"The Poor, the Crippled, the Blind, and the Lame"


Book Description

The New Testament gospels feature numerous social exchanges between Jesus and people with various physical and sensory disabilities. Despite this, traditional biblical scholarship has not seen these people as agents in their own right but existing only to highlight the actions of Jesus as a miracle worker. In this study, Louise A. Gosbell uses disability as a lens through which to explore a number of these passages anew. Using the cultural model of disability as the theoretical basis, she explores the way that the gospel writers, as with other writers of the ancient world, used the language of disability as a means of understanding, organising, and interpreting the experiences of humanity. Her investigation highlights the ways in which the gospel writers reinforce and reflect, as well as subvert, culturally-driven constructions of disability in the ancient world.




Saturate


Book Description

What does living for Jesus look like in the everyday stuff of life? Many Christians have unwittingly embraced the idea that “church” is a once-a-week event rather than a community of Spirit-empowered people; that “ministry” is what pastors do on Sundays rather than the 24/7 calling of all believers; and that “discipleship” is a program rather than the normal state of every follower of Jesus. Drawing on his experience as a pastor and church planter, Jeff Vanderstelt wants us to see that there’s more—much more—to the Christian life than sitting in a pew once a week. God has called his people to something bigger: a view of the Christian life that encompasses the ordinary, the extraordinary, and everything in between. Packed full of biblical teaching, compelling stories, and real-world advice, this book will remind you that Jesus is filling the world with his presence through the everyday lives of everyday people... People just like you.




Sent Together


Book Description

Jesus does not simply call us to be a lovely community together, but he sends us out to our neighborhoods, towns, and cities to declare and demonstrate the gospel. In fact, the gospel beckons men and women to take up the call of leading and starting communities that are sent like Jesus. In Sent Together, Brad Watson helps leaders discover what it means to start communities centered on the gospel and mission. By exploring the gospel motivations that send leaders to start missional communities, Watson gives readers a framework for the purpose and ways of building a community that is deepening its understanding of the gospel, while also sharing it. Sent Together will serve as a field guide for leaders and training guide for those called to start missional communities.




The Catholic Bible, Personal Study Edition


Book Description

"The essential resource for Scripture students"--Cover.




Early Christian Care for the Poor


Book Description

Beginning with Jesus’s ministry in the villages of Galilee and continuing over the course of the first three centuries as the movement expanded geographically and numerically throughout the Roman world, the Christians organized their house churches, at least in part, to provide subsistence insurance for their needy members. While the Pax Romana created conditions of relative peace and growing prosperity, the problem of poverty persisted in Rome’s fundamentally agrarian economy. Modeling their economic values and practices on the traditional patterns of the rural village, the Christians created an alternative subsistence strategy in the cities of the Roman empire by emphasizing need, rather than virtue, as the main criterion for determining the recipients of their generous giving.




Gracism


Book Description

We can't ignore color, class, or culture. Instead, we must engage race with a different posture. Responding to ongoing problems of prejudice and injustice, the original seven sayings of the gracist now become eight in this revised and expanded edition that revives the biblical model for showing special grace to those on the margins.




Disability and the Church


Book Description

Pastor Lamar Hardwick was thirty-six years old when he found out he was on the autism spectrum. This revelation prompted him to reconsider the church's responsibilities to the disabled community. Insisting that the good news of Jesus affirms God's image in all people, Hardwick offers practical steps and strategies to build stronger, truly inclusive communities of faith.




Boundaries for Your Soul


Book Description

Let Boundaries for Your Soul show you how to turn your shame to joy, your anger to advocacy, and your inner critic into your biggest champion. Do your emotions control you or do you control your emotions? Boundaries for Your Soul, written by bestselling authors and licensed counselors Alison Cook and Kimberly Miller, shows you how to calm the chaos within. This groundbreaking approach will give you the tools you need to: Know what to do when you feel overwhelmed Understand your guilt, anxiety, sadness, and fear Move from doubt and conflict to confidence and peace Find balance and emotional stability Gathering the wisdom from the authors' twenty-five years of combined advanced education, biblical studies, and clinical practice, this book will set you on a journey to become the loving, authentic, joyful person you were created to be. Praise for Boundaries for Your Soul: "Personal growth requires that we create healthy boundaries for our internal world, just as we are to do in our interpersonal relationships. When the various parts of our soul are connected and integrated, the result is that we heal, relate, and function at the highest levels. Alison Cook and Kimberly Miller have written a very helpful, engaging, and practical book on how to accomplish this process." --Dr. John Townsend, New York Times bestselling author of Boundaries and founder of the Townsend Institute "Boundaries for Your Soul spoke to me in echoes of already-known, yet-not-fully-applied truths, as well as with sweet new understandings. For both those familiar with Jesus' inner healing and those new to the process, there is real help here." --Elisa Morgan, author of The Beauty of Broken and The Prayer Coin, cohost of Discover the Word, and president emerita of MOPS International




Life-study of Luke


Book Description

Luke’s Gospel reveals God among men in His saving grace given to fallen mankind. Its purpose is to present the Savior as a genuine, normal, and perfect man. It gives a complete genealogy of the man Jesus, from His parents back to Adam, the first generation of mankind, and shows that He is a genuine descendant of man—a son of man. Its record of the life of this man impresses us with the completeness and perfection of His humanity. Hence, this Gospel stresses the Lord as the Man-Savior. In contrast to Matthew, Luke does not stress the dispensational aspect or the Jewish background. It is the Gospel written to mankind in general, and it announces the good news to all people. Its characteristic is absolutely not Jewish, but Gentile. It is a Gospel to all sinners, both Jewish and Gentile. Since it is such, the sequence of its record is according to morality, not according to historical events.




Journey into God


Book Description

This is a book about spirituality, more specifically, the spiritual journey. Before beginning any journey or trip--spiritual or otherwise--we experience a state of order. Then comes the call to journey, to travel, to take a trip, to walk, to pilgrimage, to hit the road, etc. The call to begin a journey may come from an urge within us; it may be an invitation from a spouse or a friend to fly somewhere; it may be as simple as taking the dog for a walk in the neighborhood, even taking different streets! The call disrupts our ordered lives. We prepare for our excursion. We enter into the stage of chaos when we take the journey; also, we enter into the process of transformation. By the time we get home, we will be transformed. These are the steps of the spiritual journey into God: order, hearing the call to journey, answering the call with preparation, entering the chaos of the journey, and being and coming home transformed. Ninety-seven reflections are presented in this book in seven chapters devoted to journey; road; path; route, highway, gateway; walk; way; and more.