Winner of the 2013 Book Award of Excellence, The Foundation for Pentecostal Scholarship What is the meaning of the Holy Spirit's activity in Luke-Acts, and what are its implications for today? Roger Stronstad offers a cogent and thought-provoking study of Luke as a charismatic theologian whose understanding of the Spirit was shaped wholly by his understanding of Jesus and the nature of the early church. Stronstad locates Luke's pneumatology in the historical background of Judaism and views Luke as an independent theologian who makes a unique contribution to the pneumatology of the New Testament. This work challenges traditional Protestants to reexamine the impact of Pentecost and explores the Spirit's role in equipping God's people for the unfinished task of mission. The second edition has been revised and updated throughout and includes a new foreword by Mark Allan Powell.

English Christendom has never been a static entity. Evangelism, politics, conflict and cultural changes have constantly and consistently developed it into myriad forms across the world. However, in recent times that development has seemingly become a general decline. This book utilises the motif of Christendom to illuminate the pedigree of Anglican Christianity, allowing a vital and persistent dynamic in Christianity, namely the relationship between the sacred and the mundane, to be more fundamentally explored. Each chapter seeks to unpack a particular historical moment in which the relations of sacred and mundane are on display. Beginning with the work of Bede, before focusing on the Anglo Norman settlement of England, the Tudor period, and the establishment of the church in the American and Australian colonies, Anglicanism is shown to consistently be a religio-political tradition. This approach opens up a different set of categories for the study of contemporary Anglicanism and its debates about the notion of the church. It also opens up fresh ways of looking at religious conflict in the modern world and within Christianity. This is a fresh exploration of a major facet of Western religious culture. As such, it will be of significant interest to scholars working in Religious History and Anglican Studies, as well as theologians with an interest in Western Ecclesiology.

Despite being widely recognized as John Wesley's key moment of Christian conversion, Aldersgate has continued to mystify regarding its exact meaning and significance to Wesley personally. This book brings clarity to the impact this event had on Wesley over the course of his lifetime by closely examining all of Wesley's writings pertaining to Aldersgate and framing them within the wider context of contemporary conversion narratives. The central aim of this study is to establish Wesley's interpretation of his Aldersgate experience as it developed from its initial impressions on the night of 24 May 1738 to its mature articulation in the 1770s. By paying close attention to the language of his diaries, letters, journals, sermons, tracts and other writings, fresh insights into Wesley's own perspective are revealed. When these insights are brought into wider context of other conversion narratives in the Christian milieu in which Wesley worked and wrote, this book demonstrates that this single event contributed in significant ways to the ethos of the Methodist movement, and many other denominations, even up to the present day. This is a unique study of the conversion of one of history's most influential Christian figures, and the impact that such narratives still have on us today. As such, it will be of great use to scholars of Methodism, theology, religious history and religious studies more generally.

If God means for us to save sex for marriage, why doesn't he just zap us with sexuality on our wedding night? Why do most of us experience sexual feelings throughout our adult lives, not just in the safe confines of marriage? Is limiting marriage to the union of a man and a woman anything but outdated prejudice? What is our sexuality actually for? Today's culture overwhelmingly tells us that sex is essential for human flourishing. Far too often the church perpetuates the same message - as long as you are married. But far from being liberating, this idolising of sex leaves us even more sexually broken than before. With refreshing honesty and clarity, Ed Shaw calls on the church to rediscover its confidence in the Bible's teaching about our ability to experience or express sexual feelings. He points us to how God's word reveals that sexuality's ultimate purpose is to help us better know God and the full power of his passionate love. He shows us how this is surprisingly good news for all our joys and struggles with sexuality.

This book makes a significant contribution to the burgeoning field of childhood studies in nineteenth-century literature and culture by drawing on the intersecting fields of girlhood, evangelicalism, and reform to investigate texts written in North America about girls, for girls, and by girls. Responding both to the intellectual excitement generated by the rise of girlhood studies, as well as to the call by recent scholars to recognize the significance of religion as a meaningful category in the study of nineteenth-century literature and culture, this collection locates evangelicalism at the center of its inquiry into girlhood. Contributors draw on a wide range of texts, including canonical literature by Harriet Beecher Stowe, Susan Warner, and Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, and overlooked archives such as US Methodist Sunday School fiction, children's missionary periodicals, and the Christian Recorder, the flagship newspaper of the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church. These essays investigate representations of girlhood that engage, codify, and critique normative Protestant constructions of girlhood. Contributors examine girlhood in the context of reform, revealing the ways in which Protestantism at once constrained and enabled female agency. Drawing on a range of critical perspectives, including African American Studies, Disability Studies, Gender Studies, and Material Culture Studies, this volume enriches our understanding of nineteenth-century childhood by focusing on the particularities of girlhood, expanding it beyond that of the white able-bodied middle-class girl and attending to the intersectionality of identity and religion.

Hymnody is widely recognised as a central tenet of Methodism's theological, doctrinal, spiritual, and liturgical identity. Theologically and doctrinally, the content of the hymns has traditionally been a primary vehicle for expressing Methodism's emphasis on salvation for all, social holiness, and personal commitment, while particular hymns and the communal act of participating in hymn singing have been key elements in the spiritual lives of Methodists. An important contribution to the history of Methodism, British Methodist Hymnody argues that the significance of hymnody in British Methodism is best understood as a combination of its official status, spiritual expression, popular appeal, and practical application. Seeking to consider what, when, how, and why Methodists sing, British Methodist Hymnody examines the history, perception, and practice of hymnody from Methodism's small-scale eighteenth-century origins to its place as a worldwide denomination today.

This book brings together Methodist scholars and reflective practitioners from around the world to consider how emerging practices of mission and evangelism shape contemporary theologies of mission. Engaging contemporary issues including migration, nationalism, climate change, postcolonial contexts, and the growth of the Methodist church in the Global South, this book examines multiple forms of mission, including evangelism, education, health, and ministries of compassion. A global group of contributors discusses mission as no longer primarily a Western activity but an enterprise of the entire church throughout the world. This volume will be of interest to researchers studying missiology, evangelism, global Christianity, and Methodism and to students of Methodism and mission.

Many Christians who receive a prophetic message, or "word," from the Lord don't understand that its fulfillment is not necessarily automatic. Others don't know how to determine if a prophetic word really is from the Lord. And still others don't understand what prophetic ministry is and how it works.
A veteran prophetic warrior, Barbara Wentroble is aware of the need for training in Bible-based prophetic ministry. With insight and wisdom, she explains not only how prophetic ministry works, but also how believers today--like biblical characters of old--may need to engage in spiritual warfare in order to receive promises that really are from God. Wentroble shows that prophetic words are not confined to church walls, and are not for a select few Christians but for all. She gives readers the guidelines and prophetic etiquette they need to help prevent abuse and misunderstanding, while helping them find the incredible blessing of the biblical gift of prophecy.

Brian Beck has had a long and distinguished career in Methodist studies, having additionally served as President of the UK Methodist Conference and helped lead the international Oxford Institute of Methodist Theological Studies. This book is the first time that Beck's seminal work on Methodism has been gathered together. It includes eighteen essays from the last twenty-five years, covering many different aspects of Methodist thought and practice. This collection is divided into two main sections. Part I covers Methodism's heritage and its implications, while Part II discusses wider issues of Methodism's identity. The chapters themselves examine the work of key figures, such as John Wesley and J. E. Rattenbury, as well as past and present forms of Methodist thought and practice. As such, this book is important reading for any scholar of Methodism as well as students and academics of religious studies and theology more generally.

To many people, the Church of England and worldwide Anglican Communion has the aura of an institution that is dislocated and adrift. Buffeted by tempestuous and stormy debates on sexuality, gender, authority and power - to say nothing of priorities in mission and ministry, and the leadership and management of the church - a once confident Anglicanism appears to be anxious and vulnerable. The Future Shape of Anglicanism offers a constructive and critical engagement with the currents and contours that have brought the church to this point. It assesses and evaluates the forces now shaping the church and challenges them culturally, critically, and theologically. The Future Shape of Anglicanism engages with the church of the present that is simultaneously dissenting and loyal, as well as critical and constructive. For all who are engaged in ecclesiological investigations, and for those who study the Church of England and the wider Anglican Communion, this book offers new maps and charts for the present and future. It is an essential companion and guide to some of the movements and forces that are currently shaping the church.

Drawing from six decades of Scripture-based teaching and study in the original Greek and Hebrew, the late Derek Prince clearly explains the foundation for Christian faith, salvation, baptism, the Holy Spirit, laying on of hands, the believer's resurrection, and eternal judgment. This revised book, which has been translated and distributed worldwide in more than sixty languages, offers Christians evrything they need to develop a strong, balanced, spirit-filled life, including a comprehensive index of topics and a compelte index of Scripture verses.

Leading Scholar Explores Paul's Teaching on the Mind This major work by a leading New Testament scholar explores an important but neglected area of Pauline theology, Paul's teaching about the mind. In discussing matters such as the corrupted mind, the mind of Christ, and the renewal of the mind, Paul adapts language from popular intellectual thought in his day, but he does so in a way distinctively focused on Christ and Christ's role in the believer's transformation. Keener enables readers to understand this thought world so they can interpret Paul's language for contemporary Christian life. The book helps overcome a false separation between following the Spirit and using human judgment and provides a new foundation for relating biblical studies and Christian counseling.

The Community of True Inspiration, or Inspirationists, was one of the most successful religious communities in the United States. This collection offers a broad variety of Inspirationist texts, almost all of them translated from German and published here for the first time.

In A Divine Revelation of Angels, Mary Baxter describes dreams, visions, and revelations of angels that God has given her. Explore the fascinating dynamics of angelic beings, including their appearance, their assigned functions and roles, and how they operate, not only in the heavenly realms, but also in our lives here on earth. Discover the difference between good angels and bad angels (demons) and their activities so you can distinguish angels of light from angels of darkness. Learn how God’s holy angels are magnificent beings who are His messengers and warriors sent to assist, sustain, protect, and deliver us through the power of Christ.

Many people wonder why they can’t overcome sins and temptations, and why they experience recurring problems in their health, finances, and relationships. A Divine Revelation of Deliverance exposes these schemes of Satan. Through the Scriptures, visions of warfare, and personal encounters with evil spiritual forces, Mary K. Baxter has discovered powerful truths to help you overcome your fear of the enemy, recognize and conquer satanic traps, experience victory over sins and failures, be free from unexplained attacks, and intercede for the deliverance of others. This is a war that must be fought with the supernatural power and weapons of God.

Gospel-Centered Theology for Today Evangelical Theology, Second Edition helps today's readers understand and practice the doctrines of the Christian faith by presenting a gospel-centered theology that is accessible, rigorous, and balanced. According author Michael Bird the gospel is the fulcrum of Christian doctrine; the gospel is where God meets us and where we introduce the world to God. And as such, an authentically evangelical theology is the working out of the gospel in the various doctrines of Christian theology. The text helps readers learn the essentials of Christian theology through several key features, including: A "What to Take Home" section at end of every part that gives readers a run-down on all the important things they need to know. Tables, sidebars, and questions for discussion to help reinforce key ideas and concepts A "Comic Belief" section, since reading theology can often be dry and cerebral, so that readers enjoy their learning experience through some theological humor added for good measure. Now in its second edition, Evangelical Theology has proven itself in classrooms around the world as a resource that helps readers not only understand the vital doctrines of Christian theology but one that shows them how the gospel should shape how they think, pray, preach, teach, and minister in the world.