Today's (9/3/2010) New Book Releases on Religion & Spirituality

From the beginning of its practice, the purpose of Advent has been to prepare for God’s coming in human form in the baby Jesus and for the establishment of God’s kingdom with the second coming of Christ.  Hope is the focus of Advent worship, study, and prayer.  In this season of Advent, we will discover the blessings that began in the manger and that continue as we look forward with hope to Christ's return.

 

The study for Advent in the Scriptures for the Church Seasons series is based upon the Revised Common Lectionary scriptures for the church year, a three year cycle that includes readings from the Old Testament, the Psalms, the Gospels, and the Epistles. Blessings of the Manger offers the opportunity to explore these Bible readings in a five-session study.  It will help you understand, appreciate, and participate in meaningful and joyous celebrations of  Advent and Christmas and inspire you to live each day with God's blessing of hope through Jesus Christ.

 

A five-session leader’s guide is available for use in Sunday school classes or other small groups. (order #9781426708954)

Civilizing Habits explores the life stories of three French women missionaries--Philippine Duchesne, Emilie de Vialar, and Anne-Marie Javouhey--who crossed boundaries, both real and imagined, to evangelize far from France's shores. In so doing, they helped France reestablish a global empire after the dislocation of the Revolution and the fall of Napoleon. They also pioneered a new missionary era in which the educational, charity, and health care services provided by women became valuable tools for spreading Catholic influence across the globe.

Philippine Duchesne traveled to former French territory in Missouri in 1818 to proselytize among Native Americans. Thwarted by the American policy of removing tribes even further west, she turned her attention to girls' education on the frontier. Emilie de Vialar followed French troops to Algeria after its conquest and opened missions throughout the Mediterranean basin in the mid-nineteenth century. Prevented from direct evangelization, she developed strategies and subterfuges for working among Muslim populations. Anne-Marie Javouhey evangelized among Africans in the French slave colonies, including a utopian settlement in the wilds of French Guiana. She became a rare Catholic proponent of the abolition of slavery and a woman designated a "great man" by the French king.

Paradoxically, through embracing religious institutions designed to shield their femininity, these women gained increased authority to travel outside France, challenge church power, and evangelize among non-Christians, all roles more commonly ascribed to male missionaries. Their stories teach us about the life paths open to religious women in the nineteenth century and how both church and state benefitted from their initiative and energy to expand the boundaries of faith and nation.

If one is saved by faith alone in Jesus Christ, then what is the origin of that faith? Is it a preordained gift of God to elect individuals, or is some measure of human free choice involved?

The debate over the relation between election and free will has a central place in the study of Reformation theology. Phillipp Melanchthon's reputation as the intellectual founder of Lutheranism has tended to obscure the differences between the mature doctrinal positions of Melanchthon and Martin Luther on this key issue. Gregory Graybill charts the progression of Melanchthon's position on free will and divine predestination as he shifts from agreement to an important innovation upon Luther's thought.

Initially Melanchthon concurred with Luther that the human will is completely bound by sin, and that the choice of faith can flow only from God's unilateral grace. Over time, this understanding caused Melanchthon increasing concern. The problem of its eternal implications for those whom God has not chosen, and its pastoral implications for believers, combined with Melanchthon's own intellectual aversion to paradox and prompted him to continue developing his ideas.

Melanchthon came to believe that the human will does play a key role in the origins of a saving faith in Jesus Christ. This was not the Roman Catholic free will of Erasmus, rather it was belief in a limited free will tied to justification by faith alone; an evangelical free will.

While there are many books on hermeneutics, Graeme Goldsworthy's perception is that evangelical contributions often do not give sufficient attention to the vital relationship between hermeneutics and theology, both systematic and biblical.

In Gospel-Centered Hermeneutics, Goldsworthy moves beyond a reiteration of the usual arguments to concentrate on the theological questions of presuppositions, and the implications of the Christian gospel for hermeneutics. In doing so, he brings fresh perspectives on some well-worn pathways.

Part I examines the foundations and presuppositions of evangelical belief, particularly with regard to biblical interpretation.

Part II offers a selective overview of important hermeneutical developments from the sub-apostolic age to the present, as a means of identifying some significant influences that have been alien to the gospel.

Part III evaluates ways and means of reconstructing truly gospel-centered hermeneutics.

Goldsworthy's aim throughout is to commend the much-neglected role of biblical theology in hermeneutical practice, with pastoral concern for the people of God as they read, interpret and seek to live by his written Word.

'Every aspect of a teen's life is growing and changing; their bodies, their minds, and their faith. But helping a teen really grow spiritually and understand how to live into the life that God desires for them can be a challenge. The Me I Want To Be, Teen Edition curriculum, based on best-selling author John Ortberg's book, will help teens discover what it can look like when they're fully alive. They'll see that God has a perfect vision for their lives, and that they can live their best life. In this five-session DVD curriculum youth leaders will lead their youth group, Sunday school class, or small group through lessons that help teens learn to be thriving and flourishing Christ-followers as they explore: * Your Mind 2.0 * Your Time 2.0 * Your Experiences 2.0 * Your Relationships 2.0 * The World 2.0 Engaging them in discussions, self-assessments, and personal reflections, The Me I Want To Be, Teen Edition curriculum will help teens become God's best version of themselves. The kit includes a five-session DVD, leader's guide, and participant's guide. '

By any assessment, Esther is a rather strange book to find in the Bible. Not only is it, along with Daniel, the only book of the Bible to be set entirely outside of the Promised Land, it also shows no interest in that land. More than that, Esther is the only book in the Bible which definitely does not mention God. None of this should be taken as meaning that the book has no theological intention--on the contrary it has a developed theology, but it is a theology which operates precisely because it does not mention God directly. In this volume in the Bible Speaks Today commentary series, David Firth explores this paradoxically important book and its implications for our own contemporary context, where the reality of God s presence is experienced against a backdrop of God s relative anonymity and seeming absence.

An exploration into the beliefs and origins of the Druids, this book examines the role the Druids may have played in the story of King Arthur and the founding of Britain. It explains how the Druids originated in eastern Europe around 850 BC, bringing to early Britain a cult of an underworld deity, a belief in reincarnation, and a keen interest in astronomy. The work concludes that Arthur was originally a Druid cult figure and that the descendants of the Druids may have founded the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Wessex. The research draws upon a number of sources, including medieval Welsh tales, the archaeology of Stonehenge's Salisbury Plain, the legends surrounding the founding of Britain, the cult of the Thracian Horseman, the oracle of Dodona, popular Arthurian mythology, and the basic principles of prehistoric astronomy.