Inspirational Nonfiction

From award-winning scholar John Bergsma comes an intriguing audiobook that reveals new insights on the Essenes, a radical Jewish community predating Christianity, whose existence, beliefs, and practices are often overlooked in the annuls of history. Bergsma reveals how this Jewish sect directly influenced the beliefs, sacraments, and practices of early Christianity and offers new information on how Christians lived their lives, worshiped, and eventually went on to influence the Roman Empire and Western civilization.

Begun in 1994, The Atlanta Study is the first comprehensive investigation of its kind into near-death experiences (NDEs). The study's name hardly captures what lies behind it: life-and-death dramas played out in operating rooms and hospital beds - and simultaneous events unseen by medical personnel but reported with astonishing clarity and conviction by nearly 50 individuals who returned from death's door. Now the founder of The Atlanta Study, Dr. Michael Sabom reveals their impact....

I Am Restored tells the untold story of how Lecrae's past nearly ruined his future—until he learned that the wounds we carry can have the potential to be unlikely guides to healing and freedom for ourselves and others. He documents the shattering yet hopeful story of how he faced the scars of his past—sexual abuse, physical trauma, addiction, and depression—and emerged more human than ever. This is a hopeful, inspiring charge to start your journey to healing today. No matter what your past has held, God is near you, he hears you, and he's not done writing your story.

At one of the lowest points in Henri Nouwen’s life, he gave a series of lectures on the importance of following Jesus in an age of anxiety. Drawn from those talks, this new work reveals what sustained Nouwen to remain faithful to the teachings of Jesus and led him to become an icon of compassion and vulnerability. Here, he writes eloquently about calling and purpose, fear and hope. And he explains why - with so many choices available to the 21st-century seeker - the greatest reward for those looking for spiritual direction is rediscovering Jesus’ teaching on love.

Throughout much of human history, our most important stories were passed down orally - including the stories about Jesus before they became written down in the Gospels. In this fascinating and deeply researched work, leading Bible scholar Bart D. Erhman investigates the role oral history has played in the New Testament - how the telling of these stories not only spread Jesus' message but helped shape it.

What happens when a woman looks at herself in the mirror, lingering just a little longer than usual and realizes that she no longer recognizes the person staring back at her? What does she do when she sees that, somehow, her life has drifted away from all her original hopes, dreams, or plans? Speaker, blogger, and writer Chrystal Evans Hurst wrote this book because she was that woman. One day she realized that she had somehow wandered from the life she was meant to live.

Joshua Jordan, former US spy-plane hero now turned weapons designer, has come up with a devastatingly effective new missile defense system—the Return to Sender laser weapon. But global forces are mounting against America, and corrupt White House and Capitol Hill leaders are willing to do anything to stop the nation’s impending economic catastrophe—including selling out Joshua and his weapon.

The Gospel costs nothing. You can't earn it or buy it. It can only be received as a free gift compliments of God's grace. It doesn't cost anything, but it demands everything. It demands that we go "all in," a term that simply means placing all that you have into God's hands. Pushing it all in. And that's where we get stuck - spiritual no man's land. We're afraid that if we go all in that we might miss out on what this life has to offer. It's not true. The only thing you'll miss out on is everything God has to offer.

Writing from his prison cell in Nazi Germany in 1945, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a young German theologian, sketched a vision of what he called "Religionless Christianity". In this book, John Shelby Spong puts flesh onto the bare bones of Bonhoeffer's radical thought. The result is a strikingly new and different portrait of Jesus of Nazareth, a Jesus for the non-religious.

Esteemed Bible scholars and teachers Amy-Jill Levine and Marc Z. Brettler take readers on a guided tour of the most popular Hebrew Bible passages quoted in the New Testament to show what the texts meant in their original contexts and then how Jews and Christians, over time, understood those same texts. By understanding the depth and variety by which these passages have been, and can be, understood, The Bible With and Without Jesus does more than enhance our religious understandings, it helps us to see the Bible as a source of inspiration for any and all listeners.

Combining narrative with keen critique of contemporary debates, author and historian John Dickson gives an honest account of 2,000 years of Christian history that helps us understand what Christianity is and what it's meant to be.

Based on the NPR series of the same name, This I Believe features 80 Americans—from the famous to the unknown—completing the thought that begins with the book's title. The pieces that make up the program compel listeners to re-think not only what and how they have arrived at their own personal beliefs, but also the extent to which they share them with others.

On November 3, 2020, Tim and Aileen Challies received the shocking news that their son Nick had died. A twenty-year-old student at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, he had been participating in a school activity with his fiancée, sister, and friends, when he fell unconscious and collapsed to the ground. Neither students nor a passing doctor nor paramedics were able to revive him. His parents received the news at their home in Toronto and immediately departed for Louisville. While on the plane, Tim began to process his loss through writing.

Three years after giving birth to twin daughters, Kate and Jon Gosselin became pregnant again - with sextuplets. Kate's candid and emotionally-charged book chronicles the exhausting challenges she and Jon faced from the time the babies were conceived through the first two years of their lives, and the faith it took to get through each day.

Humility, or holding power loosely for the sake of others, is sorely lacking in today's world. Without it, many people fail to develop their true leadership potential and miss out on genuine fulfillment in their lives and their relationships. Speaker and historian John Dickson shows how the virtue of humility was an important character trait for the "greats" of history and figures prominently in the findings of psychology and sociology.

Most pastors and leaders are godly, wonderful people that don't abuse their sheep. They shepherd their flocks gently and patiently. But we can't ignore the growing number who do not. We need gentle shepherds now more than ever, and in Bully Pulpit, seminary president and biblical scholar Michael J. Kruger offers a unique perspective for both church leaders and church members on the problem of spiritual abuse, how to spot it, and how to handle it in the church.

From beginning to end, the Bible reveals the glory of Jesus. But for many Bible listeners, it doesn't seem that simple. We're often unsure how the Bible's many stories, characters, events relate together and connect to Jesus. Some are tempted to force the pieces of the Bible together, making superficial jumps to him. Others give up trying to understand the Bible altogether.

Chasing Slow models HGTV star Erin Loechner's journey to help you break out of the faster-better-stronger trap and make small changes to refresh your perspective, renew your priorities, and shift your focus to what matters most.

From the creative minds of the scholarly group behind the groundbreaking Jesus Seminar comes this provocative and eye-opening look at the roots of Christianity that offers a thoughtful reconsideration of the first two centuries of the Jesus movement, transforming our understanding of the religion and its early dissemination.

Drawing from a diverse range of theologians, sociologists, artists, and activists, Confronting Injustice Without Compromising Truth, by Thaddeus Williams, makes the case that we must be discerning if we are to "truly execute justice" as Scripture commands. Not everything called "social justice" today is compatible with a biblical vision of a better world. The Bible offers hopeful and distinctive answers to deep questions of worship, community, salvation, and knowledge that ought to mark a uniquely Christian pursuit of justice.