This is the first volume of the long-awaited translation of one of Augustines classics and a great work in Christian literature. Newly translated by Maria Boulding, O.S.B., whose masterful translation of Augustines Confessions in the same series has been praised as being of a different level of excellence from practically anything else in the market (Bishop Rowan Williams, Monmouth, England). As the psalms are a microcosm of the Old Testament, so the Expositions of the Psalms can be seen as a microcosm of Augustinian thought. They recapitulate and focus the experiences of Augustines personal life, his theological reflections, and his pastoral concerns as Bishop of Hippo. This first volume of the Exposition of the Psalms in Sister Maria Boulding's fine translation fills a long existing vacuum among the translated works of Augustine available to contemporary readers. Her clear and attractive translation presents Augustine's expression of his own spirituality, which necessarily entails his most valuable theological insights. The comprehensive and scholarly 51-page introduction by Michael Fiedrowicz offers a key to the Psalms' various depths of meaning and shows how they are a microcosm of Augustinian thought. Mary T. Clark, RSCJ Author of: Augustine in the Outstanding Christian Thinkers Series

The 'Ephesians: For Everyone Bible Study Guide' by renowned Christian author and professor, Tom Wright, is an excellent starting point for new Christians, those studying or Bible study groups to explore and understand more on the book of Ephesians. As part of the 'For Everyone Bible Study Guides' series, this title by Tom Wright offers a range of thought-provoking study questions and accessible introductory material. The guides in this series can be used on their own or alongside Tom Wright's engaging New Testament for Everyone commentaries. 'For Everyone Bible Study Guides' are designed to help you understand the Bible in fresh ways under the guidance of one of the world's leading New Testament scholars, Tom Wright. Thoughtful questions, prayer suggestions, and useful background and cultural information all guide you into a deeper understanding of the Christian story and the Christian life. When you have a story at the back of your mind, have you noticed how it sometimes keeps coming up, even if you are talking about something else? Throughout his exhortation, prayers and instructions for living in the letter to the Ephesians, Paul cannot contain his joy and amazement at God's plan to save us in Jesus the Messiah. These eleven studies from Tom Wright within 'Ephesians: For Everyone Bible Study Guide' help us to see the significance of our role in God's grand narrative, and encourage us to live fully as people who are lavishly loved by God. This book on Ephesians is the perfect introduction to the topic, designed to not only teach but also question the reader and give thoughtful insight.

This study focuses upon the language of the Song of Songs in an attempt to see how individual images work together in the constitution of a poetic unity. The perception of certain 'imaginative fields', each of which organizes a range of related imagery, is helpful to an appreciation of the symbolic density which certain images acquire in the course of the Song's movement and to an acknowledgment of their capacity for narrativity.

"Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go." Joshua 1:9 "Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you." 1 Peter 5:7-10 God offers you his comfort. He promises you his power and strength. But when hard times hit--illness, death, job loss, relationship troubles--it is often hard to remember, tobelieve that God is with you. Again and again Scripture teaches, "Do not be afraid." In this book of daily Bible studies David Ivaska has gathered God's words of encouragement for you. As you explore God's promises from the Old and New Testaments, you'll be reassured of God's goodness. As you dwell on the truth of God's sovereignty and faithfulness, your hope will be restored. Be Not Afraid includes ten weeks' worth of daily Bible studies, with the seventh study in each week designed either for individual study or for a small group wrap-up session. The six individual studies each week feature introductory material, a Scripture passage (NIV text reprinted alongside for handy reference), 3-5 questions for reflection, and a prayer. Whether you feel anxiety over one great issue or many small ones, this Bible study guide will give you the tools day-by-day to turn over to God all your cares and worries.

This work argues that the author of the Gospel of Matthew structures his work as a Bios or biography of Jesus, so as to encapsulate, in narrative form, the essence of his theological understanding of God's Basileia (sovereign rule), as proclaimed and taught in the teaching and healing mission of Jesus. Evidence for this is found in Matthew's careful use of structural markers to divide his story of Jesus into significant thematic sub-sections in which he uses a series of Basileia logia at incisive points to highlight aspects of Jesus' teaching and healing mission. In this way, Matthew is able to portray Jesus, as God's promised Messiah, who instructs his disciples through discourse and narrative, hence in word and example, in the nature and demands of God's sovereign rule.

By structuring his Gospel as a story, Matthew depicts Jesus giving instructions to his disciples and also instructs the readers of the text. Hence, Matthew's Gospel becomes a manual of instruction on the nature and demands of God's sovereignty. Its purpose is to ensure that not only the members of the Matthean community, but all future disciples of Jesus are competently trained to carry out Jesus' commission: "Go therefore and disciple all the nations ..." (28:19-20). In this way, the goods news of God's saving presence is proclaimed to all the nations until God's eschatological reign is finally established.

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Remarkably enough, there is a scarcity of modern commentaries on the Psalms for the more general reader, though after the Gospels, they are probably the most widely read part of the Bible. Clergy read the Psalms in rotation as part of the daily offices, the Psalms are a regular part of the church's worship, and the "Book of Psalms" is a spiritual classic in its own right. This commentary is addressed to the widest possible readership and is informed by John Eaton's pastoral concerns and his commitment to environmental issues. He examines the authorship of the psalms and their use as poetry and songs, as well as in worship. Eaton provides his own, modern translation of each of the 150 Psalms and provides a commentary highlighting the relevance of the psalms to the modern reader. The inspirational discussion of each psalm ends with a related Christian prayer, either from the tradition or written by Eaton himself.

The book of Ruth is one of the Bible's most enduring and beloved stories. At first glance, the story appears to be a simple tale of hardship and good fortune, but a close reading of the short book yields wonderful new insights. Kirsten Nielsen's comments on the book of Ruth paint a rich and subtle portrait of the characters involved in the story. She carefully traces the many connections between this biblical book and the wider context of other biblical passages, including earlier stories such as the story of Judah and Tamar, and later adaptations such as the Targum to Ruth. Nielsen provides the reader an entry to this nuanced intertextual world.

Waldemar Janzen offers a fresh approach to the canonical structure of Exodus. The liberation from Egypt is a prelude to Israel's unique calling to model before the nations a new life of service under God. Exodus portrays how God, through his servant Moses, wages a dramatic battle with Egypt's mighty ruler for the release of enslaved Israel. Yet as the battle rages, Israel stands apart as a watching noncombatant, wavering between doubt and faith.

After wresting Israel from Pharaoh's enslavement, God fights for the soul of his doubting and resistant people. They ask, "Is the Lord among us or not?" Even after Israel's covenant commitment to be God's "priestly kingdom and holy nation", Israel breaks away again and worships a golden calf, a symbol of what is clear to the senses.

In the end, God's grace wrests Israel away once more, this time from captivity to its own doubts, fears, and self-centeredness. In the last chapters, Exodus portrays a people focused in faith on the imageless presence of God in its midst. Nevertheless, God still wrestles for his people even today.

The book presents essays on themes useful for teaching, preaching, and Bible study; bibliographies; charts; a map; and an index. "Believers church" refers to churches in the Anabaptist heritage of faith. The BCBC series is sponsored by six denominations: Brethren Church, Church of the Brethren, Brethren in Christ Church, General Conference Mennonite Church, Mennonite Brethren Church, and Mennonite Church.

As Mark's Gospel moves toward its climax, four stories of women challenge Jesus in his mission to establish the empire of God against the backdrop of the Roman Empire: those of the poor widow (12.41-44), the anointing woman (14.1-11), the women at the cross and the burial (15.40-41, 47), and the women at the empty tomb (16.1-8). They are stories that would seem to demand both a feminist and a postcolonial perspective on the part of their readers-yet Kim's is the first reading of the Gospel that has taken an explicitly postcolonial feminist stance. In addition to the feminist and the postcolonial themes, the third strand in Seong Hee Kim's approach arises from her Korean context, which provides her with the concept of Salim interpretation, that is, 'making things alive'. Starting from the reader's context, she develops a Salim hermeneutics for each of the four stories by engaging in a dialogue between the biblical story and the reader's use of her or his own imagination. The goal of her interpretation is such a making things alive, a mending of broken things, and an opening up of meaning-in contrast to the tendency of historical criticism, which has striven to identify a single, correct meaning in the biblical text.

N. T. Wright's Jesus and the Victory of God is widely heralded as one of the most significant and brilliantly argued works in the current "third quest" of the historical Jesus. In this second volume of his multivolume investigation entitled Christian Origins and the Question of God, Wright uncovers a Jesus that most historians and believers have never met. Rooted and engaged in the soil of Israel's history, its first-century plight and its prophetic hope, Wright's portrait of Jesus has set new terms of discourse and debate. Through Wright's lens, familiar sayings and actions of Jesus have fresh meaning. But in the midst of all that is new, Wright also offers a profile of Jesus that bears striking lines of continuity with the Jesus of Christian belief and worship. This resemblance has captured the attention of confessing Christian biblical scholars and theologians. Wright's work thus far is of such consequence that it seemed timely and strategic to publish a scholarly engagement with his reconstruction of the historical Jesus. Like all works in progress, Wright's proposal is still under construction. But its cornerstone has been laid, the foundation has been formed, the pillars and walls are going up, and even if we cannot yet see how the ceiling, roof and parapets will look, there is quite enough to engage the minds of colleagues, critics and other curious onlookers. For the purposes of this book (and in keeping with IVP's own evangelical identity), editor Carey Newman invited scholars who are committed to Christian belief as it has been classically defined to engage Wright's Jesus and the Victory of God. Newman sets the stage with an introduction, and Craig Blomberg offers a critical and appreciative overview of Jesus and the Victory of God. Various facets of Wright's proposal are then investigated by contributors: Paul Eddy on Jesus as prophet, Messiah and embodiment of Yahweh Klyne Snodgrass on the parables Craig Evans on Israel under continuing exile Darrell Bock on the trial and death of Jesus Dale Allison on apocalyptic language Richard Hays on ethics Alister McGrath on the implications for evangelical theology Stephen Evans on methodological naturalism in historical biblical scholarship Luke Timothy Johnson on Wright's historiography To these essayists Wright extends his "grateful dialogue." He gives this spirited and illuminating reply to his interlocuters: "The high compliment of having a whole book devoted to the discussion of one's work is finely balanced by the probing, intelligent questions and by the occasional thud of a blunt instrument on the back of one's head. . . . Only once did I look up my lawyer's telephone number." After Wright takes his turn, his good friend and frequent partner in debate Marcus Borg offers his "appreciative disagreement." Newman then concludes the dialogue with his own reflections on moving from Wright's reconstruction of the historical Jesus to the church's Christ. A book assessing a scholar's work is usually an end-of-career event. But in this case interested readers can look forward with eager anticipation to Wright's next volume in Christian Origins and the Question of God--this one on the resurrection of Jesus.

It has long been noted that the "Book of Lamentations" shares, at least in part, a theological outlook with the prophetic literature that the destruction of Jerusalem was the result of Yahweh's decisive action against the sins of the nation. Too often, however, this relationship has simply been presupposed, or assumed to be a relationship of shared perspective. To date, there has been no systematic exploration of how it is that Lamentations accepts and/or modifies the theological outlook of the prophetic literature. In addition, when the theology of the prophets has been discussed in relation to "Lamentations", there has been a tendency to group all the prophetic books together as if they existed as a homogeneous whole, and shared amongst themselves a singular outlook. This tendency to simplify the theological complexity of the prophetic literature coincides with a similar tendency to reduce the theology of "Lamentations" to simple, monotheistic assertions. Drawing on the literary insights of Mikhail Bakhtin, this study explores in detail the nature of the relationship between "Lamentations" and the pre-exilic/exilic prophetic literature. Drawing on the notions of dialogism, polyphony and double-voicing, the study argues that "Lamentations" enters into a dialogic relationship with prophetic literature, a relationship that both affirms and subverts that literature. Central to the acknowledgement of the dialogic interaction between Lamentations and the prophetic literature is the recognition of "Lamentations" as a multivalent, polyphonic text in which unmerged viewpoints exist in a tension-filled relationship.

The book is, primarily, a linguistic investigation into the possibility that the Johannine farewell discourse is the product of multiple hands. Chapter 1 examines the history of the problem. Chapter 2 contains an examination of the stylistic unity of the farewell discourse and John 14:31-16:33 is examined for specific literary style markers. All the style tests show that the major divisions of the farewell discourse are consistent with the style evident in the rest of the Gospel. Chapter 3 contains an investigation of the structure of the farewell discourse. The text is tested for structural unity, textual prominence, and coherence. The results show that the discourse holds together quite well in structure, peak, and cohesion. Chapter 4, therefore, returns to the issue of the magnus reus (Latin for "the great litigant"). The difficulty presented by 14:31, (ultimately, the major reason for identifying editorial activity) is investigated in terms of the assumptions current among source critics. Upon a closer examination, these assumptions are shown to be unlikely based on the conventions of ancient literature and the literary conventions of participant movement in the rest of the Fourth Gospel. The conclusion reached in this work is that the farewell discourse should be considered a unity. Journal for the Study of the New Testament Supplement Series, 256.