Böcker utgivna av Wipf & Stock Publishers

The key to successful daily living is found in two words -- "Choose life!" (Deuteronomy 30:19), a simple, insightful, uncomplicated principle, predicated on an intimate knowledge of God and choosing to follow Him. The book encourages the reader to make a definitive, decisive, life-changing decision regarding Who God is, what He is like, and what He requires of every individual. Throughout the book we are challenged to "search for Him" with all our heart and soul (Deuteronomy 4:29) until we find Him and discover that we can no longer "hesitate" between two opinions. "If the Lord is God, then follow Him" (1 Kings 18:21 NIV). Either you stay as you are and settle for business as usual in your daily life, continuing on as you've always been living and missing the miracle and joy of drawing close to God and the benefits thereof, or you take the sacred journey seriously, follow God as His Spirit leads, walk by faith through the day, rely on His promises, and trust His faithfulness, wisdom, love, and Word. It is The Most Important Decision You'll Ever Make, which will take you on a journey you could never have imagined or thought possible.

Far too often, the God of the philosophers, those who for the most part had no appointment at a university, are the primary sources relied upon by many authors nowadays in their approach to the problem of evil. These fifty-two Lord's day or Sabbath day readings draw the reader into a dialogue with university professors of the late medieval era and sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. The theme of these literary renditions of yesteryear's debates and disputations is the perennial quest by theologians to exonerate God from the charge that he is the author of evil. The sophistication and complexity of their scholastic method and solutions to the problem of evil may surprise, but hopefully will persuade, modern day readers to rethink their own conclusion about the problem, and to take up and read university theologians who were formerly unknown, all in the spirit of Anselm's faith seeking understanding.

According to recent research, our brains prefer the path of least resistance when it comes to engaging people who are unlike us--in fact, our brains tell us to perceive anyone different than us as a threat. That is a nice way to say that, despite our best intentions, we all have our prejudices and preferences. In biblical terms, we show partiality toward people who resemble us; we play favorites. Much of our identity, community, and power are established by the measurement of our differences from others, justifying our need to categorize people. Even when we attempt to engage other races and cultures, we see it as a one-way bridge, taking our way of life across the river to enlighten those different than us. It assumes we are on the bank of the undistorted view of the world and our understanding of the other side is not important. The proper response is to encourage two-way traffic on the bridge, not only by having dialogue with people over the bridge but more importantly listening to them. Overcoming our prejudices and bridging the cultural divide is the result of living out the gospel and it is the most significant way to communicate the gospel.

Jude is a short letter making it easy to read entirely in one sitting. Yet the letter is rarely read, and it is not a popular text for teaching and preaching. Jude is a warning to an early Christian community about a group of itinerant teachers bearing a message that Jude considers incompatible with the apostolic gospel. The teaching and practice of these people puts them into a class of individuals who, according to Scripture, incur God's wrath and judgment. Jude stresses that there is guaranteed judgment on those who live outside the normalized instruction and teach others to do the same. The importance of a lifestyle that adheres with biblical teaching is just as crucial today as it was in the early church. This commentary highlights the oral and performative nature of the first-century Mediterranean world. Jude was situated in this oral context, and it decisively shaped the form and delivery of the epistle while also enhancing its content. One cannot separate the content of a message from how a message comes to expression. This commentary aims to show the relationship between expression and content, demonstrating that there is not only value in what Jude says but in how he says it.

The Rise of Bishops reveals how Christian congregations, which were self-governing in the second and third centuries, became subject to the general supervision and direction of diocesan bishops and higher officeholders, thus ending their independence from outside the local parish. The New Testament says nothing about church government after the apostles. Thus, the question becomes ""who replaced the apostles?"" Local church congregations in the period between AD 100 to 300 appear to have been administered by bishops and deacons, and sometimes elders, all as congregational officeholders, with no superstructure above the congregation. Yet, the fourth century sees congregations governed in groups by a collective hierarchy, based on diocesan bishops. This book attributes most of the change to Constantine the Great and his immediate successors, motivated by desire for more efficient functioning and greater control by the emperors once the majority church was co-opted into the Roman state.Although bishops have long been key officials in the church, surprisingly little has been written in our time on how the framework for choosing and regulating them developed in early times. What little is available consists of journal articles rather than standalone publications. The Rise of Bishops helps close this gap.

The slaughter of animals as a religious ritual and the execution of human beings as a judicial one was an interrelated phenomenon in the ancient world. Writings from different traditions had to be interpreted in relation to each other for the connection between two sacred rituals to be made. The history of the death penalty within the textual traditions of Judaism and ancient Greece could be traced to specific commandments beginning in Genesis and in laws specified as early as in Hesiod's Theogony--in each case, however, with far from unambiguous conclusions despite their divine origins in YHWH or Zeus. An ever-present uncertainty in the nature of the death penalty pervades the writings of the Bible from Genesis to the Gospels of Jesus, as well as in the mytho-poetic world of Hesiod, the tragedy of Aeschylus, and Socratic philosophy as represented in Plato's dialogues. Scholarship has not considered the importance of these two interrelated traditions insofar as both expose the specific characteristics of violence and killing within the institutions of religion and the law. The creation of religious rituals and the acts of the law are inseparable and essential to the authority of the politico-religious state. Animal sacrifice and the death penalty serve as the pillars of social legitimacy in the ancient world.

Who would have suspected that a boy whose heart was set on medical, musical, and football glory could end up a family man and a Catholic philosopher and theologian? Who would have guessed that a life so closed in on itself could be turned inside out by the wild love of Jesus Christ? Who would have believed that the drama of adoption and so many feelings of abandonment could be rescued by a love that never fails? iGod: A Hidden and Fragmentary Autobiography is Act I of the story of Donald Lee Wallenfang. Inside this book, the reader will be met with a narrative full of twists and turns and so many saturating moments of irony and paradox. This story testifies to the power of possibility and the unlimited reaches of divine grace. Beginning with the infancy of Donald Lee, a nonfictional tale is woven together that escorts the reader along the provocative periods of his childhood, adolescence, young adulthood, and into the early middle-age years. All in all, this is a story about conversion. It showcases the inversion of "iGod" into a life enraptured by love and responsibility inspired from an elsewhere beyond the immediate capacities of the ego. Readers will find delight in these literary and photographic vignettes that expose the metamorphosis of a life given over to the point of abandonment.

Life is not fair. It is a lesson all of us learn at one time or another. Despite this, we have trouble accepting this plain truth. At a certain point, we have to realize that we are not subject to the whims of the world. We have to take control of our character. In Seven Virtues for Success, the reader engages this practical truth about navigating life. We cannot control those around us, but we can control our own thoughts and actions. While meditating on these seven cardinal virtues--humility, gratitude, diligence, agency, relationship, forgiveness, and kindness--the reader is invited to set their mind towards a foundation of character. Once our character is strong, the difficulties of life become easier to encounter. The road is straightforward, yet difficult, as history has shown us through religious texts and wisdom literature. This book is a distillation of thought on character building in the modern age. Starting with the ancient method of building habit found in Aristotle, it begins the path to thinking about how we build our own virtues and set our mind on the road to success.

This bold, new look at the apostle Paul will challenge longtime thinking about the ""apostle to the gentiles."" Unfortunately, common misperceptions and outdated characterizations continue to prevail in mainstream teaching and preaching about Paul. Meet Paul Again for the First Time introduces readers to a brand-new Paul which, as it turns out, was the original Paul all along. With clarity and purpose, Clausen rejects unfounded preconceptions about the apostle. For example, he did not teach a ""law-free gospel,"" he did not reject Judaism or the law, and he did not see himself as a miserable sinner who found forgiveness only in Christ. Based on a reappraisal of first-century Judaism, recognition of the pagan targets of Paul's mission, and an appreciation for Paul's skill as a Greco-Roman rhetorician and interpreter of Jewish scripture, Meet Paul Again brings consistency and clarity to critical Pauline concepts including the new covenant, works of the law, preservation and deliverance, the future of Israel, and the status of gentiles in God's family. Paul's was a mission of inclusiveness. His primary objective was to preserve sinning gentiles from God's wrath, and welcome them in worship beside their Jewish brothers and sisters, before the imminent arrival of the great and terrible Day of the Lord.