Revision of the author's thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Cambridge, 2010.

A serious discourse concerning a well-grounded assurance of men’s everlasting happiness and blessedness. Discovering the nature of assurance, the possibility of attaining it, the causes, springs, and degrees of it; with the resolution of several weighty questions.

You Can Help Bring Heaven to Earth God so loved the world, and he still does. He values his creation too much to destroy it. If you know where to look, you can see that the coming of a new heaven and a new earth already has begun. Life on earth is renewed every time you live out Jesus’s prayer that God’s ways will be followed on earth. The work of God’s Kingdom involves restoring what has been broken. This includes people, unjust systems, relationships, anything that has been separated from God and needs to be healed, reconciled, and set right. This is how heaven collides with earth—not following fiery destruction but in the power of restoring to life everything that God created. What you believe about God’s plan for humanity and for his creation determines how you will invest your life. God calls all of us to this renewing work. You can help bring heaven to earth, starting today.

Key Bible verses, quotes from the book, reflective readings, and questions for self-discovery accompany the reader on the most crucial pilgrimage of all.

Feeling overwhelmed and unproductive? The answer isn’t to do more. What image forms in your mind when you think of productivity? An assembly line? Spreadsheets? Business suits or workplace uniforms? In the ancient world, productivity didn't conjure images like these. Instead, it referred to crop yield and fruit bearing. This agrarian imagery helps us understand productivity through a biblical lens. Jesus taught, By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit (John 15:8). Who doesn’t want to have a truly productive life—to bear much fruit? But how does this happen in the places we hold dear—the home, workplace, and in our communities? We often feel overworked and overrun, defeated and discouraged. The world says be productive so that you can get all you can out of this life. The Bible says be productive so you can gain more of the next life. In Redeeming Productivity, author Reagan Rose explores how God’s glory is the purpose for which He planted us. And he shows how productivity must be firmly rooted in the gospel. Only through our connection to Christ—the True Vine—are we empowered to produce good fruit. This book shows how we can maintain the vitality of that connection through simple, life-giving disciplines. Readers will discover manageable applications like giving God the first fruits of our days. Additionally, Reagan discusses how our perspective on suffering is transformed as we see trials as God’s pruning for greater productivity.

In 1865 a French priest was visited by a small group of Japanese at his newly built church in Nagasaki. They were descendants of Japan's first Christians, the survivors of brutal religious persecution under the Tokugawa government. The Kakure Kirishitan, or "hidden Christians," had practiced their religion in secret for several hundred years. Sometime after their visit the priest received a copy of the Kakure bible, the Tenchi Hajimari no Koto, "Beginning of Heaven and Earth," an intriguing amalgam of Bible stories, Japanese fables, and Roman Catholic doctrine. Whelan offers a complete translation of this unique work accompanied by an illuminating commentary that provides the first theory of origin and evolution of the Tenchi. Today, the few Kakure Kirishitan communities still in existence view the Tenchi as strange and flawed, expressing a distorted form of Christianity. It is, however, the only text produced by the Kakure Kirishitan that depicts their highly syncretistic tradition and provides a colorful window through which to examine the dynamics of religious acculturation.

Some people don’t care about their soul. You see this a lot in the entertainment industry where celebrities “sell their soul to the devil” for fame and fortune: “For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” (Mark 8:36 ). How is it possible to lose your soul? Well, according to the Bible, “Every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed” (James 1:14), so how do we avoid the traps of the enemy? We will explore these questions and the connection between the spirit, soul, and body. You will also learn how precious your soul is to God and how fragile or easily damaged it can become “Rescue my soul from their destructions, my precious life from the lions” (Psalms 35:17). You will learn to destroy the works or schemes of the enemy “For they intended evil against thee: they imagined mischievous device, which they are not able to perform” (Psalm 21:11) and call heaven (the designs or plans of God) to earth to fulfill your divine purpose. Finally, you will pray like David in the book of Psalms, a prophetic book, to deliver your soul from captivity. I have hi-lighted key Scriptures throughout the text to use in your meditations and prayers.