The Gospel According to Luke 19:28 Through 24:53


Book Description

The Bible studies I chose to do came about in answer to a request from my first congregation out of seminary. I consistently sought to present a serious, somewhat scholarly, approach to the interested among my parishioners. I would take a book in the Bible to study, assume it was written or edited to be read from the beginning, and make sense to the reader in that way. I attempted to discover for myself and my group what the book sought to convey. In this volume, the study of Luke 19:28–19:27 followed that pattern exactly. This volume completes the study of Luke, following volumes on 1:1–9:50 and 9:51–19:27.




The Gospel According to Luke


Book Description

This new Pillar commentary devotes attention throughout to the vocabulary, historical background, special themes, and narrative purpose that make the book of Luke unique among the four Gospels. Though the Gentile focus of Luke is often held to be primary, James Edwards counterbalances that by citing numerous evidences of Luke's overarching interest in depicting Jesus as the fulfillment of the providential work of God in the history of Israel, and he considers the possibility that Luke himself was a Jew. Edwards also draws out other important thematic issues in excursuses scattered throughout the commentary, including discussion of Luke's infancy narrative, the mission of Jesus as the way of salvation, and Luke's depiction of the universal scope of the gospel. This readable, relevant commentary attends to the linguistic, historical, literary, and theological elements of Luke that are essential to its meaning and considers Luke's significance for the church and the life of faith today.




Knowable Word


Book Description

Knowable Word offers a foundation on why and how to study the Bible. Through a running study Genesis 1, this new edition illustrates how to Observe, Interpret, and Apply the Scripture-and gives the vision behind each step.




Reading the New Testament as Christian Scripture (Reading Christian Scripture)


Book Description

This survey textbook by two respected New Testament scholars is designed to meet the needs of contemporary evangelical undergraduates. The book effectively covers the New Testament books and major topics in the New Testament, assuming no prior academic study of the Bible. The authors pay attention to how the New Testament documents fit together as a canonical whole that supplements the Old Testament to make up the Christian Scriptures. They also show how the New Testament writings provide basic material for Christian doctrine, spirituality, and engagement with culture. Chapters can be assigned in any order, making this an ideal textbook for one-semester courses at evangelical schools. This is the first volume in a new series of survey textbooks that will cover the Old and New Testaments. The book features full-color illustrations that hold interest and aid learning and offers a full array of pedagogical aids: photographs, sidebars, maps, time lines, charts, glossary, and discussion questions. Additional resources for instructors and students are available through Textbook eSources.




The Priest and Levite as Temple Representatives


Book Description

The parable of the good Samaritan is well-known, yet scholarship has not plumbed the depths of its meaning within its first-century Palestinian context. For the majority of Christian history, the parable has suffered either from extreme allegorical treatments or from unimaginative readings limiting the parable to a single-point example story of virtue. A creative reading employing social and historical methods generates a refreshing telling of the story, within Jesus’s context, whereby each variable, from the Samaritan to the priest and even the innkeeper, takes on representative forms, not only indicative of widespread concerns from Jesus’s audience, but also becoming symbols of the eschatological age when the new temple supplants the old.




On Inscape's Curve


Book Description

My poems help me see what is in front of me. They typically find that an image is presented, an image that seems to suggest a line of verse, just one which, when written down, enters into a cadence, a rhythm, a sense of sound and echo that evolves into a sequence of lines that flow. They flow until they stop, that is, and announce to me that the poem is, in facet, done. That is true whether the image is a raindrop or a tree, a flower or a bird, a shadow or the innuendo of faith or country: whatever. This book draws upon poems written some years ago, mostly in the years 2009 and 2015. There are also a few current poems that insist themselves into the collection as they are accumulated in the current year's file. As I revisit poems of years ago, quite often the occasion presents itself to memory - but not always so. Sometimes that occasion is as if unnecessary and, indeed, almost in the way of the poem as it has come to be. Revisiting is always a pleasure; it becomes one of the spurs toward forming the collection itself. Indeed, it s the pleasure and the satisfaction in the book that brings it about. Satisfaction is such a boon to life.




Inn-By-The Bye Stories - 20


Book Description

In an endeavor to find a fresh way into the scriptural text upon which I would be preaching, I began to develop an imaginary world populated primarily by wee folk. I found that they - the characters I developed and the way that they evolved in m mind and on the page - served me well as a consideration of how I sensed things happening in the scriptural text at hand. I want to make these stories and the world they represent newly available, and so I bring them to book form, fifty stories at a time. The cover drawing is done by Eve Sullivan, the author's granddaughter. The drawing is the artist's conception of Missus Carney, standing in the dining room of the Inn-by-the-Bye.




Miscellaneous Short Bible Studies


Book Description

These are bible studies of a limited scale, developed and led by the author with two of the congregations he served. The first congregation was in Mantua OH in the late 1970s, from which the first three bible studies arose: Ruth, Lamentations, and The Infancy Narratives. The second congregation was in New Martinsville WV from 1998 through 2003, these being done is a slightly different style: Psalms of Ascent, Selected Psalms, The Speech of Stephan, Encountering God, Matthew 5 and Matthew 6 & 7. I sought to bring a serious, somewhat scholarly approach to the study of the bible among those congregation members who chose to attend. This revisiting of those studies prove once again their value to me. I hope they prove to be so for you as well.




A Second Cantica Sacra


Book Description

As a minister in practice, hymns are a part of the whole scheme of things. And, doing the things that matter in ministry, dealing with hymns is a natural. Being by habit and development somewhat of a writer, I tried my hand at hymn texts as well. After some experimentation, I came to taking my idea - most often a passage of scripture I intended to use as a basis for preaching - and reflecting on it under the impress of a chosen hymn tune - I used one hymnal or another to discover the tunes. Of recent years, I have followed my way through Common Praise, the latest revision of Hymns Ancient and Modern, to provide the tunes. These 200 hymn texts all fit into that pattern; four of them were requests by a friend for a program on ‘Sing a New Song’ that he was to lead, the rest being aimed at the usual development. I found they served me as a first round reflection on the text. On occasion, when I was serving a congregation, I would use one for worship; now, of course, I do not, though they are shared through a liturgical materials web site another friend maintains and there is some evidence that some of them have been used by others. This book makes the texts available to anyone interested. Purchase of the book supplies the right to use them as well.




Without a Flock


Book Description

In the free church tradition, the pastoral prayer has long assumed an important place in the worship of the congregation. It is expected that the pastor will have a more or less extended prayer pertinent to the day and/or to the run of the service in general. Under the circumstances of normal practice, these would involve awareness of a congregation, or a "flock" for a pastor to tend. After ending a normal pastorate and entering retirement and the far more occasional happenstance of entering a pulpit as a guest, the regular preparation for a worship-leading practice became desirable, personally. As a part of that preparation, most often without entering the leadership of worship, least of all as pastor, the pastoral prayer was prepared. This book collects eleven years worth of pastoral prayers, linked to the preaching text of the day by way of the sermon prepared. As there is no flock as reference point, these are, indeed, "Without A Flock".