Recommendations based on "Jesus of Nazareth From the Baptism in the Jordan to the Transfiguration"

A compelling insider account by the nephew of a renowned prosperity preacher on the perils of greed and the power of the true gospel. Costi Hinn—nephew of the world-famous televangelist, Benny Hinn—had a front-row seat to the inner workings of the prosperity gospel: "In one sermon I heard growing up, my uncle taught us that if we wanted God to do something for us, we needed to do something for him." In God, Greed, and the (Prosperity) Gospel he gives a chilling account of how prosperity preachers exploit the poor and needy and what it was like to grow up in one of the world's most powerful prosperity dynasties. As Costi began to question the lifestyle he was living and look for an answer to the injustice he saw, he found himself on a journey that eventually led him to abandon the family faith in favor of the overwhelming truth about the real Jesus Christ. This is Costi's story of escape from a false teaching that has ensnared millions. And it’s a call to the church to be salt and light throughout the earth and to stand up for the truth when Jesus Christ is being falsely represented as a commodity. If you want to learn how to reach those caught in deception, or if you've been confused in the past by the insidiously blurred lines between prosperity theology and the true gospel, this book will bolster your faith and encourage your own journey toward the Truth. Spanish edition also available.

The Heart of the Story will help you see God’s Word in a new and inspiring light. In the Bible’s seemingly disconnected stories, you’ll discover one grand, unfolding epic – God’s story from Genesis onward – and your own life-story contained within it.“To understand the Bible,” says author and pastor Randy Frazee, “you need bifocal lenses, because two perspectives are involved. The Lower Story, our story, is actually many stories of men and women interacting with God in the daily course of life. The Upper Story is God’s story, the tale of his great, overarching purpose that fits all the individual stories together like panels in one unified mural.”In this new edition, Randy dives deeper in the Upper and Lower stories and shows how both perspectives will open your eyes to the richness and relevance of the Bible. Illuminating God’s master-plan from Genesis to our daily lives, The Heart of the Story will encourage you to experience the joy that comes from aligning your stories with God’s.

Award-winning religious scholar Richard Bauckham here explores the historical figure of Jesus, evaluating the sources and showing that they provide us with good historical evidence for his life and teaching. To place Jesus in his proper historical context, as a Jew from Galilee in the early first century of our era, Bauckham looks at Jewish religion and society in the land of Israel under Roman rule. He explores Jesus' symbolic practices as well as his teachings, looks at his public career and emphasizes how his actions, such as healing and his association with notorious sinners, were just as important as his words. Bauckham writes that Jesus was devoted to the God of Israel, with a special focus on God's fatherly love and compassion, and like every Jewish teacher he expounded the Torah, but did so in his own distinctive way. After a discussion about the way Jesus understood himself and what finally led to his death on a Roman cross, Bauckham concludes by considering the significance Jesus has come to have for Christian faith worldwide.

The Bible tells us that Jesus was called a lot of names by people. Many of the religious leaders of the day were jealous of his success and wanted to discredit him in the eyes of the public, so they said all sorts of crazy things about him. They whispered that he was an illegitimate child. They accused him of being demon-possessed. They denounced him to the Roman authorities as a rioter and a threat of public peace. In this five-session video Bible study (DVD/digital videos sold separately), pastor and author Rich Wilkerson, Jr. reveals how one of their nicknames for Jesus was true: “Here is a . . . friend of tax collectors and sinners” (Luke 7:34). In the religious leaders’ minds this was one of the greatest indictments imaginable, but for Jesus it was a sign of success because it was the very definition of his mission. Today, Jesus still calls us “friends,” not because of who we are or what we have done but because of who he is. While he was on earth, he knew that people needed to feel as if they belonged before they would want to behave. Rich shows that by following his example, we can have the same clear conviction and compassion for the lost that Jesus did. When we embrace the truth that we all need Jesus equally, and when we trust him to bring transformation in people’s hearts, we will walk as Jesus walked, experiencing the glory of God in our own lives and in the lives of those around us. The Friend of Sinners Study Guide includes video discussion questions, Bible exploration, and personal study and reflection materials for in-between sessions. Sessions include: Missed Message Weight Shift Lost and Found Comfortably Uncomfortable How to Be Great Designed for use with the Friend of Sinners Video Study (sold separately).

Renowned scholar David VanDrunen tracks the historical and biblical roots of the idea that all glory belongs exclusively to God. God's Glory Alone is a beautiful reflection on how commitment to God's glory alone fortifies us to live godly lives in this present age.Reinvigorating one of the five great declarations of the Reformation—soli Deo gloria—VanDrunen: Examines the development of this theme in the Reformation, in subsequent Reformed theology and confessions, and in contemporary theologians who continue to be inspired by the conviction that all glory belongs to God. Turns to the biblical story of God's glory, beginning with the pillar of cloud and fire revealed to Israel, continuing through the incarnation, death, and exaltation of the Lord Jesus Christ, and culminating in Christ's Second Coming and the glorification of his people. Addresses several of today's great cultural challenges and temptations that attempt to draw us away from a God-centered instead of self-centered way of life.This book leads you into a renewed sense of awe and adoration for our Creator and Redeemer as it mines deeply into the biblical and theological truths about God's glory that stand at the center of the Christian faith.—THE FIVE SOLAS—Historians and theologians have long recognized that at the heart of the sixteenth-century Protestant Reformation were five declarations, often referred to as the "solas." These five statements summarize much of what the Reformation was about, and they distinguish Protestantism from other expressions of the Christian faith: that they place ultimate and final authority in the Scriptures, acknowledge the work of Christ alone as sufficient for redemption, recognize that salvation is by grace alone through faith alone, and seek to do all things for God’s glory.The Five Solas Series is more than a simple rehashing of these statements, but instead expounds upon the biblical reasoning behind them, leading to a more profound theological vision of our lives and callings as Christians and churches.

KNOWING GOD is one of the most significant and popular Christian books of our time and has deepened the faith and understanding of millions of people around the world.''Dr Packer says we''re cruel to ourselves if we try to live in his world without knowing about the God whose world it is and who runs it. I''m convinced we''re cruel if we deny ourselves the wisdom contained in this Christian classic.'' Rico Tice

In 1987, an IRA bomb buried Gordon Wilson and his twenty-year-old daughter beneath five feet of rubble. Gordon alone survived. And forgave. He said of the bombers, " I have lost my daughter, but I bear no grudge . . . I shall pray, tonight and every night, that God will forgive them." His words caught the media's ears -- and out of one man's grief, the world got a glimpse of grace. Grace is the church's great distinctive. It's the one thing the world cannot duplicate, and the one thing it craves above all else -- for only grace can bring hope and transformation to a jaded world. In What's So Amazing About Grace? award-winning author Philip Yancey explores grace at street level. If grace is God's love for the undeserving, he asks, then what does it look like in action? And if Christians are its sole dispensers, then how are we doing at lavishing grace on a world that knows far more of cruelty and unforgiveness than it does of mercy? Yancey sets grace in the midst of life's stark images, tests its mettle against horrific "ungrace." Can grace survive in the midst of such atrocities as the Nazi holocaust? Can it triumph over the brutality of the Ku Klux Klan? Should any grace at all be shown to the likes of Jeffrey Dahmer, who killed and cannibalized seventeen young men? Grace does not excuse sin, says Yancey, but it treasures the sinner. True grace is shocking, scandalous. It shakes our conventions with its insistence on getting close to sinners and touching them with mercy and hope. It forgives the unfaithful spouse, the racist, the child abuser. It loves today's AIDS-ridden addict as much as the tax collector of Jesus' day. In his most personal and provocative book ever, Yancey offers compelling, true portraits of grace's life-changing power. He searches for its presence in his own life and in the church. He asks, How can Christians contend graciously with moral issues that threaten all they hold dear? And he challenges us to become living answers to a world that desperately wants to know, What's So Amazing About Grace?

A new commentary for today's world, The Story of God Bible Commentary explains and illuminates each passage of Scripture in light of the Bible's grand story. The first commentary series to do so, SGBC offers a clear and compelling exposition of biblical texts, guiding everyday readers in how to creatively and faithfully live out the Bible in their own contexts. Its story-centric approach is ideal for pastors, students, Sunday school teachers, and laypeople alike. Each volume employs three main, easy-to-use sections designed to help readers live out God's story: LISTEN to the Story: Includes complete NIV text with references to other texts at work in each passage, encouraging the reader to hear it within the Bible's grand story. EXPLAIN the Story: Explores and illuminates each text as embedded in its canonical and historical setting. LIVE the Story: Reflects on how each text can be lived today and includes contemporary stories and illustrations to aid preachers, teachers, and students.   —Ephesians— Like all of Paul's letters, Ephesians is centered in the gospel and its implications. It tells the story of what God has done in Christ and spells out the ethical implications of this story. But the letter to the Ephesians is unique among Paul's letters in many ways, including in how it tells of the story of God, beginning "before the creation of the world" and ending in eternity. Edited by Scot McKnight and Tremper Longman III, and written by a number of top-notch theologians, The Story of God Bible Commentary series will bring relevant, balanced, and clear-minded theological insight to any biblical education or ministry.

Gregory of Nazianzus (329-390 CE), "the Theologian," is the premier teacher on the Holy Trinity in Eastern Christian tradition, yet for over a century historians and theologians have largely neglected his work.Christopher Beeley's groundbreaking study -- the first comprehensive study in modern Western scholarship -- examines Gregory's doctrine of the Trinity within the full range of his theological and practical vision. Following an overview of Gregory's life and major works, Beeley traces the central soteriological meaning of Gregory's doctrine in the spiritual dialectic of purification and illumination; the dynamic process of divinization (theosis); the singular identity of Jesus Christ as the eternal Son of God; the divinity and essential presence of the Holy Spirit; and the interpretation of Scripture "according to the Spirit." The book culminates in Gregory's understanding of the Trinity as a whole -- which is "theology" in the fullest sense -- rooted in the monarchy of God the Father and uniquely known in the divine economy of salvation. Finally, Beeley identifies the Trinitarian shape of pastoral ministry, on which Gregory is also the foundational teacher for later Christian tradition.Beeley offers new insights in several key areas, reinterpreting the famous Theological Orations and Christological epistles within the full corpus of Gregory's orations, poems, and letters. Gregory stands out as the leading ecclesiastical figure in the Eastern Roman Empire and the most powerful theologian of his age, who produced the definitive expression of Trinitarian orthodoxy from a characteristically Eastern tradition of Origenist theology, independent of the work of Athanasius and in several respects more insightful than his Cappadocian contemporaries.Long eclipsed in modern scholarship, Gregory Nazianzen is now brought into full view as the major witness to the Trinity among the Greek fathers of the Church.

This is the first examination of the whole range of the thought of John Damascene, one-time Arab civil servant, later a Palestinian monk, who thought of himself as a Byzantine churchman. He was one of the most influential of Byzantine theologians, whose work came to provide an essential resource for later Western theology. Many will be surprised by his subtle theology of images, defended against iconoclasts, and manifest in his sermons and sacred poetry. - ;John Damascene, one-time senior civil servant in the Umayyad Arab Empire, became a monk near Jerusalem in the early years of the eighth century. He never set foot in the Byzantine Empire, yet his influence on Byzantine theology was ultimately determinative, and beyond that his theological work became a key resource for Western theology from Scholasticism to Romanticism. His searching criticism of Imperial Byzantine iconoclasm earned him harsh condemnation from the Byzantine iconoclasts. This is the first book to present an overall account of John's life and work; it makes use of recent scholarship about the transformation of the former Byzantine territories of the Middle East after the seventh-century Arab Conquest, and the new critical edition of the Damascene's prose works. It sets John's theological work in the context of the process of preserving, defining, defending, and also celebrating the Christian faith of the early synods of the Church that took place in the Palestinian monasteries during the first century of Arab rule. John's own contribution is explored in detail: his amazing three-part Fountain Head of Knowledge, which provided the logical tools for arguing theologically, outlined the multifarious forms of heresy, and set out with clarity and learning the fundamental doctrines of Orthodox Christianity; as well as his treatises against iconoclasm, his preaching, for which he was famous in his lifetime, and, the work for which he is most renowned in the Orthodox world, his sacred poetry that still graces the liturgy of the Orthodox Church. The life and thought of this subject of the Arab Caliphs, a Christian monk who thought of himself as a Byzantine, poses intriguing questions about identity in a rapidly changing world, and the deeply traditional nature of his presentation of Christian theology calls for reflection about the relationship between tradition and originality in theology. - ;Any new publication by Andrew Louth is bound to be welcome to readers interested in thoughtful, literate, historically grounded theology ... In this new book, Louth offers us a comprehensive, detailed survey of the achievement of St John of Damascus. - The Way;... the first serious general monograph on the Damascene's work in at least forty years, and probably the first ever in English; but the book's importance and value as a theological study go far beyond the simple fact that it fills a gaping scholarly hole. - The Way;Andrew Louth's study brilliantly covers the whole of John's literary and theological achievement ... Abundantly furnished with scholarly detail and a rich bibliography, the book is also an admirable introduction to John's thought for those who have litte acquaintance with patristic studies. - The Way;It is written with elegance, unfailing clarity, and thought-provoking theological depth, and is carefully and beautifully produced by the Oxford University Press. Louth's work seems destined to be the standard general treatment of John Damascene, in any language, for decades to come, and should fill that role with distinction. - The Way;... a superb study of all major aspects of the saint, locating him firmly in his Byzantine context, yet without in any way minimizing his impact on the Western theological world as well. - Irish Theological Quarterly;... offers a careful analysis of John's theology, cosmology, anthropology, and defence of orthodoxy against various heresies. - Irish Theological Quarterly;... written with elegance as well as erudition. - Irish Theological Quarterly;Students of patrology, Byzantine studies, Church history, spirituality and liturgy, will all gain much from Louth's book. It is set to become an indispensable introduction, not only to the Saint of Damascus, but to the history of middle-Byzantine theology. - Irish Theological Quarterly;The strength of this book is the way in which the author is able to illustrate the varied influences which are discernible in the writings of John. - The Journal of Theological Studies;... very learned work. - The Journal of Theological Studies;With this study Andrew Louth comes to the climax of his trilogy of Byzantine theologians ... Louth's scholarly manner combines the historical analysis of literary connexions with the exposition of the ideas content of the texts and demonstrates an enviable familiarity with the entire range of Greek patristic literature ... a wonderful book. - Journal of Ecclesiastical History;... a remarkable combination of theology and scholarship, a fit monument to one who, as the final chapter demonstrates, has come as close to the first rank in theology as anyone ever did while being also a first-rate poet. - Mark Edwards, Times Literary Supplement;... the first definitive work on John in English. - Mark Edwards, Times Literary Supplement;... an attractive thesis, argued with extraordinary lucidity and an impressive grasp of the relevant primary and secondary literature. - The Catholic Historical Review;There is much to stretch and expand our theological understanding in this fine book ... a clear introduction to an important and too little known writer. - Church Times;While being rigourous and detailed, the author is careful to write in an accessible and clear way, so that a reasonably well-informed reader can easily follow the argument. - Church Times;Louth's work is a monument of Patristic scholarship. - 8th Day Books catalog