A Once-and-coming Spirit at Pentecost


Book Description

Father Brown completes his look at the great seasons of the liturgical year, making the rich insights of modern biblical exegesis conveniently available to all, with this volume for the season from Easter to Pentecost. During this season the Church reads consecutively from the Acts of the Apostles, recounting the external life of the Church after Pentecost. The accompanying readings from the Gospel according to John portray the internal life of Christian disciples and promise a coming Paraclete to be sent by the Father. Father Brown's title A Once-and-Coming Spiritsignifies these two great biblical sources that he reflects on. He shows how these readings speak to our time as we live out the external history of a visible Church while internally drawing life from Jesus as branches on the vine. His comments offer an opportunity to appreciate the intent of the season after Easter and to prepare ourselves for the intensified gift of the spirit at Pentecost.




Holy Bible (NIV)


Book Description

The NIV is the world's best-selling modern translation, with over 150 million copies in print since its first full publication in 1978. This highly accurate and smooth-reading version of the Bible in modern English has the largest library of printed and electronic support material of any modern translation.







Pentecost To The Present


Book Description

Contrary to popular belief, miracles did not pass away with the twelve apostles. If anything, the Pentecostal sparks that were lit by them continued to spread throughout the known world. In this first installment, the reader will learn how Jesus and the apostles established the concept of the Holy Spirit's abiding presence in the church laying the groundwork for a Christian initiation that included salvation and Spirit baptism. The reader will see how spiritual gifts operated through the twelve apostles as they spread Christianity into the known world. How bold witnesses, supernatural signs, and practical love resulted in massive expansion of the early church despite extreme persecution. How Montanism tried to revive the church from moral decay through strict living and prophetical gifts before it was rejected. How Emperor Constantine I reunited the Roman Empire under a new Christian-friendly regime. How the new state-run churches, overrun with sin, caused many to flee to the wilderness resulting in another intense spiritual revival. How the Middle Ages featured the mass conversion of much of northern Europe through miracle-working missionary monks, followed by a period of great jubilation, mystical faith, and charismatic revivals, and ending with the incredible healing ministry of Vincent Ferrer.







The African Memory of Mark


Book Description

We often regard the author of the Gospel of Mark as an obscure figure about whom we know little. Many would be surprised to learn how much fuller a picture of Mark exists within widespread African tradition, tradition that holds that Mark himself was from North Africa, that he founded the church in Alexandria, that he was an eyewitness to the Last Supper and Pentecost, that he was related not only to Barnabas but to Peter as well and accompanied him on many of his travels. In this provocative reassessment of early church tradition, Thomas C. Oden begins with the palette of New Testament evidence and adds to it the range of colors from traditional African sources, including synaxaries (compilations of short biographies of saints to be read on feast days), archaeological sites, non-Western historical documents and ancient churches. The result is a fresh and illuminating portrait of Mark, one that is deeply rooted in African memory and seldom viewed appreciatively in the West.




Spirit Hermeneutics


Book Description

How do we hear the Spirit's voice in Scripture? Once we have done responsible exegesis, how may we expect the Spirit to apply the text to our lives and communities? In Spirit Hermeneutics biblical scholar Craig Keener addresses these questions, carefully articulating how the experience of the Spirit that empowered the church on the day of Pentecost can -- and should -- dynamically shape our reading of Scripture today. Keener considers what Spirit-guided interpretation means, explores implications of an epistemology of Word and Spirit for biblical hermeneutics, and shows how Scripture itself models an experiential appropriation of its message. Bridging the Word-Spirit gap between academic and experiential Christian approaches, Spirit Hermeneutics narrates a way of reading the Bible that is faithful both to the Spirit-inspired biblical text and the experience of the Spirit among believers. -- from book flap.




Your God is Too Glorious


Book Description

Most of us are regular people who have good days and bad days. Our lives are radically ordinary and unexciting. That means they're the kind of lives God gets excited about. While the world worships beauty and power and wealth, God hides his glory in the simple, the mundane, the foolish, working in unawesome people, things, and places.In our day of celebrity worship and online posturing, this is a refreshing, even transformative way of understanding God and our place in his creation. It urges us to treasure a life of simplicity, to love those whom the world passes by, to work for God's glory rather than our own. And it demonstrates that God has always been the Lord of the cross--a Savior who hides his grace in unattractive, inglorious places.Your God Is Too Glorious reminds readers that while a quiet life may look unimpressive to the world, it's the regular, everyday people that God tends to use to do his most important work.




The Promise of the Spirit


Book Description

William Barclay explores the doctrine of the Holy Spirit as presented in the Old Testament, the Gospels and the book of Acts. This reissue of an older Westminster Press title makes a welcome addition to the highly popular William Barclay Library series. The William Barclay Library is a collection of books addressing the great issues of the Christian faith. As one of the world's most widely read interpreters of the Bible and its meaning, William Barclay devoted his life to helping people become more faithful disciples of Jesus Christ.




Pentecost To The Present Book Two


Book Description

Jesus once spoke of a time when men would sleep and an enemy would come and sow tares among the wheat. The Renaissance, the Enlightenment, and the Modern Age were just such a time. In this second installment, the reader will learn how signs and wonders played roles in the foundations of nearly every new state church, Free Church, and denomination. How Catholicism countered with its own reformation that included a revival of mysticism, a new army of spiritual soldiers, and the discovery of the New World. How restorationist movements countered the intellectual revolutions of their day with revivals of faith in the supernatural. How a decade-long prayer meeting shaped the future of revivalism affecting both England's Wesleyan Revival and America's First Great Awakening. How the French Revolution replaced Christianity with liberalism as the world's dominant ideology. How many Americans countered this new revolution with a Second Great Awakening. How Phoebe Palmer began the modern Holiness movement and Jeremiah Lanphier launched a worldwide Laymen's Prayer Revival. How many Americans reunited after the Civil War with a series of Holiness Camp Meetings, followed by a similar "Higher Life" movement in Britain, and later, a new stream of American healing ministries.