Exegetical soundings in Pauline texts, illustrated by probes into 1 Thessalonians, Romans, Ephesians, and the Pastorals. Until we grasp the meaning of the text on its terms, Scripture is little more than a sounding board echoing the religious interpretations readers, all the while supposing this is "what the Bible says." Gene Boring offers those who preach and teach methods of understanding Scripture contextually in Hearing Paul’s Voice. He begins by placing the reader in the position of a first-century believer, demonstrating how such a reader would understand the church and the letter we now call 1 Thessalonians. Our own culture, combined with familiarity of the Bible and church life, has conditioned us to suppose we already understand what the Thessalonian believer had to learn. Hearing the Bible through ears of a Thessalonians opens up the possibility of hearing it afresh in our own time. Boring also explores how Paul's message was interpreted and heard in later generations. The theme throughout is coming within hearing distance of the text, for those whose ears may have been numbed by cultural familiarity. Hearing Paul’s Voice combines careful and reverent critical historical study of the Bible, assuming its results, with theological perception and openness to hearing the Bible as Word of God. Written with clarity and simplicity, Boring illustrates the relevance of the biblical text and is ideal for preachers and teachers in the church who want to deepen their understanding of the canonical Pauline letters.

A weary fundamentalist pastor is stuck in a psychiatric ward, staring into the abyss of his own secret shame. Before he can be free, he must confront his demons and find Grace. But will he let go? Will he allow himself to be healed? The Pastor explores the perilous human journey from self-will and striving through defeat and despair to hope and the redemption found only through surrender.

"Boring offers a historically informed and pastorally sensitive reading of the Pauline voices in the New Testament for contemporary preachers and teachers"--

A thrilling dramatic narrative of the top-secret Cold War-era spy plane operation that transformed the CIA and brought the U.S. and the Soviet Union to the brink of disaster On May 1, 1960, an American U-2 spy plane was shot down over the Soviet Union just weeks before a peace summit between the two nations. The CIA concocted a cover story for President Eisenhower to deliver, assuring him that no one could have survived a fall from that altitude. And even if pilot Francis Gary Powers had survived, he had been supplied with a poison pin with which to commit suicide. But against all odds, Powers emerged from the wreckage and was seized by the KGB. He confessed to espionage charges, revealing to the world that Eisenhower had just lied to the American people--and to the Soviet Premier. Infuriated, Nikita Khrushchev slammed the door on a rare opening in Cold War relations. In A Brotherhood of Spies, award-winning journalist Monte Reel reveals how the U-2 spy program, principally devised by four men working in secret, upended the Cold War and carved a new mission for the CIA. This secret fraternity, made up of Edwin Land, best known as the inventor of instant photography and the head of Polaroid Corporation; Kelly Johnson, a hard-charging taskmaster from Lockheed; Richard Bissell, the secretive and ambitious spymaster; and ace Air Force flyer Powers, set out to replace yesterday's fallible human spies with tomorrow's undetectable eye in the sky. Their clandestine successes and all-too-public failures make this brilliantly reported account a true-life thriller with the highest stakes and tragic repercussions.

The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9781472453983, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivative 4.0 license. Experiences of hearing the voice of God (or angels, demons, or other spiritual beings) have generally been understood either as religious experiences or else as a feature of mental illness. Some critics of traditional religious faith have dismissed the visions and voices attributed to biblical characters and saints as evidence of mental disorder. However, it is now known that many ordinary people, with no other evidence of mental disorder, also hear voices and that these voices not infrequently include spiritual or religious content. Psychological and interdisciplinary research has shed a revealing light on these experiences in recent years, so that we now know much more about the phenomenon of "hearing voices" than ever before. The present work considers biblical, historical, and scientific accounts of spiritual and mystical experiences of voice hearing in the Christian tradition in order to explore how some voices may be understood theologically as revelatory. It is proposed that in the incarnation, Christian faith finds both an understanding of what it is to be fully human (a theological anthropology), and God’s perfect self-disclosure (revelation). Within such an understanding, revelatory voices represent a key point of interpersonal encounter between human beings and God.

Depicts the life of Saint Paul, discussing his religious teachings and travels.