LITMIR.BIZ

The prophet Jeremiah, mourning his people in the city of Zion, spoke of the balm that could heal them. He foresaw the physician and he asked, «Why then is not the health of the daughter of my people recovered?» The message of Jesus has been in North America for centuries, yet past history with the first nations of the land has left many native people thinking they have to choose either to be an Indian or to believe in Jesus. Jeremiah said, «The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved.» How, then, do we bring the balm of Gilead to the most oppressed group on the continent where women and children are suffering the highest rates of violence? When Jesus forgave a prostitute, when he offered living waters to the woman at the well who had six failed relationships, and when he healed a crippled woman, he showed us how he would build his church from the brokenhearted among all people. Journey to the Edge of the Woods visits women sharing concern over the degradation of our daughters, sisters, mothers, and friends in a world of intensifying confusion of the creation of male and female identities.

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When your faith no longer works, and the catch phrases and Christianese that got you to where you are cannot take you past your current crisis, what do you do? Is doubt okay? Is it okay for Christians to struggle with what they believe? Is it okay to question God? This book takes an honest and in-depth look at faith crises experiences from interviews with sixty people, and five biblical narratives, addressing head-on the issues of doubt and times of questioning one's faith. Shaken Faith outlines a biblical perspective and a fresh way of viewing doubt, the questions Christians experience in their faith, and faith crisis moments. In order for faith to be real, it must be challenged and shaken, so that the depth of the faith can be rooted in an unshakable God.

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The poems in this collection are offered along two related lines. In the first part of the book the poems and etchings coalesce to form what the author calls a family portrait of grace and faith, representing the fruit of a process of biblical study and reflection, which will be of interest to both the lay person and pastor in his or her preparations for teaching and preaching. In the second section of the book the author provides a variety of poems disclosing the dynamics of life in its multiplicity of patterns and expressions. Together the two sections seek to express the grace of God in the commonalities of life.

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And Grace Will Lead Me Home is gift for new and seasoned journal writers alike. Using the insights of pilgrimage theology and practice, this guide serves faithful integration for students and others involved in service learning, study abroad, and immersion programs. The prompts spur expanded awareness and description so writers notice the breadth of their experience. Bible verses and quotations from pilgrims across the ages support journaling with perspective, wisdom, and wit. The progression of the guide encourages attentiveness before travelers depart, validates the disconcerting reality of culture shock and liminal spaces, and then supports claiming God's presence and gifts in new discoveries and transformations.
And Grace Will Lead Me Home has been tested by undergraduates and seminarians, pastors and lay leaders in a myriad of travel and service opportunities. Journal writers consistently acclaim that the guide serves both breadth and depth in writing and reflection.

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For the first time, the Gospel material unique to both Matthew and Luke is brought together into one volume–in both Greek and English. For more than a century, New Testament scholars have asserted that Matthew and Luke drew on sources in addition to Q and Mark during the composition of their Gospels. For convenience, the non-paralleled material in Matthew has traditionally been labeled «M,» and the non-paralleled material in Luke has traditionally been labeled «L.» We learn only from Matthew, for example, particular stories like Joseph and Mary's escape to Egypt and the Great Commission; from Luke stories like the Prodigal Son and Jesus' appearance on the Emmaus road. Studying the material unique to each Gospel in isolation from their narrative contexts will allow students and scholars alike to engage these stories on their own. In this book, the individual special pericopae from Matthew and Luke are collected and arranged in Greek and English in the order in which they appear in the Greek New Testament. An introductory essay is provided to introduce readers to the Synoptic Problem, the notions of M and L and where they come from, what the parameters are for selection, and the critical debate, so that readers know how the selections were made and what is being asserted by their inclusion. This book will be a wonderful teaching tool for seminary and university professors, and will facilitate student engagement with distinctive Matthean and Lukan stories. It will also be a valuable resource for New Testament scholars doing research on this special material, since having it all in one place will no longer require them to search for the distinctive passages among the larger Gospel narratives.

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Not a reference tool, this unique work is a teaching-learning guide to studying the Book of Revelation. The focus is on showing how rather than on telling that. Charts followed by leading questions and statements help both faculty and students to see how St. John adopted and adapted his sacred texts (as well as Jewish and Greco-Roman resources) in light of his convictions about and experience of Jesus. Noticing the dominance of words and themes leads one to discover the primary concerns of the Author and his readers. Observing how John internally arranged his visions provides a clue as to the kind of work it is and how it was meant to function.

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When Jesus overturned the carts of the merchants in the temple, he was just the latest in a long line of people who decried the activities that took place there. To understand his actions better, one must go back in history to the eighth century BCE, to the first two prophets to criticize the temple cult: Amos and Isaiah. Their criticism of all worship activities came as a result of the people setting wrong priorities in their lives. What happens in the temple should extend into regular everyday activities in the home, in the market, in business dealings, at work, and at the city gate. Amos and Isaiah present similar oracles that address the prioritization of worship over real life. This book looks closely at their oracles, comparing and contrasting them, and analyzes what they were trying to teach the people.

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In Romans 7:14-25, Paul declares, «For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want, is what I do» (KJV). St. Paul's statement is a universal truth for all human beings; humans–whether Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, or atheists–are prone to committing free actions that are not «good.» Furthermore, and irrespective of how we might construe the notion of «good» (whether as acting in accordance with some religious or spiritual precept or simply doing what is in one's best interest), we often knowingly and freely choose actions that may, or in fact do, harm us. There is a name given to such actions. We call them «weak-willed.» "Weakness of will," or akrasia, has perplexed philosophers, theologians, and laypersons alike for centuries. This book reveals why the idea has caused so much bafflement and consternation for so many. The main thrust of the work, however, is to illuminate and inspire: Lightbody seeks to demonstrate, concretely, how and why we are weak-willed. By extracting an «alchemical touchstone» from Plato's middle period philosophy, Lightbody, in addition, reveals how we may transmute harmful appetites into life-edifying passions.

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Clarity of vocational practice is key to clergy health. The center of clergy practice is the ministry of Word and Sacrament. What takes place at the pulpit, font or pool, and table is the divine intent and extent of ministry. While this may sound in-house and parochial in the extreme, it is both priestly and prophetic.
John Weborg's argument in this book is that the clergy can be made healthy in ministry for ministry by maintaining vocational clarity. The priestly and prophetic acts of Word and Sacrament address the clergy before they address the congregation. Hence what is offered here is a spirituality through practices-the clergy are hearers before preachers, baptized before baptizers, communicants before celebrants.
Neither a how-to book nor a work of pastoral theology, Made Healthy in Ministry for Ministry is aimed toward helping clergy appropriate the gifts and graces of the practices they are called and authorized to carry out.

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Learning to Speak a New Tongue attempts to respond to a timely question facing America today: What holds people together in a fragmented world? The response comes from a religious community that has not been very visible: Asian Americans. The author employs the threefold epistemological scaffold familiar to Asian Americans: (1) translocal value orientation embedded in the experiences of racialization, (2) a heightened sensitivity to pathos arising out of our dissonance with the societal norms and values, and (3) amphibolous spirituality, that is, a co-existence of multiple religious traditions without any resolution of their differences. The angle of vision embedded in this epistemological framework of Asian Americans' lives may well provide a clue to an alternate architectural paradigm in building a new peoplehood and to redefine democratic freedom as the historical paradigm of American peoplehood.

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