LITMIR.BIZ

My First Introduction to the New Testament is for young readers of middle school age who may cherish the presentation Bibles given to them when they were younger but wonder just how to engage with biblical literature. Church school teachers may want to use it for a yearlong class because most chapters can be covered in one session. College students and even graduate students will find this book an easy way to refresh and review.

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James Arminius is one of the most maligned and misunderstood theologians in church history. In an era of major debate over predestination, free will, and related concepts, Arminius was accused of being Pelagian, Semi-Pelagian, or a heretic of all sorts. This is a trend that started in his time and has continued to this day. The truth is that he was a brilliant theologian who shook the foundations of Calvinism to the core. Yet he was quite orthodox in his thinking, as he had come right out of the Protestant Reformation, though he sought to reform some ideas of Calvin and Luther. Contrary to common belief, Arminius believed in the utter depravity of man and that a major work of grace, i.e., prevenient grace, is necessary to bring a person to repentance. He also emphatically rejected Pelagianism and Semi-Pelagianism. He thoroughly answers every accusation against him and masterfully refutes William Perkins, a major Calvinist writer of that time. How do we ultimately understand what he thought? By carefully reading his writings. Until now, this was not an easy task. The only way has been to wade through his three-volume «Works,» totaling 2, 300 pages. Hence the need for a compendium of some of his best writings, edited for modern readers. Our hope is to help a new generation of Christians understand this much-misunderstood theologian, an understanding especially needed in an era in which Calvinism is experiencing a major resurgence.

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Sermon structure has been deemed an important component of preaching throughout the history of preaching by preaching instructors and practitioners alike. Many have made a case for the bearing that sermon structure has for the effective preaching of Scripture. However, sermon structure when incorporated in a sermon often is not as serviceable as it could and should be! This book provides instruction for how sermon structure can serve to principlize Scripture by using statements of theological principle in the sermon outline. Therefore, the timelessness and the timeliness of Scripture are prioritized through statements of theological principle providing doctrinal accuracy and personal relevance which are apparent in the outline of the sermon. How Effective Sermons Advance provides a thorough and comprehensive treatment on the highly significant matter of sermon structure.

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This volume presents the narrative of the author's personal spiritual journey, which is marked by numerous constructive life-changing paranormal experiences that can only be accounted for as special initiates of the divine spirit providing intimations and illuminations. These events are set in the context of the rich literature available, which reports similar events in the lives of many other persons, under both normal and extreme circumstances. The author, a clinical psychologist and pastoral theologian, interprets this broad panoply of psycho-spiritual data in terms of psychological science and biblical perspectives. He concludes that the divine spirit is pervasive throughout the universe and present in all the dynamics of life forms, constantly endeavoring to communicate with humans. Thus, the paranormal may well be more normal than the normal human experience and the veil between time and eternity, between the mundane and transcendent worlds, and between life and the life to come is apparently more permeable in both directions than we suppose.

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In recent decades, biblical scholars have often drawn from the wells of literary theory when seeking to better understand the art of biblical narrative. This innovative work adds to these insights by applying film theory to the analysis of story in the Hebrew Bible. Kent argues that film theory helps us to attain much greater clarity in our appreciation of the functions of narrative repetition.
This book offers a synchronic exegesis of Saul's night visit to the witch of En-Dor (1 Sam 28:3-25), focussing on the web of repetitions of visual elements, of symbols, of sounds, of entire scenes, and of keywords. Kent shows how an artistry of repetition and non-repetition helps to build characterization, plot, and structure, as well as prophetic fulfilments, foreshadowing, and inter-textual warnings.
Anyone interested in biblical narrative and the Hebrew Bible will find here new questions and techniques, and a wider repertoire of tools offering fresh understandings.

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Union with Christ is the first extensive work on the Christology of Swiss theologian Adolf Schlatter (1852-1938). It offers fresh insights not only to readers interested in Adolf Schlatter's theology in particular, but also to students and professionals from the historical and dogmatic disciplines in general. The first part of the book sets the scene by tracing the biographical context of Schlatter's christological thinking. It explores Schlatter's evaluation of Kantianism, of the revival movement, of Ritschl and the Ritschl school, and of dialectical theologians, particularly Karl Barth. Based on this analysis, the second part of the work examines the dogmatic shape of Schlatter's relational Christology in more detail. From the perspective of Schlatter's theological triad of seeing-act, thinking-act, and life-act, it investigates his relational account of Jesus Christ against the backdrop of a distinct Trinitarian framework. According to Schlatter, Jesus reveals his divinity on the cross as he is able to maintain fellowship with God in spite of God-forsakenness–mediated by the Holy Spirit–and he reveals his humanity by remaining in close communion with sinners, transforming them and gathering them into the new community of faith.

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The role of witness is a recurring theme in the work of Stanley Hauerwas: it is through enacting the truth in a world of lies, through seeking peace in a world of violence, that witnesses show who God is, who we are, and what the world is like. The Necessity of Witness is a study of Hauerwas and his fascinating but complex understanding of witness. Ariaan W. Baan argues that Hauerwas's approach makes a significant contribution to current debates in systematic theology on the relation between truth and life. Reading Hauerwas can be a precarious adventure. His rhetoric is overwhelming, but his argument is not always crystal clear and carefully formulated. With the help of semiotic and philosophical analysis and biblical exegesis, Baan articulates Hauerwas's intuitions, fills some of the gaps in his argumentation, and discloses hidden biases. The results of this analysis sometimes surprise. Baan notes that unexpected pericopes in Scripture such as Isaiah and Revelation support Hauerwas's account of witness, and concludes that his work offers insight into how in our late modern society such diverse groups as martyrs and pop stars offer implicit witness through their lives.

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The aim of Religion and Violence is to engage dialectically key symbols of religiously motivated violence through the insights of Bernard Lonergan. Sociologists and psychologists argue the link between religion and violence. Religion is viewed more as part of the problem and not part of the solution to violence. Bernard Lonergan's insights have helped the author arrive at a number of conclusions regarding the link between religion and violence. He argues that there is a difference between distorted religion and genuine religion, between authenticity and inauthenticity of the subject. Distorted religion has the capacity to shape traditions in ways that justify violence, while genuine religion heals persons, helps them make different moral decisions when confronted with situations of conflict, and aims to explore new ways of understanding themselves as shaping history toward progress. Further, Religion and Violence, while arguing from within the Catholic Christian tradition, nevertheless seeks to provide a number of categories that will speak to people from other cultural traditions. Since many of the examples of religious violence cited by commentators come out of the Islamic tradition, the author has evidenced and explored more authentic aspects of the Islamic tradition that would help provide a solution to violence.

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The landscape of Christian spirituality in the West is no longer lush with green grass and wild flowers blooming. Instead, across the country we find dry terrain where churches no longer can expect interested seekers–yet most of our solutions for addressing this predicament link to anxiety around our performance and personality. Rather than going back to the boardroom to cook up new techniques for a trendier church, let's ask more meaningfully rooted questions. Do we know how to be present in our neighborhoods? Do we know how to be present in community? Do we know how to be present to the in-breaking kingdom of God? There is a growing groundswell discovering that we have become uprooted and detached from each other in the way we express being the church. We need a subterranean movement that plunges below the surface into a way of being the people of God that carries an unwavering incarnational creed. Dan White Jr. uses crisp criticism, narrative theology, and tangible practices to uncover a hopeful pathway for being radically rooted in God's world.

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Sarah. Hagar. Rebekah. Leah. Rachel. Bilhah. Zilpah. These are the Matriarchs of Genesis. A people's self-understanding is fashioned on their heroes and heroines. Sarah, Rebekah, Leah, and Rachel–the traditional four Matriarchs–are important and powerful people in the book of Genesis. Each woman plays her part in her generation. She interacts with and advises her husband, seeking to achieve both present and future successes for her family. These women act decisively at crucial points; through their actions and words, their family dynamics change irrevocably. Unlike their husbands, we know little of their unspoken thoughts or actions. What the text in Genesis does share shows that these women are perceptive and judicious, often seeing the grand scheme with clarity. While their stories are told in Genesis, in the post-biblical world of the Pseudepigrapha, their stories are retold in new ways. The rabbis also speak of these women, and contemporary scholars and feminists continue to explore the Matriarchs in Genesis and later literature. Using extensive quotations, we present these women through five lenses: the Bible, Early Extra-Biblical Literature, Rabbinic Literature, Contemporary Scholarship, and Feminist Thought. In addition, we consider Hagar, Abraham's second wife and the mother of Ishmael, as well as Bilhah and Zilpah, Jacob's third and fourth wives.

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