When writing to the Corinthians, the Apostle Paul used figurative temple language repeatedly to shape the identity of his audience («Temple of God,» «Temple of the Holy Spirit,» and «Temple of the Living God»). While other scholars have identified the place of the Jerusalem temple in Paul's thinking or the impact of temples in the life of Corinth, there has been no comprehensive study of the way that figurative temple language in philosophy ...
Contemporary Western society has a strange relationship with freedom. Unbridled subjective liberty and narrow fundamentalism pull away from each other in mutual loathing while sociological forces seek to manipulate both sides. The church needs to recover and reconstruct a theology of freedom to navigate between the perils of both extremes and to avoid being manipulated by these forces. Just as biblical figures are taught through parables and met ...
This book strengthens next-level scripture engagement for Jesus followers, pushing us to: Move beyond fill-in-the-blank discipleship programs, Feel as competent about the Bible as we feel about our life work, and Get comfortable living with unanswered questions while we seek and serve God. Bible for Self-starters presents the Bible as it presents itself: an ancient Jewish story as relevant as today's news. It is a story you can ...
Nearly everyone wants God to bless them. That is why Christian hymns such as «There Shall Be Showers of Blessing» are so well-known. This same promise of God is also based on a specific Bible verse, Ezekiel 34:26. The purpose of this book, There Will Be Showers of Blessing, is to explore God's promise of showers of blessing in its biblical setting and to apply God's promises to his people in the twenty-first century. By doing so, the r ...
Enoch's Journey will shed light on Enoch's walk with God, as well as your own. The book discusses Enoch's three-hundred-year walk, including some of the issues that he would face along the way–problems that would come to hinder and impede his close fellowship with God. It also discusses the more clearly defined journeys of Joseph and Job. If you have read their stories in the Bible, you know that both faced plenty of challenges, f ...
Who is showing us the way? In ancient Palestine, when Jesus Christ asked people who they thought he was, one of their top guesses was the Old Testament prophet, Jeremiah. "Who do people say that I am?" "Some say Jeremiah or one of the prophets." There was something about Jesus that reminded people of Jeremiah. In our moment in history, when we desperately need leaders and role models to show us a better way, Jeremiah stands as a h ...
Why did Jesus die on the cross? Does the atonement have any spiritual significance? This book is a bold and imaginative endeavor to make atonement theology rational, in a fresh way, in our interreligious world. Seeking connections between Christian and Hindu thinking in order to create hermeneutical bridges, Godfrey Kesari aims to open up creative ways of reimagining the doctrine of the atonement, which is so central to the Christian message. K ...
How can we be just and merciful? Are justice and mercy in conflict? Or are they aspects of the same truth? Christians in America are presented with two conflicting versions of justice and mercy. One version comes from the dominant secular narrative of America. Justice and mercy are contradictions. Mercy is devalued and discouraged. But within the counter narrative of God revealed through Torah, the prophets, and particula ...
Language is the gift by which we shape our understanding and tell our story. But if we cannot see ourselves and our context in our language, our lives can be confused and our witness weakened through a kind of cognitive dissonance created when the only vocabulary available to us fails to match our lived situation. Urban and suburban congregations live this disconnect when the language and imagery often employed in hymns, prayers, imagery, and li ...