Beautiful Beginnings: Genesis is the first of poetry books based on the Bible in the Whispers of Jesus series. Each poem references key people or stories within the Word of God. This first book is based on the book of Genesis. The knowledge that God has blessed mankind with in his text is now being conveyed in a new light. This artistic take on Scripture is a new way for readers to both learn and enjoy God's Word in this memorable homage to the most sacred text in history.

Genesis for everyday readers Why another book on Genesis? It is a text that is inexhaustible, yielding something new at each reading. Authors Martin Kessler and Karel Deurloo contribute to its understanding with this concise, text-oriented, literary commentary on this fundamental book of the Bible. The authors maintain a clear focus on Genesis and what its words mean in themselves, in their narrative context, and in the context of the Bible. The unifying theme is the birth of Israel among the peoples of the world, beginning with the universal story of God's creation of earth, sky, and seas, moving toward the call of Abram, the first of the patriarchs, through Jacob, his grandson, and Jacob's sons, the progenitors of the twelve tribes of Israel. Clearly written and easy to follow, this book will encourage readers to reach beyond their usual assumptions to find not only information, but much illumination, about this richly layered text. Audience: --Bible study groups --introductory college courses --everyday readers who want to read the Bible with deeper meaning and understanding +

It is not the destination, but the journey. Inspired by this timeless adage, You Are a Beautiful Beginning combines lyrical storytelling and lovely art, blossoming into a celebration of self-love, friendship, and community. With beautiful simplicity and hidden depth, this meditative and magical picture book encourages readers old and young to discover their own endless potential. Kelsey Garrity-Riley's inviting, gently magical art pairs beautifully with a lyrical, deceptively simple text by Nina Laden to create a picture book that is equal parts inspirational story and peaceful lullaby. It is not wishing to be different. It is learning to love being you. It is not the end of your story. It is a beautiful beginning, too. This is another uplifting and magical book from bestseller Nina Laden, the creator of Peek-A-Who and the author of If I Had a Little Dream and Yellow Kayak. It's the perfect gift for graduation, new babies and baby showers, or anyone in need of an inspirational story.

The book of Genesis contains some of the most beautiful and well-known stories in the Bible: the garden, the flood, the tower of Babel, and the lives of the patriarchs. But these are more than just good stories. They lay the groundwork for God's relationship with humanity and for his plan for our salvation, making Genesis foundational to understanding everything else that happens in the Bible. Genesis reveals much about human nature and the nature of God. From the actions of the first man and woman, we see where our rebellious, sinful nature originates. And through the whole book we see the hand of a sovereign God who is loving and merciful, but also just and holy. Time and again in Genesis, God showers his grace upon undeserving humanity, giving us our first tastes of God's enduring faithfulness that shines throughout the entire Bible. R. Kent Hughes, respected pastor and author of many other commentaries in the Preaching the Word series, takes readers back to the beginning of the Bible and moves through Genesis with careful exegesis. He explores the superbly crafted structure of the book as well as the weighty themes it contains. For those who preach, teach, and study God's Word, this exceptionally detailed work will reveal much about the beginnings of God's great story. Part of the Preaching the Word series.

Imagine that you could really understand the Bible...that you could read, analyze, and discuss the book of Genesis not as a compositional mystery, a cultural relic, or a linguistic puzzle palace, or even as religious doctrine, but as a philosophical classic, precisely in the same way that a truth-seeking reader would study Plato or Nietzsche. Imagine that you could be led in your study by one of America's preeminent intellectuals and that he would help you to an understanding of the book that is deeper than you'd ever dreamed possible, that he would reveal line by line, verse by verse the incredible riches of this illuminating text -- one of the very few that actually deserve to be called seminal. Imagine that you could get, from Genesis, the beginning of wisdom. The Beginning of Wisdom is a hugely learned book that, like Genesis itself, falls naturally into two sections. The first shows how the universal history described in the first eleven chapters of Genesis, from creation to the tower of Babel, conveys, in the words of Leon Kass, "a coherent anthropology" -- a general teaching about human nature -- that "rivals anything produced by the great philosophers." Serving also as a mirror for the reader's self-discovery, these stories offer profound insights into the problematic character of human reason, speech, freedom, sexual desire, the love of the beautiful, pride, shame, anger, guilt, and death. Something as seemingly innocuous as the monotonous recounting of the ten generations from Adam to Noah yields a powerful lesson in the way in which humanity encounters its own mortality. In the story of the tower of Babel are deep understandings of the ambiguous power of speech, reason, and the arts; the hazards of unity and aloneness; the meaning of the city and its quest for self-sufficiency; and man's desire for fame, immortality, and apotheosis -- and the disasters these necessarily cause. Against this background of human failure, Part Two of The Beginning of Wisdom explores the struggles to launch a new human way, informed by the special Abrahamic covenant with the divine, that might address the problems and avoid the disasters of humankind's natural propensities. Close, eloquent, and brilliant readings of the lives and educations of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Jacob's sons reveal eternal wisdom about marriage, parenting, brotherhood, education, justice, political and moral leadership, and of course the ultimate question: How to live a good life? Connecting the two "parts" is the book's overarching philosophical and pedagogical structure: how understanding the dangers and accepting the limits of human powers can open the door to a superior way of life, not only for a solitary man of virtue but for an entire community -- a life devoted to righteousness and holiness. This extraordinary book finally shows Genesis as a coherent whole, beginning with the creation of the natural world and ending with the creation of a nation that hearkens to the awe-inspiring summons to godliness. A unique and ambitious commentary, a remarkably readable literary exegesis and philosophical companion, The Beginning of Wisdom is one of the most important books in decades on perhaps the most important -- and surely the most frequently read -- book of all time.

Sixty-six books written by forty people over nearly 2,000 years, in two languages and several different genres. The Bible is clearly no ordinary book. How can you begin to read and understand it as a whole? This excellent overview gives you the big picture, providing both the encouragement and the tools you need to read the Bible with confidence and understanding.