In this second volume, Dr. Cook provides a series of articles that are part of his morning meditations on Scripture. Meditation, in the biblical sense, is an intentional filling of the mind with divine viewpoint; specifically, God’s Word. The purpose is to saturate our thinking with Scripture so that it will permeate all aspects of our reasoning and guide us into God’s will. These articles touch on subjects such as soteriology, grace, worship, righteous living, and character studies of people such as Saul and David. The overall intent of the book is to inform and inspire believers to live righteously before God.

The role of women in positions of worship and church leadership is one of the most divisive and inconclusive biblical debates. Two Views on Women in Ministry furnishes you with a clear and thorough presentation of the two primary exegetical arguments so you can better understand each one's strengths, weaknesses, and complexities. Egalitarian - equal ministry opportunity for both genders (represented by Linda L. Belleville and Craig S. Keener) Complementarian - men and women fill distinctive ministry roles (represented by Craig L. Blomberg and Thomas R. Schreiner) This revised edition brings the exchange of ideas and perspectives into the traditional Counterpoints format. Each author states his or her case and is then critiqued by the other contributors. The fair-minded, interactive Counterpoints forum allows you to compare and contrast the two different positions and form your own opinion concerning the practical and often deeply personal subject of women in ministry. The Counterpoints series presents a comparison and critique of scholarly views on topics important to Christians that are both fair-minded and respectful of the biblical text. Each volume is a one-stop reference that allows readers to evaluate the different positions on a specific issue and form their own, educated opinion.

Draws together the most important articles on Scripture and hermeneutics by distinguished scholar and author N. T. Wright. Interpreting Scripture brings together into one volume Wright's self-selected, key lectures, papers, and reflections on topics of scriptural interpretation, including: The Lord's Prayer as a Paradigm of Christian Prayer Christian Origins and the Question of God Faith, Virtue, Justification, and the Journey to Freedom Revelation and Christian Hope: Political Implications of the Revelation to John Apocalyptic and the Sudden Fulfilment of Divine Promise …and many more. Interpreting Scripture displays Wright's engaging prose, his courage to go where few have gone, and his joy to bridge the work of the academy and the church. Here is a rich feast for any serious student of the Bible, especially of the New Testament. Detailed, incisive, and exquisitely nuanced exegesis, this collection will reward you with a clearer, deeper, and more informed appreciation of Scripture and its application to Christian life and thought today. Many of the included studies have never been published or were made available only in hard-to-find larger volumes and journals.

“What is at stake is authenticity. . . . Sooner or later Christians tire of public meetings that are profoundly inauthentic, regardless of how well (or poorly) arranged, directed, performed. We long to meet, corporately, with the living and majestic God and to offer him the praise that is his due.”—D. A. CarsonWorship is a hot topic, but the ways that Christians from different traditions view it vary greatly. What is worship? More important, what does it look like in action, both in our corporate gatherings and in our daily lives? These concerns—the blending of principle and practice—are what Worship by the Book addresses.Cutting through cultural clichés, D. A. Carson, Mark Ashton, Kent Hughes, and Timothy Keller explore, respectively:· Worship Under the Word· Following in Cranmer’s Footsteps· Free Church Worship: The Challenge of Freedom· Reformed Worship in the Global City “This is not a comprehensive theology of worship,” writes Carson. “Still less is it a sociological analysis of current trends or a minister’s manual chockfull of ‘how to’ instructions.” Rather, this book offers pastors, other congregational leaders, and seminary students a thought-provoking biblical theology of worship, followed by a look at how three very different traditions of churchmanship might move from this theological base to a better understanding of corporate worship. Running the gamut from biblical theology to historical assessment all the way to sample service sheets, Worship by the Book shows how local churches in diverse traditions can foster corporate worship that is God-honoring, Word-revering, heartfelt, and historically and culturally informed.

We are constantly engaged in processing data and sensory inputs all around us, even when we are not conscious of the many neural pathways our minds are traveling. So taking a step back to ponder the dimensions and practices of a particular way of thinking is a challenge. Even more important, however, is cultivating the habits of mind necessary in a life of ministry. This book, therefore, will grapple with the particular ways that the theological disciplines invite students to think but also the ways in which thinking theologically shapes a student’s sense of self and his or her role in a wider community of belief and thought. Thinking theologically is not just a cerebral matter; thinking theologically invokes an embodied set of practices and values that shape individuals and communities alike. Thinking theologically demands both intellect and emotion, logic and compassion, mind and body. In fact, this book—as part of the Foundations for Learning series—will contend that these binaries are actually integrated wholes, not mutually exclusive options.

Jesus’ Death in New Testament Thought is unlike anything written on the subject to date. It represents a radical break with the traditional models or “theories” of atonement based on ideas such as penal substitution, participation in Christ, and the Christus Victor motif, claiming that all of these ideas as commonly understood are foreign to New Testament thought. On the basis of his analysis of second-temple Jewish thought, Brondos demonstrates that, for Jews in antiquity, what atoned for sins and led people to be declared righteous in God’s sight was not sacrifice, suffering, or death in themselves, but the renewed commitment to living in accordance with God’s will which they manifested by means of their sacrificial offerings and at times their willingness to endure suffering and death out of faithfulness to that will. According to the thought of Jesus’ first followers, in accordance with a divine plan conceived of before the ages, in Jesus God had sent his Son in order to establish around him a community of people fully committed to practicing the love, justice, solidarity, and righteousness associated with God’s will for all. Jesus’ dedication to this task led to confrontation and conflict with the powers and authorities of his day, who sought to silence him by having him put to death. Because he stood firm and remained faithful to that task rather than backing down from it, he was crucified on a Roman cross. Paradoxically, however, in this way he laid the basis for the existence of the community God had desired from the start, stamping it forever as one to which no one could truly belong without assuming the same firm commitment to Jesus and everything for which he had lived and died. Those who form part of this community, living out of faith under Jesus as their risen Lord, come to practice God’s will as redefined through Jesus and on that basis are forgiven and accepted as righteous by God. Thus, by giving up his life out of love for others in faithfulness to the task his Father had given him, Jesus has attained the redemption, reconciliation, cleansing, and justification of those who now live under his lordship as members of the worldwide community of believers from all nations that God has established through him and his death, in fulfillment of the promises that God had made of old to his people Israel. In Volume 1, Brondos looks to the relevant texts from antiquity to trace the background and development of these ideas. His argument will leave the reader with no doubt that Jesus’ first followers understood the salvific significance of his death or blood in the manner just outlined, and therefore that the traditional interpretations of his death that have prevailed from patristic times to the present do not reflect faithfully their thought as we find it in the New Testament. In Volume 2, Brondos examines the formulaic allusions to Jesus’ death that we find scattered throughout the New Testament and other early Christian writings so as to demonstrate that these are precisely the ideas that lie behind those allusions. At the same time, through his analysis of the writings of Melito of Sardis and Irenaeus of Lyons, he provides clear evidence that, by the late second century, ideas that are foreign to those texts began to be read back into them, with the result that the original understandings of Jesus’ death that had developed among his first followers came to be replaced by other understandings that run contrary to their thought. In his Conclusion, Brondos argues that only by rejecting the traditional models of atonement and returning to the New Testament teaching on this central doctrine can the Christian church respond effectively to the crisis it faces today and bring about the restoration of the type of communities envisioned by Jesus and his first followers.