The NIV Application Commentary helps you communicate and apply biblical text effectively in today's context. To bring the ancient messages of the Bible into today's world, each passage is treated in three sections: Original Meaning. Concise exegesis to help readers understand the original meaning of the biblical text in its historical, literary, and cultural context. Bridging Contexts. A bridge between the world of the Bible and the world of today, built by discerning what is timeless in the timely pages of the Bible. Contemporary Significance. This section identifies comparable situations to those faced in the Bible and explores relevant application of the biblical messages. The author alerts the readers of problems they may encounter when seeking to apply the passage and helps them think through the issues involved. This unique, award-winning commentary is the ideal resource for today's preachers, teachers, and serious students of the Bible, giving them the tools, ideas, and insights they need to communicate God's Word with the same powerful impact it had when it was first written.

Following the publication of his revised translations in "The Apostolic Fathers in English," 3rd ed., Michael Holmes, a leading expert on these texts, offers a thoroughly revised and redesigned bilingual edition, featuring Greek (or Latin) and English on facing pages. Introductions and bibliographies are generous and up to date. In the textual apparatus, existing notes have been revised and expanded, and well over 200 new notes have been added. This handsome and handy one-volume, thin-paper edition will be an essential resource for students and scholars and a joy to book lovers.

The focus of this research effort is directed toward identifying new methods of forecasting the cessation of lightning along the Central Atlantic Coast of Florida. Cloud-to-ground lightning flashes place Air Force (AF) personnel and assets at risk almost daily at this location. Providing a more accurate method of forecasting the cessation of lightning would allow for safer and more efficient execution of AF operations. A data set consisting of 40 thunderstorm cases was identified within a 90 nautical miles (nmi) region surrounding the Melbourne, Florida WSR-88D (KMLB) site. Each case falls between the months of May and September and the years of 1995 through 1997. Simple and multiple linear regression models are built using this dataset. Variables included max Vertically Integrated Liquid water (VIL), max reflectivity, max peak current, peak cumulative flash rate, peak negative flash rate, and peak positive flash rate. Results indicate that three of the simple linear regression models to some extent accurately represent the data. Additionally, when the data set is separated by thunderstorm cell type (multi or single) and cell specific regressions are built, results indicate that the regressions based on the single-cell data set produce a substantial increase in forecast skill compared to that of climatology. In fact, some regressions are shown to improve forecast accuracy by 90 % over that of climatology. Moreover, multiple linear regression models are shown to produce similar results and further reinforce the notion that each thunderstorm cell type (multi or single) behaves substantially different from the other with respect to forecasting the cessation of lightning.

How did earliest Christians receive and understand the teaching of Jesus and the apostles? These writings, among the earliest used in training new disciples, show a clear, vibrant, practical faith concerned with all aspects of discipleship in daily life-vocation, morality, family life, social justice, the sacraments, prophesy, citizenship, and leadership. For the most part, these writings have remained buried in academia, analyzed by scholars but seldom used for building up the church community. Now, at a time when Christians of every persuasion are seeking clarity by returning to the roots of their faith, these simple, direct teachings shed light on what it means to be a follower of Christ in any time or place. The Didache, an anonymous work composed in the late first century AD, was lost for centuries before being rediscovered in 1873. The Shepherd was written by a former slave named Hermas in the second century AD or possibly even earlier.

"The Apostolic Fathers" is an important collection of writings revered by early Christians but not included in the final canon of the New Testament. Here a leading expert on these texts offers an authoritative contemporary translation, in the tradition of the magisterial Lightfoot version but thoroughly up-to-date.
The third edition features numerous changes, including carefully revised translations and a new, more user-friendly design. The introduction, notes, and bibliographies have been freshly revised as well.