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Pastors and ministers have one of the most challenging jobs on Earth. Of all their tasks, one responsibility they cannot neglect is teaching the word of God. Unfortunately, church leaders seldom have enough time to prepare Bible studies for their congregation. This book is a quick resource to help fill that gap. These thematically arranged Bible studies each contain an introduction to a topic and a list of relevant Scripture readings for that topic. Pastors can use the introduction to spark discussion within small groups or to focus on the specific themes during sermon writing. This book will prove to be an invaluable resource for years to come.

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Along the Road-Tales from the Journey is a practical guide for patients and families going through some very serious and difficult issues. It is here to enable focus and meaning in a time that is fraught with confusion and pain. It is also for people who are not involved in hospice–people that recognize the value of keeping track of the journey for others to have «in case» they should suddenly be removed from the trail of life. It is for those who recognize the personal value in journaling their days for self-reflection and perspective. It is for those who know they are dying, and for those whose dying is «a long ways off.»
This workbook is a series of prompts that will help you notice the trail markers in your life and journey. It is a guidebook that you will write to show others the path you have taken. It is a place to reveal who you are so others may learn. So, go at it with a poetic relish for words and the telling.

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If radical postmodernism offers nothing more than arbitrary fictions and modernism is coldly but meaninglessly objective, where is reality? Apologizing for God argues that reality rests in the lives we live in history. In other words, it argues that living as understood on the basis of the incarnational nature of Christianity is an appropriate response to our current cultural situation. Partly philosophical, partly theological, and deeply Christian, Apologizing for God explores the importance of living in the presence of God as revealed in the autobiographies of our lives. Although not autobiographical in the strict sense, this book is an apologetic for the truth of Christianity explained through one Christian philosopher's understanding of our relationship to history in which God is revealed.

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Christians get confused about exactly what to do with the commands in the Bible. Do we need to give up pork and shellfish? Is it a sin to eat roadkill or to eat blood sausage? Is it a sin to wear mixed fabric? Is cross-dressing a crime? What about tattoos? What do we do with that command not to boil a kid in its mother's milk? And if none of these commands are for Christians today, then which Bible commands are for today? This book is designed to help you find solid answers to the question, «Which parts of the Bible's teaching are timeless and universal, and which parts are only for the people to whom the Bible was first written?» We will examine the laws in the Old Testament and the New Testament sin lists, and how they speak to issues such as sex, alcohol and drugs, obscene language, and gambling as they existed in the first-century world, as we seek to discover what's on God's sin list for us today.

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The Nonconformists of England and Wales, the Protestants outside the Church of England, were particularly numerous in the Victorian years. From being a small minority in the eighteenth century, they had increased to represent nearly half the worshipping nation by the middle years of the nineteenth century. These Methodists, Congregationalists, Baptists, Quakers, Unitarians, and others helped shape society and made their mark in politics. This book explains the main characteristics of each denomination and examines the circumstances that enabled them to grow. It evaluates the main academic hypothesis about their role and points to signs of their subsequent decline in the twentieth century. Here is a succinct account of an important dimension of the Christian past in Britain.

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Amazing Grace in the Midst of Grief describes the grief process as well as providing insights and stories about many of the ways God's grace is at work in the midst of our grieving. The closer one has been to the person who has died, the more intense and lengthy the journey through grief will be. This book describes ways God's grace accompanies and aids us as we move through the dark valley of grief. When we accept the gifts of grace, we are able to affirm life and our lives, even when life and our lives are not the way we want. God's grace is with us in our grief, pushing and pulling us through. Because of this grace, we have the strength to face life and the power to move on.

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During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, modern thinkers came to believe that our notion of truth should be objective, certain, and precise. Mathematics became the model for how truth should be conceptualized, and we sought to eliminate ideas that were vague, ambiguous, or contradictory. This inevitably led to our belief that the truth of the Gospel must be conceptualized in the same way, and much of modern theology saw the defense of the Gospel in these terms as its task. The teachings of Jesus, however, are often vague, ambiguous, and even contradictory. Fortunately, a twenty-first century understanding of the human condition has debunked the modern notion of truth, showing it to be truncated at best. Truth, at least as we have access to it, is very different from what our early modern ancestors imagined. This is especially good news since the truth of the Gospel was never compatible with modernity's notion of truth as objective, certain, and precise. Consequently, we are now free to rethink our notion of truth in a way that is compatible with the things that Jesus said and did, and equally compatible with what we now know to be our access to truth given the limits of our human condition. This volume sets out to explore these issues in depth and examine what it might mean for us to speak of the truth of the Gospel in a twenty-first century context.

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When it is our time, is there any one of us who would not hope for a gentle ending to our lives and a peaceful death? Yet for many, this longing remains elusive. Fears and apprehensions cloud our understanding of what is involved in the «getting there.» Many of us choose not to think about death or even consider preparing for this second of our universal human experiences. This death-unease can lead to our avoiding being with a dying family member or friend, sadly missing the precious chance to say goodbye. It may also prevent us from taking on the challenging but vastly rewarding role of caregiver. It is important to know you do not have to be alone. These lessons, learned from the dying themselves, will show you how the final journey–lived fully–can be the most extraordinary of your life. And yes, your goodbyes can be blessed in ways you could never have imagined.

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In this new edition of Gerhard von Rad's classic work on the Moses traditions, the reader is provided with a more polished text, cross-references to von Rad's other works, an updated bibliography, Scripture index, and a new foreword by Walter Brueggemann.

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The letter of Romans has changed countless lives, and it can change your life as well! If you have ever wanted to know God, there is no better introduction other than Romans. The depth and length of the letter, however, have discouraged many people from exploring it. This short book was written to help you start that exploration–an exploration that you will take again and again throughout your life. I have no doubt that your life will never be the same after experiencing this majestic letter.