Study Commentaries

For more than fifty years, Madeleine L'Engle has delighted and inspired readers/listeners with her warm, eloquent prose and inspirational poetry. She continues this tradition with Miracle on 10th Street, a collection of poignant writings and reflections that give listeners a glimpse of how the wonder of Christmas resonates in her personal life, which deeply involves her family and faith: "I think back to that Christmas when my husband and I did not know whether our little girl would live to grow up," she writes.

In January 2012, having covered a Somali pirate trial in Hamburg for Spiegel Online International, Michael Scott Moore traveled to the Horn of Africa to write about piracy and ways to end it. In a terrible twist of fate, Moore himself was kidnapped and subsequently held captive by Somali pirates for 977 days. Yet Moore’s own struggle is only part of the story: The Desert and the Sea falls at the intersection of reportage, memoir, and history.

It can be argued that no book of the Bible has had a greater effect on Christianity than the book of Romans. Martin Luther described it as "the most important piece in the New Testament," and wrote; "It is well worth a Christian's while not only to memorize it word for word but also to occupy himself with it daily, as though it were the daily bread of the soul." In this classic commentary by Dr. Warren Wiersbe, you can refresh your own understanding of this seminal work, Paul's masterpiece letter to the church in Rome.

Andrew Sullivan, “one of the most influential journalists of the last three decades” (The New York Times) and founding editor of The Daily Dish presents a collection of 60 his most iconic and powerful essays of social and political commentary from The New Republic, The Atlantic, The New York Times Magazine, New York magazine, and more.

This book offers updated explanations of the sins of interpretation to teach sound grammatical, lexical, cultural, theological, and historical Bible study practices.

In a world that is “woke”, how many Christians are actually awake? This short theologically sound primer is a resource for pastors, ministry leaders, community leaders, and other thinking Christians that explains carefully and clearly what critical race theory and wokeness truly are, what the Bible teaches about race and ethnicity, why wokeness is distinct from Christianity and should be rejected, and how the church can work for unity based in the gospel of grace.

The multi-award-winning SmartPass study guide with and without commentary options. Full-cast, unabridged performance with comprehensive commentary and analysis for any student to fully understand and appreciate the play.

"And nothing is, but what is not." Macbeth may be mystified by the Weird Sisters' words but this intense performance with incisive commentary cuts to the heart of Shakespeare's complex psychological tragedy.

Marilynne Robinson has plumbed the human spirit in her renowned novels, including Lila and Gilead, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award. In this new essay collection she trains her incisive mind on our modern political climate and the mysteries of faith. Whether she is investigating how the work of great thinkers about America, like Ralph Waldo Emerson and Alexis de Tocqueville, inform our political consciousness or discussing how beauty informs and disciplines daily life, Robinson's peerless prose and boundless humanity are on full display.

More than just a guide to understanding Galatians, best-selling author Warren Wiersbe's Be Free is also a guide to embracing freedom in Christ. As a man who is known as the "pastor of pastors" and has studied the Bible relentlessly, gleaning relevance for today for his readers and listeners, Wiersbe has so gripped the hearts of his wide audience that he has sold over 4 million copies of his "Be" series alone!

The spirit of our times can appear to be one of joyless urgency. As a culture we have become less interested in the exploration of the glorious mind, and more interested in creating and mastering technologies that will yield material well-being. But while cultural pessimism is always fashionable, there is still much to give us hope.

In 15 New Testament Words of Life, New Testament expert Nijay Gupta explores the most important words found in the New Testament. He makes their meaning clear so that these words can become—once again—life giving words for modern Christians as they were for early Jesus-followers. For those first readers of the New Testament who chose to follow Jesus, these words were words of life and they can be again for Jesus-followers in the modern world.

This book caters to a wide audience interested in exploring their faith or seeking answers about the afterlife. Whether you're a devout believer or a skeptic, What the Hell is Hell? invites you on a journey of discovery and reflection.

The Book of Job is about a question for all of us. Why is there suffering? Job is a personal book that speaks to each of us as we face suffering and meaninglessness. Job is a theological book that both builds on the biblical worldview and prepares its listeners for the gospel. Job is a philosophical book that critically examines solutions to this question.

This two-volume expositional commentary on one of the Bible’s most powerful books integrates rigorous scholarship and clear communication. Boice not only explains the meaning of the text verse by verse and section by section, he relates the text’s concerns to the world in which we live, the life of the church, and the realities of the Christian life. Based on messages preached at Philadelphia’s world-renowned Tenth Presbyterian Church, The Gospel of Matthew displays Dr. Boice’s hallmark blend of thoughtful interpretation and contemporary insight for daily living.

Paul's letter to the Ephesians is a well-loved book of the Bible that teaches some of the most important lessons of faith: who you are in Christ, how you are to live as His follower, and how to gain victory in the spiritual battles you face. In this study tool, Joyce Meyer takes a close look at the meaning of those beloved verses, identifying key truths and incorporating room for personal reflection. Joyce's first-ever biblical commentary series provides eye-opening teachings that will help you develop a stronger relationship with God.

The multi award-winning SmartPass study guide, with and without commentary options. This is a full-cast, unabridged performance with comprehensive commentary and analysis for any student to fully understand and appreciate the play. Soak up the atmosphere of ancient Rome. Decide for yourself whether Caesar's power and ambition was a threat to the Republic, and whether assassination can ever be justified.

Here is Thomas Jefferson's classic abridgment of the Bible, in which Jefferson sculpted the words and ideas of Christ into a resounding moral philosophy. On and off for 17 years (including his term in the White House), Jefferson cut and pasted the philosophy of Jesus Christ, as recorded in Scripture, into one compact statement. He omitted any references to the virgin birth, miraculous healings, demonic possession, or supernatural events of any kind. His aim was to distinguish the moral philosophy of Christ from the religion that was later created around Christ.

The Mengzi is one of the very greatest works of world literature and philosophy, and it is perhaps the single most influential Confucian text of all time. Of all the Confucian classics, it is also the one most likely to speak to a contemporary audience. The Mengzi contains the dialogues, debates and sayings of Mengzi, a Confucian sage of the fourth century BCE. (He is also known by the Latinization of his name, 'Mencius'.)

What was it like to be a woman in the biblical period? It depended, in part, on who you were: a queen, a judge, a primary wife, a secondary wife, a widow, a slave, or some other kind of "ordinary woman". In Women in the Bible, Jaime Clark-Soles investigates how women are presented in Scripture, taking into account cultural views of both ancient societies as well as our own. Most of Christendom still excludes women from religious leadership, and many Christians invoke the Bible to circumscribe women's leadership in the public square and in the home as well.

Duffy engages with some of the central aspects of Western religion in the thousand years between the decline of pagan Rome and the rise of the Protestant Reformation. In the process, he opens windows on the vibrant and multifaceted beliefs and practices by which medieval people made sense of their world: the fear of death and the impact of devastating pandemic, holy war against Islam and the invention of the blood libel against the Jews, provision for the afterlife and the continuing power of the dead over the living, the meaning of pilgrimage and the evolution of Christian music.