Theology Study

Why do we buy what we buy, vote the way we vote, eat what we eat, and say what we say? Why do we have the friends we have, and work and play as we do? It's our choice? Yes, but there are forces, often unseen, that shape every decision we make and every action we take. These hidden, life-shaping values and ideas are not promoted through organized religions or rival philosophies but fostered by cultural habits, lifestyles and the institutional structures of society.

Our decisions don't just affect our present circumstances; they radiate into our future. Most of the time, it's impossible to know what will come of the decisions we make. But this doesn't have to paralyze you. You can train yourself to ask well-placed, appropriately timed, thought-provoking questions that will result in stronger decisions and fewer disappointments down the road.

Maybe Christianity is actually true. Maybe it is what believers say it is. But at least two problems make the thoughtful person hesitate. First, there are so many other options. How could one possibly make one's way through them to anything like a rational and confident conclusion? Second, why do so many people choose to be Christian in the face of so many reasons not to be Christian? Yes, many people grow up in Christian homes and in societies, but many more do not. Yet Christianity has become the most popular religion in the world. Why?

Aquinas at Prayer draws attention to important aspects of Aquinas's life and work which have been all too often overlooked or forgotten. Today Aquinas is almost exclusively regarded as an outstanding scholastic philosopher and theologian. But what is little known is that Aquinas was, first and last, a teacher of the Bible - a Master of the Sacred Page. Moreover there is a distinctly mystical character to his theology. And, as a writer, he was not only a poet but, arguably, the greatest Latin poet of the Middle Ages.

Dallas Willard was a personal mentor and inspiration to hundreds of pastors, philosophers, and average churchgoers. His presence and ideas rippled through the lives of many prominent leaders and authors, such as John Ortberg, Richard Foster, James Bryan Smith, Paula Huston, and J. P. Moreland. As a result of these relationships and the books he wrote, he fundamentally altered the way tens of thousands of Christians have understood and experienced the spiritual life.

Popular author Jack Levison offers a fresh take on the Holy Spirit through a careful reading of every reference to the Spirit in the Gospels. Viewed through the lens of Jesus' life, death, and resurrection, the Spirit shows up at odd times and in odd teachings - in desert sojourns, a strange saying about scorpions and snakes, and puzzling sayings about birth from above and springs from below. Grounded in scholarship yet accessible and inviting, this companion volume to Levison's A Boundless God analyzes key aspects of Jesus' experience of the Holy Spirit.

The call to make the world a better place is inherent in the Christian belief and practice. But why have efforts to change the world by Christians so often failed or gone tragically awry? And how might Christians in the twenty-first century live in ways that have integrity with their traditions and are more truly transformative? In To Change the World, James Davison Hunter offers persuasive answers to these questions.

This brief introduction surveys Christian thinking on an array of topics related to security and peace from a just war perspective. Drawing primarily on Scripture and theology, Eric Patterson explores the moral dimensions of order, justice, and peace in light of key Christian doctrines such as love of neighbor, stewardship, vocation, and sphere sovereignty.

This book is a series of short essays seeking to answer life's most enduring question: Does God exist? I have attempted to craft a book that is well-researched but also easy to listen to and understand. Each essay can be listened to in less than 10 minutes. In the end, it is important to know whether God exists or does not exist. There is no third option. Which of these beliefs is true, and which one is not?

Just like we do today, the writers and chief actors of the Old Testament felt a deep longing for the presence of God. It is symbolized in the temple ruins, and before it the temple itself, and before that the ark of the covenant and the tabernacle that housed it, and before that the Garden of Eden. In response to this longing, God shares his ultimate mission, in which his people play a part: the expansion of Eden, the temple of God's presence, to all peoples throughout the earth.

Through in-depth conversations with spiritually fluid people, renowned scholar Duane Bidwell explores how people come to claim and be claimed by multiple religious traditions, how spiritually fluid people engage radically opposed truth claims, and what this growing population tells us about change within our communities.

Homosexuality is one of the most hotly debated topics in the evangelical church today. In Two Views on Homosexuality, the Bible, and the Church four contributors, two defending a traditional view and two defending an affirming view, address not only biblical and theological questions, but also the pressing pastoral questions for the church.

Why is God restoring apostles to his church? Because restoration of the apostolic ministry is necessary for the church to complete its mission on earth. We are now experiencing the greatest outpouring of the Holy Spirit the world has ever known, and we should expect to see multitudes swept into the kingdom as a result. In this book, John Eckhardt reveals how the apostolic dimension affects the preaching, teaching, worship, prayer, and giving of the local church.

Many of us have been told that we will be "raptured out of here before the Antichrist arrives". But what if this is wrong? Is this really what the Bible teaches? In this thought-provoking and freshly examined account on the second coming of Christ, Alan Kurschner traces the key topics and passages, providing compelling biblical evidence that the church will first encounter the Antichrist's great tribulation before Christ returns to rapture his people and judge the world.

The Insistence of God presents the provocative idea that God does not exist, God insists, while God's existence is a human responsibility, which may or may not happen. For John D. Caputo, God's existence is haunted by "perhaps," which does not signify indecisiveness but an openness to risk, to the unforeseeable. Perhaps constitutes a theology of what is to come and what we cannot see coming. Responding to current critics of continental philosophy, Caputo explores the materiality of perhaps and the promise of the world.

The question of where ultimacy lies should be central to the Christian. It is easy to see the social implications of allowing priority to fall to either the one or the many. This volume examines in-depth the Christian solution to the problem of the one and the many—the Trinitarian God. Only in the godhead is this dilemma resolved. Only in the Trinity does there reside an equal ultimacy of unity and plurality.

Signs. They are important in almost everything we do. Nearly everywhere we go, there are signs in our lives that serve to guide us. We look for them wherever we travel, whether to the next city, state, or country — or to the next phase of our journey through life. Jesus thinks signs are important too. That's why he gave us clear markers in Matthew 24 that would indicate his soon return and the end of this present age. In this book, Rick Renner digs deep into the Bible to describe these signs in vivid detail so we can recognize them and know how to navigate the last-days road ahead

G. K. Chesterton was a journalist, playwright, poet, biographer, novelist, essayist, literary commentator, editor, orator, artist, and theologian. Orthodoxy is his great apologia for the Christian faith, which was prompted by a serious attack in 1903 against Christianity by well-known newspaper editor Robert Blatchford.

Both science and religion explore aspects of reality, providing "a basis for their mutual interaction as they present their different perspectives onto the one world of existent reality," Polkinghorne argues. In One World he develops his thesis through an examination of the nature of science, the nature of the physical world, the character of theology, and the modes of thought in science and theology. He identifies "points of interaction" and points of potential conflict between science and religion.

John Montgomery examines Martin Luther and the German Reformation; Ulrich Zwingli and the Swiss Reformation; the principles for interpreting the Bible by comparison of the approaches of Zwingli and Luther; the life, times, and thought of John Calvin; and the influence of the Bible Reformers, especially Martin Luther, on artists such as Bach and Mendelsohn compared to 20th century artists such as Picasso.