Theology Study

The Essential Talmud is a masterful introduction by Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz to the great repository of Jewish wisdom, the Talmud. A book of profound scholarship and concise pedagogy, The Essential Talmud succinctly describes the Talmud's history, structure, and methodology. It summarizes the Talmud's main principles, demonstrates its contemporary relevance, and captures the spirit of this unique and paradoxical sacred text as a human expression of divine law.

Selected from sermons delivered by C. S. Lewis during World War II, these nine addresses show the beloved author and theologian bringing hope and courage in a time of great doubt. "The Weight of Glory", considered by many to be Lewis’s finest sermon of all, is an incomparable explication of virtue, goodness, desire, and glory.

What does Plato have to do with the Christian faith? Quite a bit, it turns out. In ways that might surprise us, Christians throughout the history of the church and even today have inherited aspects of the ancient Greek philosophy of Plato, who was both Socrates's student and Aristotle's teacher. To help us understand the influence of Platonic thought on the Christian faith, Louis Markos offers careful readings of some of Plato's best-known texts and then traces the ways that his work shaped the faith of some of Christianity's most beloved theologians.

Angels and saints. Catholics tend to think of them as different from the rest of us. They're cast in plaster or simpering on a holy card, performing miracles with superhero strength, or playing a harp in highest heaven.

Yet they are very near to us in every way. In this lively audiobook, Scott Hahn dispels the false notions and urban legends people use to keep the saints at a safe distance. The truth is that Jesus Christ has united heaven and earth in a close communion. Drawing deeply from Scripture, Dr. Hahn shows that the hosts of heaven surround the earthly Church as a "great cloud of witnesses".

In this classic of comparative religion, Manly Hall marshals his considerable familiarity with world religious traditions to argue that sound biblical interpretation requires cross-referencing all the great schools of ancient religion and considering them as one composite structure.

Spurred by personal tragedy, Elaine Pagels turns to a consideration of the Gnostic Gospels, in particular, the Gospel of Thomas. As opposed to the Gospel of John, which asserted that Jesus was an eternally existing aspect of God who came to earth to save humankind, the "secret" Gospel of Thomas agrees that Jesus was in some sense divine, but says that a streak of divinity can be found in all of us.

Straightforward, thorough, and grounded in biblical understanding, this book warns Christians about dangers that could potentially lead a believer to become an unbeliever (falling away from faith) and share in the unbeliever's eternal condemnation.

Wendy Cadge and Shelly Rambo demonstrate the urgent need, highlighted by the COVID-19 pandemic, to position the long history and practice of chaplaincy within the rapidly changing landscape of American religion and spirituality. This book provides a much-needed road map for training and renewing chaplains across a professional continuum that spans major sectors of American society, including hospitals, prisons, universities, the military, and nursing homes.

The subject of Philippians is the experience of Christ. Concerning the experience of Christ, each chapter of Philippians covers a major point. First, in chapter one, we have the magnification of Christ. No matter what the circumstances are in which we find ourselves, we need to express Christ in such a way that we magnify him. In chapter two, Paul presents Christ as our pattern.

In The Misunderstood Jew, scholar Amy-Jill Levine helps Christians and Jews understand the "Jewishness" of Jesus so that their appreciation of him deepens and a greater interfaith dialogue can take place. Levine's humor and informed truth - telling provokes honest conversation and debate about how Christians and Jews should understand Jesus, the New Testament, and each other.

Daniel's story is one of extraordinary faith in God lived out at the pinnacle of executive power. It tells of four teenage friends, born in the tiny state of Judah about 26 centuries ago, but captured by Nebuchadnezzar, emperor of Babylon. Daniel describes how they eventually rose to the top echelons of administration. Daniel and his friends did not simply maintain their private devotion to God; they maintained a high-profile witness in a pluralistic society antagonistic to their faith.

The human body holds endlessly fascinating secrets. The resilience of skin, the strength and structure of the bones, the dynamic balance of the muscles - your physical being is knit according to a pattern of stunning purpose. Now Gold Medallion winners Fearfully and Wonderfully Made and In His Image have been completely revised and updated to offer a new audience timeless reflections on the body.

Does God belong in the public arena, or is religion solely a private matter? Nancy Pearcey makes a passionate case that Christianity is not just religious truth, but truth about all reality. It is total truth.

For 50 years, John B. Cobb, Jr. has been teaching listeners that theology is not confined to biblical and doctrinal exegesis but rightly includes economics, politics, education, and science. His prophetic warnings about climate change date back to the early 1970s; his critiques of higher education and American foreign policy are incisive. But for all the pertinence of his views, Cobb has refrained from giving them full expression until now. In the preface to this book, which he aptly names his confession, Cobb writes:

Global Reset will open listeners’ eyes and alert them to how world leaders are using the “Great Reset” agenda to seize pandemics, natural disasters and catastrophes, civil disorder, political unrest, and other current events to reshape every facet of life—all pointing toward the universal economy and godless global government of the Antichrist.

Guiding us through a rich tapestry of new discoveries and ancient scriptures, The Jewish Gospels makes the powerful case that our conventional understandings of Jesus and of the origins of Christianity are wrong. In Boyarin's scrupulously detailed account, the coming of the messiah was fully imagined in the ancient Jewish texts. Jesus, moreover, was embraced by many Jews as this person, and his core teachings were not at all a break from Jewish beliefs and teachings. Jesus and his followers, Boyarin reveals, were simply Jewish.

Be inspired by Esther, an incredible woman of God. Esther was willing to risk her life for the welfare of her people and the furthering of God's plan. Strategically positioned by God in a place of influence, Esther is a powerful biblical example of how God can use anyone. She answered God's call and went through a season of preparation physically and spiritually to get ready. It doesn't matter where you came from or what skills and talents you have; if you let him, God can use your life for his glory!

Atheism is on the march in the western world, and its enemy is God. And if religion is the problem with the world, their answer is simple: Get rid of it. But are things really so straightforward? Tackling the likes of Richard Dawkins, Stephen Hawking, Christopher Hitchens, and Daniel Dennett head on, John Lennox highlights the fallacies in the their approach, arguing that their irrational and unscientific methodology leaves them guilty of the same obstinate foolishness of which they accuse dogmatic religious folks.

The end times have seen a great amount of interest within the last two decades. The Iraq and Afghanistan wars, the Arab Spring, ISIS, and the Iranian stand-off have focused us on the future of the Middle East - the center of the Bible's prophecies about the last days. Yet there hasn't been a comprehensive overview of biblical prophecy and eschatology for more than five decades. Mark Hitchcock's book is that comprehensive resource for the 21st-century listener. The End will provide a solid biblical foundation for Christians to explore the essential truths.

In this provocative book one of the most brilliant scholars of religion today dismantles distorted religious "histories" offered up by Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, and other contemporary critics of religion and advocates of atheism. David Bentley Hart provides a bold correction of the New Atheists’s misrepresentations of the Christian past, countering their polemics with a brilliant account of Christianity and its message of human charity as the most revolutionary movement in all of Western history.