This is a very helpful, accessible, study of the worship practices of the Jerusalem church in the 4th century. Through primary sources and building reThis is a very helpful, accessible, study of the worship practices of the Jerusalem church in the 4th century. Through primary sources and building rendering this book explain the very different worship rhythms of the church 1800 years ago. ...more
Really brilliant stuff. Nijay Gupta has the academic chops to address this topic but he has written this for anyone who wants to know how the early ChReally brilliant stuff. Nijay Gupta has the academic chops to address this topic but he has written this for anyone who wants to know how the early Christians must have seemed to their contemporaries. His book is engaging and accessible but also deeply researched and revealing. I learned new things and I saw things that I knew is a different light. Both were enjoyable. He holds a delicate balance throughout the book not becoming overly informal or wandering into the weeds of background minutia. He helps us see just how odd the beliefs and practices of the early Christian seemed to the Greco Roman culture. In a world filled with beliefs and cults, they were different. they did not have priests or blood sacrifices; they did not have idols or hierarchy and they meet in homes. They behaved like a mystery cult but they were open to all and had a strict moral ethic. They had an eschatological view of history like the Jews but they welcomed all races. They were not perfect, but they were very weird and that may have been one of the things that drew so many people in such a short time....more
This is simply one of the most important books I have ever read. Written by a law professor at Washington University in St Louis, it is plea to every This is simply one of the most important books I have ever read. Written by a law professor at Washington University in St Louis, it is plea to every American to take the steps, large and small to embrace pluralism in America for the good of all Americans. This means advocating for the right of association for voluntary groups, allowing for public spaces and public forums both formal and informal. It means protecting the tax exempt status and the rights of group to form with views that we oppose and challenging government policies that often want to limit the voice of opposition. It means committing ourselves to tolerance, humility and patience, to rising above bullying and insults in public discourse and building relationships across differences. Inazu is not promising that these things are easy or that they will solve all our problems, but they are doable steps and practical commitments that can save the democratic experiment in America. I wish every person in America would read this short but profound work....more
Everything you need to know about how Redeemer reached thousands of people and influenced a generation of evangelical preachers and church planters isEverything you need to know about how Redeemer reached thousands of people and influenced a generation of evangelical preachers and church planters is in this book. This is the Magnum Opus, the whole philosophy, the biblical basis, the underlying assumptions and the transferable principles. It is encouraging, overwhelming, motivation, thought provoking, all of these things. Give yourself plenty of time to read this and even better read it with a church leadership team. Mark it up and plan to go back....more
Scholar Michelle Lee-Barnewall is not going to give you the answer you are looking for if you want to know what women can and can't do in Evangelical Scholar Michelle Lee-Barnewall is not going to give you the answer you are looking for if you want to know what women can and can't do in Evangelical churches. But she will give you a lot to consider. The author is part of a growing number of Christians who feel unsatisfied with the current answers regarding women and ministry from the two dominant camps, generally understood as complementarians and egalitarians. She examines both the history of women in the American church and some of the key Bible passages, looking for a new way to frame the discussion. In short, the historical survey, which is concise but well written, reminds us that Americans have always interpreted the role of women in the church through the lens of contemporary culture. The perception of women in ministry at the turn of the twentieth century was very different from 50 years later but not in the ways you would expect. The Biblical survey centers on the notions of oneness and reversal. The creation account and the later teaching on marriage were meant to foster inclusion in the community and oneness between men and women in marriage. The notion of reversal runs throughout the Bible, as God's plan unfolds through weak leaders and second born children. It comes into full clarity in the NT when Jesus reminds us again and again the those who are first will be last and the last first. This means that those who are called to be the head are to be servants and those with authority sacrifice for those without. This reversal only makes sense if there is a hierarchy or role difference between members of the body of Christ or between men and women. Lee-Barnewall has done us all a great service, reminding us of the literary clues in the OT and the historical background to the NT. Her analysis needs to be considered precisely because it does not fit neatly into a category ...more
This is not really a biography. It is an in-depth examination of the intellectual and spiritual influences on Tim Keller and it makes for fascinating This is not really a biography. It is an in-depth examination of the intellectual and spiritual influences on Tim Keller and it makes for fascinating reading. Hansen chronicles Kellers life from his college years at Bucknell, and the Jesus People revival that happened there to seminary at Gordon-Conwell, his first pastorate in rural Virginia, and his years on staff at Westminster Theological Seminary. From Westminster he plants Redeemer Presbyterian church in NYC, helps found the Gospel Coalition and Redeemer City to City. Keller greatest gift seems to be his ability to synthesize various authors across a wide historical span and to glean from them whatever would help him reach people in 21 century America. Keller's appetite for ideas, his deep desire for personal holiness and his longing for revival drove him. He was a passionate evangelist but this passion was balanced by the depth of his theological reading. He was both broadly evangelical and deeply convinced of reformed theology and presbyterian polity. His mentors both living and historical included John Stott and Martin Lloyd Jones, Jonathan Edwards and John Calvin, Edmund Clowney and Roger Nicole to name just a few. His long time friendships with Biblical scholars like Tremper Longman and sociologists like Christian Smith also deeply affected him. As long as he lived, loved and led he never stopped dissecting Western culture and seeking for ways to reveal that our deepest longings can only be met in Christ....more
This is a remarkable book. Elisabeth Elliot would be the first to say that it is difficult to write a biography of someone who everyone think is a saiThis is a remarkable book. Elisabeth Elliot would be the first to say that it is difficult to write a biography of someone who everyone think is a saint. Elliot was a kind of Evangelical Saint. Certainly she was a celebrity before there was an Evangelical subculture built around celebrity. Consequently her fame and her influence spread far beyond church culture. She was the main chronicler of the most well known missionary story of the 20th century. That story made her a widow, an author and a household name, for a time. Lucy S R Austen, in this thoughtful, insightful, biography shows us that Elisabeth Elliot was more complicated and more interesting than the missionary hero many thought they knew. Her life and intellectual development was more complicated and more interesting than that. This really is a window into the birth and growth of evangelicalism in Western Culture in the 20th century. Elliot grew up the child of missionaries in a deeply Christian, Holiness family. She attended a fundamentalist Christian boarding school and then went to Wheaton College. It was there that she began the very complicated courtship and eventual marriage to Jim Elliot. He would be one of the five martyrs killed by the Waorani Tribe of Equator. The deaths in 1958 made the front page of every newspaper in America and Elisabeth Elliot's account of it a year later became a best selling book. Elliot was a deeply intelligent, honest, insightful woman. An introvert, an internal processor, she was taken back by the notoriety and suspicious of the way church missions conferences portrayed the missionary life. In fact the most interesting part of the book was when Elliot returns to America, a widow but financially independent and not officially connected to any agency or denomination. In that freedom she began to do what later generations would call deconstruct her faith. he question everything except the existence and character of God and his redemption through Jesus. It was after her second marriage that she became connected to institutions like the Episcopal Church and Gordon College. Now older and more established she became more of a defender of Christianity. Austen does a brilliant job of telling this story. She is clear but compassionate. She is honest and sympathetic and I am not overstating when I say I was riveted for most of the book. ...more
Insightful, accessible, helpful: Carmen Joy Ames has gathered together many of the current insights from theology and biblical studies, added her own Insightful, accessible, helpful: Carmen Joy Ames has gathered together many of the current insights from theology and biblical studies, added her own insights and made it all available for the general reader. Her conversational style and personal illustration support a depth of scholarship and writing that otherwise might not make it to the pulpit or the pew. Her insights into the importance of the physical world, the body of the believer and the incarnation are rich. Her insights into the importance of God as Creator and how that should inform our eschatology may be a challenge for some who have not been following the drift of contemporary scholarship regarding the end times. All in all I appreciate her willingness to make her findings available in a non-academic format and thanks to IVP for publishing this. ...more
Another quality book by Rita Haley Barton. In this study she give new insight into the concept of Sabbath particularly focusing on the community aspecAnother quality book by Rita Haley Barton. In this study she give new insight into the concept of Sabbath particularly focusing on the community aspect of Sabbath and how it changes in different season of life. She also has a whole section on Sabbaticals which is "must read" material for anyone in ministry considering one....more
Matt and Laurie Krieg open up their very unique marriage to show us all how their struggles mirror our own. The Kriegs have an obviously impossible maMatt and Laurie Krieg open up their very unique marriage to show us all how their struggles mirror our own. The Kriegs have an obviously impossible marriage. Laurie is open about having same sex attraction. So while she loves Matt as a person and friend, she is not naturally drawn to him as a sexual partner. On top of that Laurie is a trauma survivor and that trauma deeply affects how she responds to all sexual advances. Matt, who knew about Laurie's predisposition, brought his own baggage to the relationship. His own spiritual journey and struggles led him to both a deep personal faith and a pornography addiction. As the marriage grows Laurie's sexual orientation is less of a threat than the porn. But above all it is the trauma that really cripples them. However, what they learn in the midst of a deeply loving but often sex-less marriage is that sexual intercourse is meant to be a picture of the oneness that God desires will all his children. They begin to desire and pursue that oneness, as individuals and as a couple. They find healing and discover that sex, rather than being a right or a demand, is the fruit of love. And love is strongest when rooted in the savior who gave his life for us. ...more
This book is filled with wisdom for those who love teenagers and wonder how to support them in a rapidly changing world. The beauty of "3 Big QuestionThis book is filled with wisdom for those who love teenagers and wonder how to support them in a rapidly changing world. The beauty of "3 Big Questions" is that it combines new information culled from surveys of current teenagers with older ideas that ring true for every generations. Most of our notions of "teens" come from knowing Millennials. But the Millennials are now adults and the generation coming after them are different in some important ways. The author describe them as anxious, adaptive and diverse. There are chapters on each of these, all of which were a concern before the pandemic but are even more intense now. At the same time the questions today's teens are asking are not that different from what many of us faced when we were adolescents: Who am I, what difference can I make and Where do I fit. After a survey of these characteristics and questions, the book gives concrete suggestions about how to address the teens in our lives right now....more
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