LITMIR.BIZ

Once you come to know Jesus Christ as your Savior and Lord, what is the next step? If you have been a believer for a while and want to grow further, what is the next step? If you have grown in your faith and want to learn how to help other believers grow in theirs, what is the next step? This book will begin to answer these important questions. In Peter's second letter to scattered believers, he challenges us to add seven character qualities to our faith that will help us grow to be more like Christ. The Next Step looks at these seven character qualities, along with God's corresponding attributes, to help us grow in these qualities as we grow in our understanding of God's character. In every chapter, Johnson introduces readers to prayer, grace, and practical ways to begin reaching out to the people God places in our lives. The Next Step will help you grow in your daily walk with the Lord and will launch you on a lifelong journey of investing in others to help them walk with Christ.

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In this groundbreaking book, Michael Gorman asks why there is no theory or model of the atonement called the «new-covenant» model, since this understanding of the atonement is likely the earliest in the Christian tradition, going back to Jesus himself. Gorman argues that most models of the atonement over-emphasize the penultimate purposes of Jesus' death and the «mechanics» of the atonement, rather than its ultimate purpose: to create a transformed, Spirit-filled people of God. The New Testament's various atonement metaphors are part of a remarkably coherent picture of Jesus' death as that which brings about the new covenant (and thus the new community) promised by the prophets, which is also the covenant of peace.
Gorman therefore proposes a new model of the atonement that is really not new at all–the new-covenant model. He argues that this is not merely an ancient model in need of rediscovery, but also a more comprehensive, integrated, participatory, communal, and missional model than any of the major models in the tradition. Life in this new covenant, Gorman argues, is a life of communal and individual participation in Jesus' faithful, loving, peacemaking death.
Written for both academics and church leaders, this book will challenge all who read it to re-think and re-articulate the meaning of Christ's death for us.

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What do educated urban people think about God, and why? What factors–logical, emotional, experiential, or intuitive–incline them towards belief or towards unbelief? How do they balance these factors? Why do many seem to be «swing voters,» comfortable sitting on the fence, unmotivated to move far either way? What common ground do they share with Christianity? What are their objections to Christian belief and practice, and their misunderstandings? Why do many people describe intuitive and emotional attraction to believing in God, but resist it intellectually? What apologetic approaches would make most sense, specifically to educated urban Australians? What media products do they enjoy and trust? And how should these insights influence apologetics? Grenville Kent asks these questions in one Australian demographic to help target Big Questions, a documentary film series for Christian apologetics. Anyone interested in apologetics, evangelical media, and the application of marketing research to evangelism will be interested in this study.

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A critical examination of political Zionism, a topic often considered taboo in the West, is long overdue. Moreover, the discussion of Christian Zionism is usually confined to Evangelical and fundamentalist settings. The present volume will break the silence currently reigning in many religious, political, and academic circles and, in so doing, will provoke and inspire a new, challenging conversation on theological and ethical issues arising from various aspects of Zionism–a conversation that is vital to the quest for a just peace in Israel and Palestine. The eight authors offer a rich diversity of religious faith, academic research, and practical experience, as they represent all three Abrahamic faiths and five different Christian traditions. Among the many themes that run through Zionism and the Quest for Justice in the Holy Land is the contrast between exclusivist narratives, both biblical and political, and the more inclusive narratives of the prophetic Scriptures, which provide the theological foundation and the moral imperative for human liberation. Readers will be drawn into a compelling, readable, and stimulating series of essays that tackle many of the complex issues that still confound clergy, politicians, diplomats, and academic experts.

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The fullness of human relating is not an accident, nor is it achieved alone. We are created to connect in this shared life as we gain tools and insights to collaborate as companions. In this second volume of Face to Face, Discovering Relational, journey with a relational theologian into the little-explored realm of personal relationships. Are you ready to discover practical steps to enter into ways of deeper knowing and being known? Allow a seasoned adventurer to guide you into moments of discovery through story, metaphor, and simple, penetrating thoughts. Written in rich and revealing language, this companion volume to Missing Love speaks wisdom toward living in joyful relationships. Discover a map to take you there in the pages of this innovative, groundbreaking book.

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The major cultural changes in Western societies since the Reformation have created a serious challenge for the church. Modernity in particular has been inhospitable to Christian orthodoxy and many have been tempted to reject classical versions of the faith. This has led to a division within churches that Walker and Parry name «the third schism,» a divide between those who believe and practice the central tenets of Christian tradition and those who do not.
The authors have adopted and adapted C. S. Lewis' phrase «deep church» to highlight the necessity of remembering our past in order to recover historic Christian orthodoxy. This book is a call to deep church, to remember our future, to make a half-turn back to premodernity; not in order to repeat or relive the past, but in order to draw on its rich yet often-forgotten resources for the here and now.

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Early Interracial Oneness Pentecostalism is a look at what is perhaps the least-known chapter in the history of American Pentecostalism. The study of the first thirty years of Oneness Pentecostalism (1901-31) is especially relevant due to its unparalleled interracial commitment to an all-flesh, all-people, counter-cultural Pentecost. This in-depth study details the lives of its earliest primary architects, including G. T. Haywood, R. C. Lawson, J. J. Frazee, and E. W. Doak, and the emergence of Oneness Pentecostalism and its flagship organization, Pentecostal Assemblies of the World. This is a one-of-a-kind history of Pentecostalism, through the lens of the Jesus' Name movement and the interracial struggles of the period, interlinking the significance of Charles Parham, William Seymour and the Azusa Street revival, COGIC, the newly formed Assemblies of God, and dozens of the earliest Oneness organizational bodies. Exploration of the significance of the role of African American Indianapolis leader G. T. Haywood is central, as are the development of the movement's key centers in the United States and the ultimate loss of interracial unity after more than thirty years. These crucial events marked, indelibly, the U.S., the global missionary, and the autochthonous expansion of Oneness Pentecostalism worldwide.

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Echoes of Evil rejoins Deacon Coburn and company in a new adventure that picks up storylines and characters from Days of Purgatory and Shadows of Revenge. Joys and sorrows weave through this mosaic narrative, for the pursuit of justice extracts a great price as gripping scenarios unfold and secrets are confronted in the midst of upheaval. True to his sojourner outlook, the whiskey-sipping philosopher from Conoy Creek always comes to the aid of others at just the right time, embodying a theme of life: «We ride upon the rippling currents set in motion for us by the Almighty. We merely lean into eddies we choose.» Populated by Old West heroes and outlaws, Echoes of Evil introduces a cunning scoundrel unseen in the saga until now. This third installment continues a life-and-death struggle filled with harrowing turns and supernatural overtones.

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This book explores the relationship between Christian faith and Jewish identity from the perspective of three Jewish believers in Jesus living in eastern and central Europe before World War 1: Rudolf Hermann (Chaim) Gurland, Christian Theophilus Lucky (Chaim Jedidjah Pollak), and Isaac (Ignatz) Lichtenstein. They were all rabbis or had rabbinic education, and were in different ways combining their faith in Jesus as Messiah with a Jewish identity. The book offers a biographical study of the three men and an analysis of their understandings of identity. This analysis considers five categories for identification: the relation of Gurland, Lucky, and Lichtenstein to Jewish tradition, to the Jewish people, to Christian tradition, to the Christian community, and to the network of Jewish believers in Jesus. Lillevik argues that Gurland, Lucky, and Lichtenstein in very different ways transcended essentialist as well as constructionist ideas of Jewish and Christian identity.

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In an increasingly polarized world atheists and religious fundamentalists still agree on one thing: how God must be defined. Both dogmatically claim that «God» can only refer to the supernatural Lord of Scripture. In Liberating the Holy Name Daniel Spiro takes square aim at this attempt to assert a monopoly over the meaning of divinity. He explains how his Jewish-atheist upbringing and later exposure to Orthodox Judaism set him on a lifelong search for truth and meaning through the annals of modern Jewish philosophy, Christian theology, and Islam. He then reveals how this search has led to a highly original theology in which God can be conceived in the third person, embraced in the second person, and recognized in the first person.
Liberating the Holy Name leads the reader on a voyage through some of our species' most influential and profound perspectives on divinity. Spiro models how this search for divinity can be our greatest privilege, while arguing that in order to appreciate this privilege, we must liberate the Name itself from those who wish to monopolize it. If successful, he contends, we will improve religion's standing in the world and unleash a powerful force for social unity.

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