The Story of Gomer has been performed across the nation, reaching thousands of people with the message of God's faithfulness and love. Adapted from the book of Hosea in the Bible, we journey with Gomer, a harlot lost in her sin until Hosea, a prophet of God, offers to marry her and redeem her life from darkness. Will she be faithful? Can she love him? Or will the pull of her old life be more than she can bear? Join Geri Campbell as she takes us on a journey, not only through the ugliness of sin, but through the joy of freedom and newness that only faith in God and in His Word can bring. Weaving Gomer's story with he own, we are sure of this, there is always a way back home.

The NIV Application Commentary helps you communicate and apply biblical text effectively in today's context. To bring the ancient messages of the Bible into today's world, each passage is treated in three sections: Original Meaning. Concise exegesis to help readers understand the original meaning of the biblical text in its historical, literary, and cultural context. Bridging Contexts. A bridge between the world of the Bible and the world of today, built by discerning what is timeless in the timely pages of the Bible. Contemporary Significance. This section identifies comparable situations to those faced in the Bible and explores relevant application of the biblical messages. The author alerts the readers of problems they may encounter when seeking to apply the passage and helps them think through the issues involved. This unique, award-winning commentary is the ideal resource for today's preachers, teachers, and serious students of the Bible, giving them the tools, ideas, and insights they need to communicate God's Word with the same powerful impact it had when it was first written.

"Freed from contemporary theological categories that have been informed by ideological and psychological issues, but ever mindful of the social location of gender analysis, these essays provide fresh and exciting looks at otherwise unfamiliar texts. They jar our minds and our biases.... This book is a valuable contribution to gender-oriented biblical scholarship. Its content is accessible to both the scholarly and the less technically trained reader. All will be well served by this important collection of essays."? Naomi Steinberg, DePaul University"This book is a credit to the quality and breadth of feminine biblical scholarship and presents some creative interpretations of the texts and a wealth of Ancient Near Eastern material."? J. Massyngbaerde Ford, University of Notre Dame

“This splendid reference describes every woman in Jewish and Christian scripture . . . monumental” (Library Journal). In recent decades, many biblical scholars have studied the holy text with a new focus on gender. Women in Scripture is a groundbreaking work that provides Jews, Christians, or anyone fascinated by a body of literature that has exerted a singular influence on Western civilization a thorough look at every woman and group of women mentioned in the Bible, whether named or unnamed, well known or heretofore not known at all. They are remarkably varied—from prophets to prostitutes, military heroines to musicians, deacons to dancers, widows to wet nurses, rulers to slaves. There are familiar faces, such as Eve, Judith, and Mary, seen anew with the full benefit of the most up-to-date results of biblical scholarship. But the most innovative aspect of this book is the section devoted to the many females who in the scriptures do not even have names. Combining rigorous research with engaging prose, these articles on women in the Hebrew Bible, the Apocryphal/Deuterocanonical Books, and the New Testament will inform, delight, and challenge readers interested in the Bible, scholars and laypeople alike. Together, these collected histories create a volume that takes the study of women in the Bible to a new level.

Gomer, an Old Testament harlot, was the non-conformist wife of the prophet Hosea. In Dawes' contemporary reinterpretation of this Bible story, he presents a beautiful and sometimes erotic exploration of the cost of arriving at freedom with an uneasy grace. Dawes examines the insidious qualities of power, the confining nature of gender roles and the limits of protest. Through Gomer's journey, readers are asked to consider how each one of us is able to express our own defiance, as well as to tally the costs of our individuality.

In today's world, the basic building blocks of a Christian world view are often missing in people's lives. To help fill in this missing information, The 52 Greatest Stories of the Bible presents a foundational, clear synthesis of the most significant narratives of the Bible along with the implications and applications of these interrelated stories. It presents the big story in such a way that it will: Connect the dots for readers of the Bible, demonstrating how each individual story is really one chapter in the larger story; Show how Jesus is the point of the story, especially his death and resurrection; and Build a biblical world view by showing the reader how the Bible answers the ultimate questions of life.

A 7-session Bible study to discover the God who cherishes you.