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Walking with the Full Assurance of Understanding has been written to provide Christians who are serious about their faith what Paul called: «the wealth that comes from the full assurance of understanding.» In its pages readers will find the central truths, logic, and promise of Christianity necessary for a confident, stable, and fruitful walk with God. No one knew better than John Wesley that it is one thing to know Scripture, quite another to understand it. Even as a missionary to Georgia, well-schooled in the faith by a clergyman father, a devout mother, and his studies at Oxford, Wesley remained unaware of the full meaning of Scripture. It was understanding that unlocked the power of God's work in his life. Given the multitude of negative influences both from secular culture and within the Christian community, there has never been a greater need to avoid the false teachings of philosophy, popular but mistaken beliefs, and poor assumptions. The information and insights presented here will enable twenty-first-century Christians to avoid being «carried about by every wind of doctrine» by understanding the treasure they have in God, Jesus Christ, and the Scriptures.

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The Life and Witness of Jeremiah introduces the general reader to the Hebrew prophet Jeremiah. As such it provides an overall sketch of his life and times and serves as a portal into his thought world. Jeremiah is among the most eloquent and passionate prophets in the Hebrew Bible. For readers who enjoy evocative poetry and harrowing accounts of near-death experiences, Jeremiah merits careful reading. One of the primary purposes in writing this book is to assist the reader in negotiating its anthology format and disorderly arrangement. To this end, the author provides in six chapters a thematic and topical approach to important aspects of Jeremiah's career and message that speak powerfully to our own day. In other words, this book focuses on applied theology. How does what Jeremiah said then relate to readers now? The book of Jeremiah is remarkably relevant, especially in its interface between faith and politics. The author also approaches this exposition of Jeremiah from a biblical theology perspective by connecting his preaching with the canon of sacred Scripture. A major concern is to place Jeremiah's prophecy within the broader context of redemptive history.

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Why are so many people drifting away from today's churches? John Killinger suggests that part of the problem is that they have personally outpaced the thinking and understanding of the church so that they no longer find it adequate as a social structure for the celebration of their faith. In their attempts to find Jesus and his teachings relevant within the new culture, they strike out on their own or adhere to para-Christian organizations that retain an allegiance to Jesus without the baggage of the traditional institution. Killinger, a former big-steeple minister and theologian, describes how he himself has been forced essentially to abandon the church in order to remain faithful to the beliefs and ideals that first drew him into it.

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This book is one of the many commentaries on the book of Acts. In other words, it does not deal with a unique topic but one that borders on banality, yet of utmost importance. Without doubt, it will suffice its role of moving one step closer to a complete understanding of the complex picture that Luke drew. This commentary has been written by two Asian scholars with different theological backgrounds and thus will provide an unprecedented perspective. This commentary pays attention to the historical background and to the narrative, theological, and rhetorical texture of the text in Acts. In particular, the periodical essays at the end of sections or chapters–"Fusing the Horizons"–reflect on what the text means for the new covenant community in terms of its theological message, application, and community and spiritual formation. This is one of the many notable characteristics of this commentary. Moreover, this is an approachable and readable commentary by anyone who is interested in Acts.

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This book is one of the many commentaries on the book of Acts. In other words, it does not deal with a unique topic but one that borders on banality, yet of utmost importance. Without doubt, it will suffice its role of moving one step closer to a complete understanding of the complex picture that Luke drew. This commentary has been written by two Asian scholars with different theological backgrounds and thus will provide an unprecedented perspective. This commentary pays attention to the historical background and to the narrative, theological, and rhetorical texture of the text in Acts. In particular, the periodical essays at the end of sections or chapters–"Fusing the Horizons"–reflect on what the text means for the new covenant community in terms of its theological message, application, and community and spiritual formation. This is one of the many notable characteristics of this commentary. Moreover, this is an approachable and readable commentary by anyone who is interested in Acts.

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Despite his vast importance to twentieth-century theology, Jurgen Moltmann's Christology has yet to receive the same level of in-depth exploration as other topics in his thought. Samuel Youngs addresses this lacuna, providing the first exhaustive analysis of Moltmann's doctrine of Christ, including its key developments and controversial elements.
Youngs argues that Moltmann's doctrine of Christ is best understood as a unique variation of kenotic Christology. This vision of Christ encapsulates not only a series of vibrant ethical and eschatological points, but also serves Moltmann's overarching theological goal of empowering a church that lives and ministers «under the cross.»
Part I highlights key facets of Moltmann's theological method before unfolding the range of diverse themes that characterize his Christology. Part II explores Moltmann's use of the «kenosis hymn» of Philippians 2, before interrogating Moltmann's relationship to christological tradition. Part III engages in an original systematization of Moltmann's Christology, centered on the theme of manifold, relational kenosis.

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This fascinating book, which explores an intriguing idea formulated by Dietrich Bonhoeffer in the very last months of his life, has up until now been available only to German readers. Since Polyphonie des Lebens first appeared twenty-five years ago, a whole new generation of scholars has come into contact, in English as well as in the original German, with the entire collection of his works, as well as with a huge body of Bonhoeffer studies that have provided an exhaustive assessment of the man and his theology. But now with this brand new English edition of a book that explores a neglected but significant aspect of his life, readers may be surprised to discover how Bonhoeffer's interest in music influenced him–he seriously considered becoming a professional musician as a teenager, but chose the path of theology instead–and that not only did music provide him with a rich inner world of solace during his daily life while confined in Tegel Prison during 1943 and 1944, but music also lent him a remarkable metaphor for the fragmentary nature of life itself. In Polyphony of Life Andreas Pangritz explores Bonhoeffer's musical development and its impact on his theology and so fills in an important gap in the record of Bonhoeffer's life and thought.

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The portrait of an angry God, quick to condemn, that many people claim to find in the pages of the Bible is undoubtedly one of the greatest obstacles to faith. The modern tendency to efface all traces of anger from our image of God is therefore comprehensible. But might this procedure not risk mutilating the authentic character of the biblical God? Could the theme of divine wrath, properly understood, rather than being a primitive vestige or an aberration, perhaps offer a key to understanding a love «as fierce as death,» an approach to the mystery of our redemption in Christ? That is the challenge that this book attempts to take up.

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Return for a fifth time with Pastor Blackstone to the fabled land of India and discover more biblical precepts and life-changing concepts as he travels again with his good friend Shibu Simon to «earth's farthest bounds.» This time the Maine pastor will speak at three Indian graduations in three days in two different Indian states, witness a baptism in a cattle trough, get up close and personal with a temple elephant that had just blessed a house, and travel through eight Indian states in ten days while journeying the length and breadth of India in a four-thousand-mile odyssey. That odyssey will include visiting the Taj Mahal by water, the Red Fort of Agra, the Golden Temple of the Sikhs, a hostel in Delhi, and the guru caves of Udayagiri. Experience your first cycle rickshaw ride in Amritsar, your first rural hospital in Uttar Pradesh, your fifth Indian train ride through Haryana, and a surprising side-trip to Orissa. These encounters and experiences will cause you to think what is possible if you step out of your comfort zone and journey to «earth's farthest bounds» on business for the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords–Jesus Christ!

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Galatians has often been read from a rhetorical perspective, with an emphasis on justification by faith, Paul's autobiographical experience, proofs of the gospel, and exhortations to the Galatians. However, it can be read as a «letter» of which the main theme is the gospel–an umbrella term that covers many other topics, including faith, righteousness, freedom, and new creation. Paul writes Galatians not to argue for an individual justification by faith (understood from a forensic salvation perspective), but to make explicit his gospel that all can become children of God through faith. In Paul's logic, what comes first is God's promise, faith is a response to it through Christ, and the law can be fulfilled through faith. The gospel that Paul proclaimed to the Galatians is based on God, who called them in the grace of Christ (1:6). Kim challenges the traditional reading of Galatians, exploring different dimensions of the gospel: (1) God as the origin and root of the gospel; (2) Christ as the exemplifier of God's gospel through faithfulness; (3) the followers of Jesus as the children of God who participate in Christ's faithfulness and continue to proclaim the good news of God through Jesus.

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