Adaptation of the author's Ph. D. thesis, University of Birmingham, 2012.

The Covid-19 pandemic provoked many questions. It is human nature to want to know how and why things happen. The sovereign God has created a beautiful, intricate world in which multiple factors interact to cause an event. We are called to properly understand creation, but often fail because we tend to be lazy, fearful, and self-serving. We make judgments based on (often incorrect) assumptions about cause-and-effect relations, and we seek reassuring explanations for both trivial and serious events. Christians have the added complication of figuring out God's role in making things happen. All Things Wise and Wonderful examines what the Bible and Christian theology say about cause and effect, how science views causation in the world, and how human mind-brains judge causation. Using illustrations from everyday life, it offers guidance for Christians to think and act wisely with respect to how and why things happen in creation.

How can creatures made from dust become members of God's household "forever"? In this New Studies in Biblical Theology volume, Michael Morales explores the narrative context, literary structure and theology of Leviticus, following its dramatic movement from the tabernacle to the temple—and from the earthly to the heavenly Mount Zion in the New Testament.

A dramatic tension confronts every Christian believer and interpreter of Scripture: on the one hand, we encounter images of God commanding and engaging in horrendous violence: one the other hand, we encounter the non-violent teachings and example of Jesus, whose loving, self-sacrificial death and resurrection is held up as the supreme revelation of God’s character in the New Testament. How do we reconcile the tension between these seemingly disparate depictions? Are they even capable of reconciliation? Throughout Christian history, many different answers have been proposed, ranging from the long-rejected explanation that these contrasting depictions are of two entirely different ‘gods’ to recent social and cultural theories of metaphor and narrative representation. The Crucifixion of the Warrior God takes up this dramatic tension and the range of proposed answers in an epic constructive investigation. Over two volumes, renowned theologian and biblical scholar Gregory A. Boyd argues that we must take seriously the full range of Scripture as inspired, including its violent depictions of God. At the same time, we must take just as seriously the absolute centrality of the crucified and risen Christ as the supreme revelation of God. Developing a theological interpretation of Scripture that he labels a “cruciform hermeneutic,” Boyd demonstrates how Scripture’s violent images of God are completely reframed and their violence subverted when they are interpreted through the lens of the cross and resurrection. Indeed, when read through this lens, Boyd argues that these violent depictions can be shown to bear witness to the same self-sacrificial character of God that was supremely revealed on the cross.

Understanding evil spiritual forces is essential for Christian theology, yet discussion is almost always phrased in terms of "spiritual warfare." Warfare language is problematic, being dualistic, assigning a high degree of ontology to evil, and poorly applicable to ministry. This unique study proposes a biblically based model as the first alternative to a "spiritual warfare" framework for dealing with the demonic, thus providing insights for preaching, counseling, and missiology. Warren develops this model using metaphor theory and examining four biblical themes: Creation, Cult, Christ, and Church. Metaphors of cleansing, ordering, and boundary-setting are developed in contrast to battle imagery, and relevant theological issues are engaged (Boyd's warfare imagery, Barth's ideas of evil as "nothingness," and Eliade's notion of the sacred and the profane). The role of the Holy Spirit is emphasized and the ontology of evil minimized. This model incorporates concentric circles, evil being considered peripheral to divine reality, and provides a refreshing alternative to current "spiritual warfare" models.

Theologian Harry Lee Poe and chemist Jimmy H. Davis argue that God's interaction with our world is a possibility affirmed equally by the Bible and the contemporary scientific record. Rather than confirming that the cosmos is closed to the actions of the divine, advancing scientific knowledge seems to indicate that the nature of the universe is actually open to the unique type of divine activity portrayed in the Bible.

From time immemorial, poets and philosophers have looked in awe and wonder at the Universe. Such awe is shared by astrophysicists, too, as they seek to understand its nature, and whether it has any limits. In The Infinite Cosmos, Joseph Silk, Savilian Professor of Astronomy at Oxford University, cosmologist and well-known science writer, brings together the modern understanding of the Universe, its structure, its evolution, and its possible fate, combining the latest from theory and observation. The narrative is peppered with quotations from literature and philosophy, and reflects, too, on the process of scientific discovery, and the implications of our discoveries.