Engaging Jesus with Our Senses


Book Description

Jesus took on flesh--he was embodied. And the Gospels use multisensory language to reveal that his teaching, ministry, and interactions with people engaged the senses. Consider the raging storm on the Sea of Galilee, the perfume filling the house as Mary anointed Jesus's feet, the significance of touch as Jesus healed people. Jesus even described himself in sensory terms--as the bread of life, the light of the world, the vine to whom his disciples are connected. Our physical senses are crucial to gaining knowledge of the world around us. Yet when it comes to Bible reading, we often reduce it to a mere cognitive experience, ignoring the Psalmist's invitation to "taste and see that the Lord is good." This book offers a fresh way to read the Gospels with an emphasis on embodiment, focused on a life abiding in Christ. The goal is a greater, more tangible knowledge of God. Jeannine Hanger points to the importance of engaging our physical senses in Bible reading, shows an approach to doing so with an emphasis on sparking the imagination, and looks at how utilizing our primary senses plays out in reading the Gospels. Each chapter includes sensory practices and questions for personal reflection. The book includes a foreword by Grant Macaskill.




The Sacred Overlap


Book Description

The widening of political, racial, generational, and religious differences leads too often to an "us vs. them" mentality. The Sacred Overlap communicates a refreshing vision that embraces tension and shows us how to live in radical love and faithfulness between the extremes that isolate and divide people. The gospels display how Jesus was committed to crossing the either/or waters of the cultural and societal wars of his day. His miracles and parables often broke or ignored religious and political lines that seemed all important. He comforted the disturbed and disturbed the comfortable. Using Jesus' example, J. R. Briggs offers a fresh and relevant understanding of evangelism and discipleship in our present time of extreme polarization. Without sacrificing biblical integrity, The Sacred Overlap is a joyful exploration of the complexity of life in the peace of Christ. With careful discernment, Briggs: Shares creative ways to engage with God's mission of ministering to those who are intrigued by Jesus but turned off by church. Explores what it means to be joyful in the midst of heart-wrenching pain and earthly suffering. Models what it means to maintain a posture of convicted civility which emphasizes both grace and truth. The Sacred Overlap helps readers see how Christians are called to live with their feet firmly planted in two different worlds—in both heaven and earth—living naturally with both the sacred and the ordinary. Only then can a Christian be a faithful witness and disciple of Jesus.




Making Sense of God


Book Description

We live in an age of skepticism. Our society places such faith in empirical reason, historical progress, and heartfelt emotion that it’s easy to wonder: Why should anyone believe in Christianity? What role can faith and religion play in our modern lives? In this thoughtful and inspiring new book, pastor and New York Times bestselling author Timothy Keller invites skeptics to consider that Christianity is more relevant now than ever. As human beings, we cannot live without meaning, satisfaction, freedom, identity, justice, and hope. Christianity provides us with unsurpassed resources to meet these needs. Written for both the ardent believer and the skeptic, Making Sense of God shines a light on the profound value and importance of Christianity in our lives.




Sacred Pathways


Book Description

Sacred Pathways reveals nine distinct spiritual temperaments--and their strengths, weaknesses, and tendencies--to help you improve your spiritual life and deepen your personal walk with God. It's time to strip away the frustration of a one-size-fits-all spirituality and discover a path of worship that frees you to be you. Experienced spiritual directors, pastors, and church leaders recognize that all of us engage with God differently, and it's about time we do too. In this updated and expanded edition of Sacred Pathways, Gary Thomas details nine spiritual temperaments and--like the Enneagram and other tools do with personality--encourages you to investigate the ways you most naturally express yourself in your relationship with God. He encourages you to dig into the traits, strengths, and pitfalls in your devotional approach so you can eliminate the barriers that keep you locked into rigid methods of worship and praise. Plus, as you begin to identify and understand your own temperament, you'll soon learn about the temperaments that aren't necessarily "you" but that may help you understand the spiritual tendencies of friends, family, and others around you. Whatever temperament or blend of temperaments best describes you, rest assured it's not by accident. It's by the design of a Creator who knew what he was doing when he made you according to his own unique intentions. If your spiritual walk is not what you'd like it to be, you can change that, starting here. Sacred Pathways will show you the route you were made to travel, marked by growth and filled with the riches of a close walk with God. A Sacred Pathways video Bible study is also available for group or individual use, sold separately.




Discerning the Voice of God


Book Description

OVER 350,000 COPIES SOLD! Do you feel that the ability to hear God's voice is for other people and not for you? Is it only for people who lived in Biblical times? Not at all! The God who loved you enough to die for you loves you enough to talk to you. And wherever you are in your spiritual walk, God will find a way to speak to you in a way you will understand. Become acquainted with the Voice that has spoken from a fire and a cloud, with visible signs and an invisible Spirit, through a burning bush and burning hearts. Hear from some of the most well known Christians in history about how God speaks to them, and discover for yourself how you can discern the voice of God. One of Priscilla’s bestselling titles, Discerning the Voice of God is now completely revised with updated content and reflection questions. Each section contains insights that will aid you in your desire to hear Him speak. Discover the treasure of recognizing how God keeps in touch with his beloved people.




Integrative Theology


Book Description

Integrative Theology is designed to help graduate students in a pluralistic world utilize a standard method of fruitful research. Each chapter on a major doctrine: (1) states a classic issue of ultimate concern, (2) surveys alternative past and present answers and (3) tests those proposals by their congruence with information on the subject progressively revealed from Genesis to Revelation. Then the chapter (4) formulates a doctrinal conclusion that consistently fits the many lines of biblical data, (5) defends that conviction respectfully, and finally (6) explores the conclusion’s relevance to a person’s spiritual birth, growth and service to others, all for the glory of God. Why the title Integrative Theology? In each chapter, steps 2-6 integrate the disciplines of historical, biblical, systematic, apologetic and practical theology.




The King's Table


Book Description




Making Senses Out of Scripture


Book Description

Reading the Bible in a way that is as old as Scripture itself, award-winning author Mark P. Shea takes us on a “fly-over” of the biblical story from Genesis to Revelation. He shows you how to explore the literal, allegorical, moral, and analogical sense of Scripture. Whether you have been studying Scripture for years, or are encountering it for the very first time,Making Senses Out of Scripture is an invaluable tool that it will help you see biblical revelation afresh, as Christians have done for 2000 years.




Sacred Pathways


Book Description

Sacred Pathways reveals nine distinct spiritual temperaments--and their strengths, weaknesses, and tendencies--to help you improve your spiritual life and deepen your personal walk with God. It's time to strip away the frustration of a one-size-fits-all spirituality and discover a path of worship that frees you to be you. Experienced spiritual directors, pastors, and church leaders recognize that all of us engage with God differently, and it's about time we do too. In this updated and expanded edition of Sacred Pathways, Gary Thomas details nine spiritual temperaments and--like the Enneagram and other tools do with personality--encourages you to investigate the ways you most naturally express yourself in your relationship with God. He encourages you to dig into the traits, strengths, and pitfalls in your devotional approach so you can eliminate the barriers that keep you locked into rigid methods of worship and praise. Plus, as you begin to identify and understand your own temperament, you'll soon learn about the temperaments that aren’t necessarily "you" but that may help you understand the spiritual tendencies of friends, family, and others around you. Whatever temperament or blend of temperaments best describes you, rest assured it's not by accident. It's by the design of a Creator who knew what he was doing when he made you according to his own unique intentions. If your spiritual walk is not what you'd like it to be, you can change that, starting here. Sacred Pathways will show you the route you were made to travel, marked by growth and filled with the riches of a close walk with God.




You Can Hear the Voice of God Through All Your Spiritual Senses


Book Description

Most Christians know God speaks through His Word, but when He speaks through the spiritual senses of sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell, it can leave a person feeling crazy! In You Can Hear the Voice of God Through All Your Spiritual Senses, the author shares how she came to her senses in Christ in more ways than one! Have you ever dared to ask or believe that there might be more-now-on this side of Heaven? More that we don't have to wait to access? More of something on which you just can't quite put your finger? That's how Sallie Dawkins felt. She was no longer satisfied with living a complacent or powerless life as a Christian. She had a holy hunger for more. And the Lord answered that desire. A heart encounter with God in 2015 challenged Sallie's entire belief system. It was the beginning of the end of two-and-a-half decades of wavering faith and started her on a supernatural journey of discovery that rapidly transformed her life. Now a Christian Healing Evangelist, Sallie Dawkins is an expert at coaching born-again Christians in spiritual growth. When she realized others were asking the same questions she once asked, she was inspired to write The Awakening Christian Series. This series is for Christians seeking a closer relationship with God. In book one, You Can Hear the Voice of God Through All Your Spiritual Senses, the author shares with heartwarming honesty the lessons she's learned in her pursuit of growing in spiritual maturity.