This book offers an overview of Christian theology organized around the twin themes of divine and human love. The book covers the traditional theological topics as well as basic questions of theological method. It seeks to integrate a focus on love throughout. While love is regularly canvassed as a dominant theme in Christian thought, it has rarely been the focus of Christian theological construction or a constraint on theological formulation. The book seeks to suggest, chapter by chapter, how a given topic relates to the broad theme of love.The book is written in a way designed to make it accessible to university students and educated laypersons. At the same time, it takes positions on controverted scholarly issues, and the methodological approach outlined at the beginning will be of interest to academic theologians.

Joseph Butler's Fifteen Sermons (1729) is a classic work of moral philosophy, which remains widely influential. The topics Butler discusses include the role of conscience in human nature, self-love and egoism, compassion, resentment and forgiveness, and love of our neighbour and of God. The text of the enlarged and corrected second edition is here presented together with a selection of Butler's other ethical writings: A Dissertation of the Nature of Virtue, A Sermon Preached Before the House of Lords, and relevant extracts from his correspondence with Samuel Clarke. While this is a readers' edition that avoids cluttering Butler's text with textual variants and intrusive footnotes, it comes complete with scholarly apparatus intended to aid the reader in studying Butlers work in depth. David McNaughton contributes a substantial historical and philosophical introduction that highlights the continuing importance of these works. In addition, there are extensive notes at the end of the volume, including significant textual variants, and full details of Butler's sources and references, as well as short summaries of Butler's predecessors, and a selective bibliography. This will be the definitive resource for anyone interested in Butler's moral philosophy.

Yes, you do want to be closer to God. You want the love of God and you want to show God that you love him. And, praise God, you can be as close to him as you want to be , for James 4:8 says, Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. The Word of God, the Bible, shows you exactly how to do this. This book, Imperativity, simply condenses the verses that pertain to this subject and brings them to light. A Bible verse that expecially brings this to light is Revelation 22:14, which says, Blessed are they that do his commandments The definition for New Testament Biblical Imperativity is found in the following verses: I John 2:3-6 And hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments. He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected: hereby know we that we are in him. He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked.

How do we understand the characteristically extensive presence of imagery in biblical prophecy? Poetic metaphor in prophetic writings has commonly been understood solely as an artistic flourish intended to create certain rhetorical effects. It thus appears expendable and unrelated to the core content of the composition—however engaging it may be, aesthetically or otherwise. Job Jindo invites us to reconsider this convention. Applying recent studies in cognitive science, he explores how we can view metaphor as the very essence of poetic prophecy—namely, metaphor as an indispensable mode to communicate prophetic insight. Through a cognitive reading of Jeremiah 1-24, Jindo amply demonstrates the advantage and heuristic ramifications of this approach in biblical studies.