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How do you introduce people to Jesus Christ who have had no contact with the Bible or its message? How do you reach those who have had no contact with the church and do not understand Christian terminology and may have a negative view of Christians? This is the culture in which we now find ourselves.
By explaining how to use Bible discussion groups to introduce the gospel message in a relevant way in today's post-Christian culture, this book introduces the reader to a new and radical form of the small group Bible study. This study is solely oriented toward the needs of the post-Christian. This book trains the reader to establish, grow, and lead Bible studies oriented toward those who do not understand Christian vocabulary, have little or no knowledge of the Bible, and have never heard the gospel.
The author believes that the best missionary is the Bible itself. Instead of the leader answering any questions the attendees may have, the Bible provides the answers to questions posed. Thus, this book will give the reader confidence to let the Bible do the important task of evangelism.

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Mainstream Christianity tends to define salvation exclusively in terms of substitutionary atonement (Jesus died for me so that I can go to heaven when I die).
While this is not incorrect, nor unbiblical, this definition of salvation is incomplete.
Where does Israel fit into salvation? And what about the covenant? Most importantly, what about the kingdom of God that Jesus preached fervently? How do all of these dimensions that are central to the biblical text and its message fit into the bigger picture of salvation?
Salvation in Fresh Perspective: Covenant, Cross, and Kingdom reminds readers that salvation is not centrally about the believer, but about God and his World Renewal Plan. Salvation, when properly framed by the entire text that runs from Genesis to Revelation, is not all about me and Jesus, but about God and his plan to renew the creation through the Jewish Messiah and his covenant people. Salvation in Fresh Perspective seeks to bring back into focus the often forgotten dimensions of the great story of salvation.

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The community of faith finds itself located precariously between Jesus' first and second comings, between the promise and fulfillment, between what God has begun in the gospel and what God has yet to complete. It thus finds itself proclaiming a gospel of life, love, hope, and faith in a world more characterized by death, hate, despair, and fear. The gospel insists that Jesus' death has shut the door on the age of violence and death, even as his resurrection has opened the door on the Age of Shalom and life. But in this tensive in-between time, those conflicting ages overlap, and the church struggles against powers and experiences that mock its message. Drawing on resources from the New Testament's vision of the apocalyptic gospel, Andre Resner urges the church and its preachers to engage in the linguistic practices of lament and proclamation as well as the embodied practices of justice-making and justice-keeping as counter-testimony to those powers that have been served notice in Jesus' life, death, and resurrection that their end is near. The reflections offered here model the kind of honest speech and risk of life to which the gospel calls its adherents.

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How to Preach with an Interpreter is a manual for short and long-term missionaries, interpreters, evangelists, pastors, professors, teachers, stateside ministers to internationals, and anyone else who wants to preach but does not know the language. Every year, thousands of churches send preachers and laymen on trips around the world. Many will attempt the intimidating task of preaching with an interpreter, and few will do it well. Most will never even know their mistakes because they do not know the language. Based upon observations of hundreds of sermons and dozens of preachers and interpreters, this «Crash Course» simplifies a complex task by providing practical, realistic suggestions that will help preachers and interpreters succeed. It describes common problems, offers simple, easy-to-apply solutions, surveys types of interpreted ministries, and suggests ways to get the best results. Churches, missionary agencies, international ministries, and seminaries should know that this little book fills a large void. As an original and unique contribution to the fields of missiology and homiletics, there is nothing else like it in print.

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The needs for and the benefits of holistic health care–care that extends to the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual aspects of individuals–have been well known for 2,500 years or so. But still, to quote the late Rodney Dangerfield, some caregivers «don't get no respect.» Fred Reklau is out to change that with this book, offered as an exploration of the synergies possible among those who care for persons. In the 1980s he wrote the theses that formed the core of this book. Since then they have helped many, in groups and singly, to see their work in a new light. Chaplains, pastors, parish nurses, lay caregivers, hospice workers–all will rejoice to read this heartfelt plea to elevate them to equal status with the vital care-giving services performed by physicians, psychologists, psychiatrists, and other members of the medical professions.

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The Three Pillars: How Family Politics Shaped the Earliest Church and the Gospel of Mark, examines how family relationships played a key role in the earliest Christian church. By disentangling the two disparate genealogies of Jesus, the author reconstructs the families of Joseph and Mary. Presented here for the first time is the full ancestry of Jesus' mother, Mary, who was descended from the anti-Hasmonean high priest Alcimus. The author suggests that Mary and her daughter Mary played a hitherto unrecognized role in the church's earliest leadership struggle and that a composite of these two women, not Mary Magdalene, was the basis for the Gnostic Mary of later Christian works.
The author next explores how this early leadership conflict shaped the Gospel of Mark, which she argues was written by Peter's son. She discusses Mark's footprint in this Gospel and how Mark's resentment of the relatives of Jesus, his ambivalence toward his father, and his anger at the disciples for ceding leadership to these relatives is at the heart of some of the most distinctive features of the Second Gospel, features that have perplexed biblical scholars and laymen for centuries.
The last section examines the mysterious Beloved Disciple in the Gospel of John. The author concludes that the many unlikely elements in the account of the arrest and interrogation of Jesus can only be explained by seeing the Beloved Disciple as a close relative of the high priest Caiaphas and that this family relationship was crucial to the protection of the early Christians in Jerusalem. The book's final chapter offers reflections on how kinship played an important role in Jesus' ministry and how the high priestly-leadership responded to him in part because of his family lineage.

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Charlie's Christmas Letter is a little document in the form of a letter to my grandson, which seeks to answer the questions that a bright teenager ought to be asking: Why were the shepherds in the fields in winter? Who were the three wise men? Why do we bring holly into the house? Of all the ways of entering a house why does Santa choose the chimney? What is the Messiah about? Why did Tchaikovsky drink unboiled water during a cholera epidemic? What is the Jewish Celebration of Lights all about? The letter presents some of the more interesting features of the season and incidental matters. Much space is devoted to details of the nativity and the transmittal of these through the uncertainties of the gospel reports; then there are the primitive rituals of food and drink; the origin of Santa Claus; and a summary of the wonderful legend «The Cessation of the Oracles.» Then come features of the season not part of the nativity story: Messiah, The Nutcracker, A Christmas Carol, containing some of the more colorful and significant details of the lives of Handel, Tchaikovsky, and Dickens. Then Hanukkah. Then Shopping. At best tangentially related, these have in them elements of Christian value. Next, the climax of the season: church on Christmas morning and the carols. Finally the book concludes with an attempt to present for the boy the huge dimension of the inconceivable phenomenon of the Incarnation. The chatty, simple style avoids long words where possible and offers parenthetical explanations. It is not without occasional, innocent wit and is sometimes a bit didactic: there are grandfatherly prescriptions, which Charlie may find a bit pompous.

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At each turn in life we are bombarded with the idea of normal. Normal finds a job he hates so it can pay for things he doesn't need while he wishes he was doing something else. Normal believes that creativity, imagination, innovation, and dreaming should cease after the fifth grade. Normal goes to church for an hour on Sundays but doesn't get carried away or allow her faith to truly intersect her life any other time of the week. Each day of normal becomes a tedious, hard-pill to swallow. But each day of normal also swells our thirst for something more. Have you ever wondered if there was something beyond normal? Have you ever craved adventure? What about purpose? Wished for meaning? Longed to know that what you do really matters? Maybe you've just longed to know that you matter. What if you could unlock the secrets to an abnormal life just like those men and women in Hebrews 11? What if God's design for your life is so much more than the trappings of this world? What if there is a life up ahead that could be meaningful, adventurous, and most of all, matter for eternity? What if God is not done altering the course of history? This is your invitation to travel miles past normal.

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The book you hold in your hands says that our churches and our nation are in desperate need of biblical awakening and revival. It begins with the churches. In stark opposition to the quest to give our utmost for God's glory, as a whole, the modern evangelical movement has settled for a compromised form of Christianity. The book exposes the roots of this compromise, analyzes keys areas of church life where we have abandoned the biblical record, and offers a roadmap for revival and reformation.

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Are you intrigued by the idea of faith? Are you searching for answers to questions about God as you try to make sense of the circumstances of your life? Have you ever wondered what it means to experience religious conversion?
In Out of the Fog, Into the Sun, Jo Kinnard shares her personal story of life transformation. She talks freely about what it means to be brought into faith through Christ as an older adult, after being born and raised Hindu. As someone who has a background in religion and philosophy, and holds a doctorate in one of the main schools of Indian Philosophy underlying Hinduism, Dr. Kinnard is able to articulate questions that seekers have about God and faith. Her story makes a powerful confession of the Gospel in a world marked by religious pluralism, atheism, and agnosticism. It is written for individuals and for discussion groups–exploring what it means to be a Christian today from both an «outsider» and an «insider» perspective–and underlining that in Christ, there are no walls.

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