The Gospel of Matthew and Its Readers is a biblical commentary with a difference. Howard Clarke first establishes contemporary scholarship's mainstream view of Matthew's Gospel, and then presents a sampling of the ways this text has been read, understood, and applied through two millennia. By referring forward to Matthew's readers (rather than back to the text's composers), the book exploits th…
A companion piece to The Concept of Anxiety, this work continues Søren Kierkegaard's radical and comprehensive analysis of human nature in a spectrum of possibilities of existence. Present here is a remarkable combination of the insight of the poet and the contemplation of the philosopher. In The Sickness unto Death, Kierkegaard moves beyond anxiety on the mental-emotional level to the spiritu…
Presented here in a new translation, with a historical introduction by the translators, "Fear and Trembling and Repetition" are the most poetic and personal of Soren Kierkegaard's pseudonymous writings. Published in 1843 and written under the names Johannes de Silentio and Constantine Constantius, respectively, the books demonstrate Kierkegaard's transmutation of the personal into the lyrically…
Søren Kierkegaard, the nineteenth-century Danish philosopher rediscovered in the twentieth century, is a major influence in contemporary philosophy, religion, and literature. He regarded Either/Or as the beginning of his authorship, although he had published two earlier works on Hans Christian Andersen and irony. The pseudonymous volumes of Either/Or are the writings of a young man (I) and of …
Outline: The Old Testament displays a remarkable literary and theological unity through a variety of genres. But applying a single, one-size-fits-all method of exegesis can lead to confusion, misunderstanding, and even wrong interpretations or applications. The Handbook for Old Testament Exegesis series offers six books that provide readers with an enhanced understanding of different Old Testam…
Outline: This is a thorough, full-scale English commentary on the Greek text of 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus. While author George W. Knight gives careful attention to the comments of previous interpreters of the text, both ancient and modern, his emphasis is on exegesis of the Greek text itself and on the flow of the argument in each of these three epistles. Besides providing a detailed look at th…
Outline: God is at work in our world. As in the days of Hudson Taylor a century and a half ago, we live in a ttime when discovering purposeful involvement in God's affairs aroudn the world requires us to engage intentionally. Hudson Taylor - husband, father, physician, evangelist, visionary and founder of the China Inlad Mission - lived his life for God with intention and purpose. In the proces…
Outline : Because one death touches many lives, it is important for both those who are dying and those who love them to be prepared for the pain and grief that accompany it. Here Deborah Howard shares words of comfort and encouragement for everyone coping with suffering and death. Her compassion, firm faith in Christ, and years of working as a hospice nurse create a uniquely sensitive, experien…
Outline: Widely used in personal and public worship, the psalms present multiple interpretive challenges - their poetic form has few, if any, points of contact with English poetry and the images in the psalms can seem just as distant. Furthermore, Mark Futato writes, "Their ethics at times seem to go against the grain of the teachings of the New Testament." Interpreting the Psalms, the second r…
Outline: The Gospel of Luke was written, says its author, as an historical account of the ministry of Jesus. Not only would it serve as the basis for a sound faith on the part of professing Christians, but it would also claim a place for Christianity in history. Christ's ministry, as Luke shows, is realized prophecy; it is that time during which God's promises of salvation was fulfilled. His te…
Outline: The wisdom literature of the Bible (Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Songs) is filled with practical principles for everyday life. While some Christians are deterred by the seemingly general nature of these matter-of-fact guidelines, they are as integral to God's purposes for his people as the explicitly theological material that dominates other parts of Scripture. The wisdom b…
Outline: Make your teaching matter! For every parent, teacher, pastor, leader, coach, and mentor. Whether you are an "official" instructor or one who shares wisdom and knowledge off-the-cuff, make the most of your opportunities to inspire, to instruct, and to positively and permanently impact others with Teaching to Change Lives. This now-classic volume, written by one of the most effective and…
Outline: For Christians, the issues raised by the different views on creation and evolution are challenging. Can a "young earth" be reconciled with a universe that appears to be billions of years old? Does scientific evidence point to a God who designed the universe and life in all its complexity? Three Views on Creation and Evolution deals with these and similar concerns as it looks at three d…
Outline: The Counterpoints series provides a forum for comparison and critique of different views on issues important to Christians. Counterpoints books address two categories : Church Life and Bible & Theology. Amid a culture that is both fascinated by spirituality and inundated by a dizzying variety of options for pursuing it, many Christians long for a deep, historically rooted spiritual lif…
Outline: It is difficult to imagine our understanding of the New Testament period without Luke's writings. For this reason, the question of Luke's historical reliability has been repeatedly investigated. In this study the author affirms Luke's trustworthiness as a historian. But Luke is more than a historian. He is also a theologian who finds his interpretive key in the great theme of salva…
Outline: Although liturgical tradition in Reformed churches is a frequently probed subject, information in certain aspects of the field is limited. To alleviate this situation, the author places major emphasis to this book on some lesser known areas of Reformed worship. At the same time, he touches in highlights of Reformed liturgical history, particularly the relative significance of sermon…
Overview: The New Testament contains two documents which purport to be letters from one group of people (Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy) to another group of people described as the church of the Thessalonians. "In order to understand these documents as fully possible," writes the author in his introduction, "we need to know something about the partners in this literary character of the documents…
Rethinking secularization : a global comparative perspective / José Casanova --
Is Europe an exceptional case? / Grace Davie --
Secularization and the impotence of individualized religion / Steve Bruce --
Challenging secularization theory : the growth of "New Age" spiritualities of life / Paul Heelas --
In search of certainties : the paradoxes of religiosity in societies of high modernity…