Face-to-Face with Mary and Martha


Book Description

Through this interactive study of Mary and Martha of Bethany, women will learn to embrace their diversity as sisters in Christ. God has blessed the body of Christ with a variety of spiritual gifts, personalities, and life experiences. By discovering and combining these, women can learn to complement one another in serving the church and reaching out in love to others. As sisters in Christ, they can realize their potential for accomplishing all the purposes that God has for them.




Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World


Book Description

CBA BESTSELLER • More than a million copies sold! An invitation for every woman who’s ever felt she isn’t godly enough, isn’t loving enough, isn’t doing enough. “Easy to read, personal, and well-written with a message much more than surface deep. Joanna probed, challenged, and encouraged me to live day by day as Mary in a Martha world.”—Carole Mayhall, author of Come Walk with Me and Here I Am Again, Lord The life of a woman today isn’t all that different from the lives of Mary and Martha in the New Testament. Like Mary, you long to sit at the Lord’s feet . . . but the daily demands of a busy world just won’t leave you alone. Like Martha, you love Jesus and really want to serve him . . . yet you struggle with weariness, resentment, and feelings of inadequacy. Then comes Jesus, into the midst of your busy life, to extend the same invitation he issued long ago to the two sisters from Bethany. Tenderly, he invites you to choose “the better part”—a joyful life of intimacy with him that flows naturally into loving service. With her fresh approach to the familiar Bible story, Joanna Weaver shows how all of us, Marys and Marthas alike, can draw closer to our Lord: deepening our devotion, strengthening our service, and doing both with less stress and greater joy. This book includes a twelve-week Bible study for individual or group use. A Study Guide and a corresponding ten-session video series on DVD or online are available separately.




Having a Mary Spirit


Book Description

“Lord, Whatever It Takes, Make Me Like You!” You long to serve God with grace and strength, to reflect Christ in every word and action. Yet you find yourself continually struggling to bring that vision to life in your daily walk. At our very core, every one of us is a “twisted sister” within whom the flesh and spirit battle constantly for control. We are afflicted with spiritual schizophrenia, the disconnect between our “good girl” desire to put Jesus first and our “bad girl” realities that crowd our thoughts and push him out of the way. In this life-changing book, Joanna Weaver, author of the perennial bestseller, Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World, directs your gaze past your own shortcomings to the God who stands ready, willing, and able to make a new woman out of you. She equips you with biblical insights and practical tools to partner with Christ, inviting him into the hidden places of your soul and giving him full permission to redeem and renovate. Drawing on the stories of biblical Marys and others whose experience with God transformed their lives, Joanna shows how you can find the hope, healing, wholeness, and joy your heart longs for. Having a Mary Spirit will launch you toward lasting personal transformation–soul-deep change that results in a complete makeover, from the inside out. **Includes a 12-week Bible study for both individual reflection and group discussion**




If Only


Book Description

Life doesn’t always go the way we hope it will. Whether it’s singleness, childlessness or some other big disappointment, it’s hard to be content when life lets us down. Author Jennie Pollock knows what it's like to feel discontent. With warmth and honesty, she answers common doubts that arise when life doesn't go the way we had hoped: Is God good? Is he enough? Is he worth it? She walks readers through the process of taking our eyes off the things we wish we had and instead enjoying the character of the God we do have—a God who is good, who meets all our needs, and whose promises are worth the wait. Drawing on encouragements from the Bible and the stories of others, this book helps readers to trust in God’s plan for their lives and enjoy true contentment through a genuine conviction that Jesus is better than even our most keenly-felt hopes and longings for this life.




The New Perspective on Mary and Martha


Book Description

The New Perspective on Mary and Martha gives Mary and Martha a total makeover. No longer is this familiar passage about prioritizing spiritual pursuits over the tyranny of the practical. The results of a close reading of the text and careful exegesis of the Greek has Martha escaping the kitchen and Mary is not even in the house! Martha is still overly worried, not about housework, but over the much more understandable concern about her (younger) sister. Mary, who is out of the village, follows her call, ministering on the road with Jesus. Luke 10:38-42 is about discipleship, ministry, trust, and the new family of Jesus.




Face-to-Face with Elizabeth and Mary


Book Description

After telling Mary that she would be a virgin who gives birth to God’s son, the angel Gabrielle mentions that Mary’s older relative Elizabeth is also having a miraculous pregnancy. The Bible tells us that Mary immediately went to visit Elizabeth. We can only speculate as to why Mary did not stay home with her own mother, but it could be because Mary knew she needed to talk to another woman who could relate to and understand her situation—she needed a Spiritual Mother.




Martha and Mary


Book Description

Lazarus?s sisters. One was stunning. The other stable. One was scandalous. The other bitter. One dangerous. The other no-nonsense. But there were things they shared: a family cursed with dark secrets and betrayal. The desperate longing to be loved. The fear of change. The fear that things would remain the same. Both shared a desperate need for a Savior. In this brilliant retelling of an old story, you?ll find yourself in the middle of a household plagued with problems?yet privileged to know Jesus of Nazareth. Author Patty Froese Ntihemuka weaves together the story of a sister who is a reformed prostitute, a sister hardened by ordinariness, a brother touched by death, a Pharisee uncle committed to maintaining appearances, and a Redeemer who changes everything.




God's Favorite Place on Earth


Book Description

When He came to earth, Jesus Christ was rejected in every quarter in which He stepped. The Creator was rejected by His own creation. “He came to His own and His own received Him not,” said John. For this reason, Jesus Christ had “no where to lay His head.” There was one exception, however. A little village just outside of Jerusalem named Bethany. Bethany was the only place on earth where Jesus was completely received. God’s Favorite Place on Earth is a retelling of Jesus’ many visits to Bethany and a relaying of the message it holds for us today. Frank Viola presents a beautifully crafted narrative from the viewpoint of Lazarus, one of the people who lived in Bethany with his two sisters. This incomparable story not only brings the Gospel narratives to life, but it addresses the struggle against doubt, discouragement, fear, guilt, rejection, and spiritual apathy that challenges countless Christians today. In profoundly moving prose, God’s Favorite Place on Earth will captivate your heart with its beauty, charm, and depth. In this book you will discover how to live as a “Bethany” in our world today, being set free to love and follow Jesus like never before.




ReJesus


Book Description

ReJesus asks the following questions: * What ongoing role does Jesus the Messiah play in shaping the ethos and self understanding of the movement that originated in him? * How is the Christian religion informed and shaped by the Jesus that we meet in the Gospels? * How do we assess the continuity required between the life and example of Jesus and the subsequent religion called Christianity? * In how many ways do we domesticate the radical Revolutionary in order to sustain our religion and religiosity? * How can a rediscovery of Jesus renew our discipleship, the Christian community, and the ongoing mission of the church? These questions take us to the core of what the church is all about. Rather than reformation, the authors call their task re-founding the church because it raises the issue of the Church's true Founder or Foundation. This theme is of particular importance at the dawn of the twenty-first century as many attempt to address Christianity's endemic and long trended decline in the West. The authors feel that a spiritual, theological, missional, and existential crisis looms in the West.




And the House Was Filled


Book Description

And The House Was Filled; The radicalness of God's Grace is a 10 chapter book that looks at Mary of Bethany and compares her sacrifice of pure nard to a modern day Mary who went through chemo while pregnant and radiation and delivers a 4.0 lb baby girl. Watch as her prayer partner soaks up all God has in store for her. It is life changing for the author. It parallels Mary of Bethany and her sacrifice. Both gave what they had, not what they didn't.