The Suffering and Victorious Christ


Book Description

American theologians tend to focus on the great hope Christians have through Christ's resurrection, emphasizing Christ's victory while minimizing or ignoring his suffering. Through their engagements with Japanese Christians and African American Christians on the topic of Christology, Richard Mouw and Douglas Sweeney have come to recognize and underscore that Christ offers hope not only through his resurrection but also through his incarnation. The authors articulate a more compassionate and orthodox Christology that answers the experience of the global church, offering a corrective to what passes for American Christology today. The book includes an afterword by Willie James Jennings of Duke Divinity School.




The Physical Nature of Christian Life


Book Description

This book explores the implications of recent insights in modern neuroscience that attribute mental capacities often ascribed to a disembodied soul instead to the functions of the brain and body in collaboration with social experience. It explores how this insight changes the traditional "care of souls," encouraging more attention to fostering spiritual growth through a social and communal focus.




Suffering and the Sovereignty of God


Book Description

In the last few years, 9/11, a tsunami, Hurricane Katrina, and many other tragedies have shown us that the vision of God in today's churches in relation to evil and suffering is often frivolous. Against the overwhelming weight and seriousness of the Bible, many Christians are choosing to become more shallow, more entertainment-oriented, and therefore irrelevant in the face of massive suffering. In Suffering and the Sovereignty of God, contributors John Piper, Joni Eareckson Tada, Steve Saint, Carl Ellis, David Powlison, Dustin Shramek, and Mark Talbot explore the many categories of God's sovereignty as evidenced in his Word. They urge readers to look to Christ, even in suffering, to find the greatest confidence, deepest comfort, and sweetest fellowship they have ever known.




Suffering, Soul Care, and Community


Book Description

What are believers to do when belief and lived experience collide? Must the experience of suffering be hidden or pushed aside in favor of only “positive” expressions of praise during corporate worship? Focusing on the premise that “worship is not pain denial,” this book seeks to reveal the dearth of soul care within modern corporate worship, and the multidisciplinary approach needed to build and implement a more thorough approach that calls and enables believers to weep with those who weep, to bear one another’s burdens, and continue Christ’s ministry of reconciliation.




Victorious Living


Book Description

E. Stanley Jones wrote Victorious Living in 1936 to respond to inquirers who had come to him morally and spiritually defeated. They were inwardly beaten, thus outwardly ineffective. The book responds with individual and social emphases, and goes step by step, as if on a ladder, to work through the pressing questions of the inner life and how it extends outward: How do we achieve a life evidencing the peace that passes understanding, even in ourselves, let alone passing it on? What makes the difference between ordinary living and extraordinary, victorious living? How can we build a new inner strength that shines through in our outward character and relationships? Our own efforts to rise above are ineffective but by applying the power of God’s Word we can close the gap between our reality and our beliefs. Each daily reading offers essential truths and eternal principles: keys to victorious living in the circumstances we encounter every day! Now this vibrant work is making a long deserved comeback, with a new foreword by Leonard Sweet.




Walking with God through Pain and Suffering


Book Description

New York Times bestselling author of The Prodigal Prophet Timothy Keller—whose books have sold millions of copies to both religious and secular readers—explores one of the most difficult questions we must answer in our lives: Why is there pain and suffering? Walking with God through Pain and Suffering is the definitive Christian book on why bad things happen and how we should respond to them. The question of why there is pain and suffering in the world has confounded every generation; yet there has not been a major book from a Christian perspective exploring why they exist for many years. The two classics in this area are When Bad Things Happen to Good People by Rabbi Harold S. Kushner, which was published more than thirty years ago, and C. S. Lewis’s The Problem of Pain, published more than seventy years ago. The great secular book on the subject, Elisabeth Ku¨bler-Ross’s On Death and Dying, was first published in 1969. It’s time for a new understanding and perspective, and who better to tackle this complex subject than Timothy Keller? As the pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan, Timothy Keller is known for the unique insights he shares, and his series of books has guided countless readers in their spiritual journeys. Walking with God through Pain and Suffering will bring a much-needed, fresh viewpoint on this important issue.




Suffering in Romans


Book Description

Most of the Jesus-followers in Rome would have been familiar with socioeconomic hardship. Suffering was a daily reality either for themselves or for someone they knew. Many lived below or just above subsistence level. Some were slaves, homeless, or chronically sick. Followers of Christ might have experienced persecution because of their refusal to take part in the local religious festivals. Suffering is, of course, a significant theme in Romans 5:1-11 and 8:17, 18-39. Paul mentions various types of affliction many times in these texts. How might Paul's audience have understood them? In Suffering in Romans Siu Fung Wu argues that Paul speaks of the vocation of the Jesus-followers to participate in Christ's suffering, with the purpose that they may be glorified with him. Indeed, their identification with Christ's suffering is an integral part of God's project of transforming humanity and renewing creation. It is in their faithful suffering that Christ-followers participate in God's triumph over evil. This is counter-intuitive, because most people think that victory is won by power and strength. Yet the children of God partake in his cosmic victory by their suffering, aided by the Spirit and the hope of glory.







Rethinking Hell


Book Description

Most evangelical Christians believe that those people who are not saved before they die will be punished in hell forever. But is this what the Bible truly teaches? Do Christians need to rethink their understanding of hell? In the late twentieth century, a growing number of evangelical theologians, biblical scholars, and philosophers began to reject the traditional doctrine of eternal conscious torment in hell in favor of a minority theological perspective called conditional immortality. This view contends that the unsaved are resurrected to face divine judgment, just as Christians have always believed, but due to the fact that immortality is only given to those who are in Christ, the unsaved do not exist forever in hell. Instead, they face the punishment of the "second death"--an end to their conscious existence. This volume brings together excerpts from a variety of well-respected evangelical thinkers, including John Stott, John Wenham, and E. Earl Ellis, as they articulate the biblical, theological, and philosophical arguments for conditionalism. These readings will give thoughtful Christians strong evidence that there are indeed compelling reasons for rethinking hell.




Unto the Hills


Book Description

No matter your place in life, this inspiring collection of 365 devotional readings is designed to bring you daily to a special place of renewal— to help you pause and gaze "unto the hills" for help and inspiration. Each of the 365 daily readings in this inspiring collection was distilled from a lifetime of study and ministry. This devotional supplies daily food for thought about living fruitfully and joyfully in an often-fretful world. Every day of the year, you can join our nation’s most beloved spiritual leader for a moment of quiet and reflection through: A carefully chosen passage of scripture A brief, thoughtful message from Billy Graham A heartfelt prayer composed especially for this devotional Simple, direct, encouraging yet challenging, this book will be a heartening companion for your daily walk in the valley. This collection is a gentle but constant reminder that we can find help for all our needs as long as we remember to look up . . . unto the hills, but especially unto the Lord, the One who can always help.