The delay of the Parousia—the second coming of Christ—has vexed Christians since the final decades of the first century. This volume offers a critical, constructive, and interdisciplinary solution to that dilemma. The argument is grounded in Christian tradition while remaining fully engaged with the critical insights and methodological approaches of twenty-first-century scholars. The authors argue that the deferral of Christ’s prophesied return follows logically from the conditional nature of ancient predictive prophecy: Jesus has not come again because God’s people have not yet responded sufficiently to Christ’s call for holy and godly action. God, in patient mercy, remains committed to cooperating with humans to bring about the consummation of history with Jesus’ return. Collaboratively written by an interdisciplinary and ecumenical team of scholars, the argument draws on expertise in biblical studies, systematics, and historical theology to fuse critical biblical exegesis with a powerful theological paradigm that generates an apophatic and constructive Christian eschatology. The authors, however, have done more than tackle a daunting theological problem: as the group traverses issues from higher criticism through doctrine and into liturgy and ethics, they present an innovative approach for how to do Christian theology in the twenty-first-century academy.

The publication of the King James version of the Bible, translated between 1603 and 1611, coincided with an extraordinary flowering of English literature and is universally acknowledged as the greatest influence on English-language literature in history. Now, world-class literary writers introduce the book of the King James Bible in a series of beautifully designed, small-format volumes. The introducers' passionate, provocative, and personal engagements with the spirituality and the language of the text make the Bible come alive as a stunning work of literature and remind us of its overwhelming contemporary relevance.

John 13:3132: So, when he had gone out, Jesus said, Now the Son of Man is glorified, and God is glorified in Him. If God is glorified in Him, God will also glorify Him in Himself, and glorify Him immediately. Jesus Christ, the second Adam, the Son of Man, glorified God by His obedience to the cross. This work of redemption is the basis by which all the counsels of God are accomplished. All that God does for man, all that He works out on mankinds behalf, has its foundation upon the death of the Son of Man. God will eventually gather all thingsin heaven and on earthinto the raised and glorified Christ. God will be glorified in all that He does, and He has exalted the resurrected Son of Man to His right hand in glory. This is where it begins. When this Man had finished His work, He forever sat down in regards to a completed redemption (Heb. 10:12). From this point, all Gods counsels begin to unfold. If the believer will read this book, and ask the Spirit of God to teach you, you will never be the same. All of Scripture will open up to you. The believer has been given the Spirit of God that you may know all these things and you have the mind of Christ (I Cor. 2:12,16). Now the Son of Man is glorified

Using the narrative method of biblical theology, From Age to Age traces the eschatological themes of Scripture from Genesis to Revelation, emphasizing how each book of the Bible develops these themes that culminate in the coming of Christ and showing how individual texts fit into the over-arching picture.

'Mission is not the ultimate goal of the church. Worship is. Missions exist because worship doesn't. Worship is ultimate.' John Piper's contemporary classic draws on key biblical texts to demonstrate that worship is the ultimate goal of the church and that proper worship fuels missionary outreach. Piper offers a biblical defence of God's supremacy in all things, providing a sound theological foundation for missions. He examines whether Jesus is the only way to salvation and issues a passionate plea for God-centredness in the missionary enterprise, seeking to define the scope of the task and the means for reaching 'all nations'. Let the Nations Be Glad! is a trusted resource for missionaries, pastors, church leaders, youth workers, seminary students, and all who want to connect their labours to God's global purposes. This third edition has been revised and expanded throughout and includes new material on the 'prosperity gospel'.

New York Times bestselling author and Bible expert Bart Ehrman reveals how Jesus’s divinity became dogma in the first few centuries of the early church. The claim at the heart of the Christian faith is that Jesus of Nazareth was, and is, God. But this is not what the original disciples believed during Jesus’s lifetime—and it is not what Jesus claimed about himself. How Jesus Became God tells the story of an idea that shaped Christianity, and of the evolution of a belief that looked very different in the fourth century than it did in the first. A master explainer of Christian history, texts, and traditions, Ehrman reveals how an apocalyptic prophet from the backwaters of rural Galilee crucified for crimes against the state came to be thought of as equal with the one God Almighty, Creator of all things. But how did he move from being a Jewish prophet to being God? In a book that took eight years to research and write, Ehrman sketches Jesus’s transformation from a human prophet to the Son of God exalted to divine status at his resurrection. Only when some of Jesus’s followers had visions of him after his death—alive again—did anyone come to think that he, the prophet from Galilee, had become God. And what they meant by that was not at all what people mean today. Written for secular historians of religion and believers alike, How Jesus Became God will engage anyone interested in the historical developments that led to the affirmation at the heart of Christianity: Jesus was, and is, God.

Tracing the powerful motif of the coming of the Son of man from Daniel through to Revelation, Andrew Perriman provides thought-provoking ideas about eschatological narrative. What was it like to hear the biblical proclamation of this coming for the first time in a cultural, political, and religious context very different from our own? How did early Christians think about the imminence of the promised day of the Lord? What difference did this message make to how they thought, lived, and spread the gospel message? This book engages the minds of jaded twenty-first-century postmoderns who have heard it all before. By seeing the fulfilment of much of New Testament apocalyptic in events of the first centuries, Perriman proposes that in some important sense we have moved beyond eschatology--into an age of renewed community and mission that is creational in its scope.ÊThe Coming of the Son of ManÊis important reading for those who want to engage in the debate concerning what church is--and will be.