, we can see that Gregory depends on both Augustine and Cassian. In the closing chapters, Humphries argues that Gregory uses Cassian's ascetic pneumatology, and this allows Gregory's synthesis of Cassian and Augustine to stand in greater relief than it has before. The study begins with Cassian, ends with Gregory, and is attentive to Augustine throughout.

With this new lectionary commentary series, Westminster John Knox offers the most extensive resource for preaching on the market today. When complete, the twelve volumes of the series will cover all the Sundays in the three-year lectionary cycle, along with movable occasions, such as Christmas Day, Epiphany, Holy Week, and All Saints' Day. For each lectionary text, preachers will find four brief essays--one each on the theological, pastoral, exegetical, and homiletical challenges of the text. This gives preachers sixteen different approaches to the proclaimation of the Word on any given occasion. The editors and contributors to this series are world-class scholars, pastors, and writers representing a variety of denominations and traditions. And while the twelve volumes of the series will follow the pattern of the Revised Common Lectionary, each volume will contain an index of biblical passages so that nonlectionary preachers, as well as teachers and students, may make use of its contents.

A definitive look at how church music is changing in the 21st century. There is no lack of resources for the church musician focusing on particular skills or repertoire. But this is the first collection of essays created specifically for musicians working in parish ministry that imagines how those vocations will change along with the evolving church. Ponder Anew chronicles the rapid changes in the church music landscape in the last 20 years including the role of technology, education, relationships with clergy and choristers, and cultural presumptions. Contributors are parish musicians, professors, clergy, and bishops.

Found in Common Worship: Times and Seasons, The Way of the Cross is a series of scripture-based devotions for personal or group use in Lent and Holy Week. Similar in intent to the traditional Stations of the Cross, it focuses wholly on the biblical narrative of the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus. This seasonal companion provides the sequence of fifteen meditations appears in full, including opening and concluding prayers. Each is accompanied by three short reflections from different perspectives by three of today's very best spiritual writers: - Paula Gooder offers reflections on the scriptural narratives; - Stephen Cottrell considers the story from the perspective of personal discipleship; - Philip North explores the story's challenge to mission and witness.

Anne Fedele offers a comprehensive ethnography of alternative pilgrimages to French Catholic shrines dedicated to Saint Mary Magdalene. Drawing on more than three years of extensive fieldwork, she describes how pilgrims from Italy, Spain, Britain, and the United States interpret Catholic figures, symbols, and sites according to spiritual theories and practices derived from the transnational Neopagan movement. Fedele pays particular attention to the life stories of the pilgrims, the crafted rituals they perform, and the spiritual-esoteric literature they draw upon. She examines how they devise their rituals; why this kind of spirituality is increasingly prevalent in the West; and the influence of anthropological literature on the pilgrims. Among these pilgrims, spirituality is lived and negotiated in interaction with each other and with textual sources: Jungian psychology, Goddess mythology, and ''indigenous'' traditions merge into a corpus of theories and practices centered upon the worship of divinities such as the Goddess, Mother Earth, and the sacralization of the reproductive cycle. The pilgrims' rituals present a critique of the Roman Catholic Church and the medical establishment and have critical implications for contemporary discourses on gender. Looking for Mary Magdalene is an invaluable resource for anyone interested in ritual and pilgrimage.