Welcome to our book review site go-pdf.online!
You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
Teaching the Faith, Forming the Faithful
With the decline of traditional Sunday school and education programs in recent years, many Christians have not learned the fundamental doctrinal content of the faith. In this text Gary Parrett and Steve Kang set forth a thoroughly biblical vision for intentional teaching of the Christian faith that attends to both the content and process of educational and formational ministries.
Christ, Baptism and the Lord's Supper
Leonard J. Vander Zee makes a compelling connection between Baptism and the Lord's Supper and the continuing ministry of Jesus Christ, the incarnate Word of God.
People and Place
In this final volume of a four-volume series, Michael Horton explores the origin, mission, and destiny of the church through the lens of covenantal theology. Arguing that the history of Israel and the covenant of grace provide the proper context for New Testament ecclesiology, Horton then shows how the church is constituted through the ascension of Christ, the Pentecost, and the Parousia and how it continues to live by the Word and sacraments. Horton's goal is to demonstrate the potential of a covenantal model for integrating the themes of the church as people and as place, with an urgent concern for contemporary practice.
God is Not Black-and-White
There are many differing theological perspectives in the church today. The church is often too quick to tell people they are wrong theologically--rather than pursuing a conversation that allows the body of Christ to wrestle with various theological assumptions. In God is Not Black and White, Robert Snitko seeks to disrupt the disunity within a diverse church. In a very theological yet practical way, this book roots itself in the Apostle's Creed as the foundation for Christianity, noting that Christians as a whole ought to agree on the gospel of Christ, the Trinity, and the incarnation as primary doctrines. When it comes to secondary doctrinal issues, church history proves that individuals have come to various theological conclusions. Perhaps one's theological interpretation comes from presuppositions such as upbringing, cultural context, life circumstances, or even experience. Whatever the case may be, we need to put an end to division in the church--as we seek unity within a theologically diverse church. This book urges Christians to have a theological conversation that pursues unity--as we seek to love one another in the gospel through restoration, healing, and reconciliation.
Worship Formation
Worship Formation provides a thoughtful perspective on Christian worship and addresses how each element within a worship service spiritually forms the worshiper. Brooks challenges the reader toward an understanding that worshiping through music, prayer, Scripture reading, Communion, sermon, stillness, giving, and baptism engages the worshiper in spiritual formation. Worship Formation encourages the worshiper to not just go through the motions when they gather for worship, but to realize that they are being formed through each element of worship, and challenges those in leadership to be thoughtful in their approach to planning and leading worship services.
Communion with God
The recent resurgence of interest in the Puritan John Owen has resulted in increasing requests for Kelly Kapic's Communion with God, which was one of the books that helped foster renewed attention on this classic theologian. This book is now back in print with a new preface by the author. According to Kapic, a variety of people today are rediscovering Owen, including academic theologians, ministers from different denominational backgrounds, and laypeople interested in classic forms of spirituality. With this diverse audience in mind, Kapic focuses on the concept of communion with God in Owen's thought, covering key areas such as anthropology, Christology, trinitarian studies, and the Lord's supper. Kapic shows that Owen remains a rich dialogue partner for those engaged both in contemporary theology and pastoral practice.
Participating Witness
At a time when the fractious legacy of the Protestant Reformation is coming under new scrutiny, Anthony Siegrist explores the implications of ecumenism for believers' baptism. Writing from within the tradition of the Radical Reformation, he challenges dominant ecclesiological assumptions and argues that this central practice needs to be reconstrued. Siegrist works constructively to develop a concrete account of believers' baptism that attends closely to the dynamics of divine initiation. Siegrist deliberately stretches the traditional Anabaptist conversation to include not just expected voices like Yoder and Marpeck, but also luminaries from the broader Christian tradition; Barth, Bonhoeffer, and a variety of ancient sources are creatively engaged. The intent of Participating Witness is eminently practical, but its argumentation is carried out with theological rigor.
Integrating Work in Theological Education
If only we could do a better job of helping students at "connecting the dots," theological educators commonly lament. Integration, often proposed as a solution to the woes of professional education for ministry, would help students integrate knowledge, skills, spirituality, and integrity. When these remain disconnected, incompetence ensues, and the cost runs high for churches, denominations, and ministers themselves. However, we fail in thinking that integrating work is for students alone. It is a multifaceted, constructive process of learning that is contextual, reflective, and dialogical. It aims toward important ends--competent leaders who can guide Christian communities today. It entails...
Recovering the Evangelical Sacrament
The subject of baptism continues to be of considerable interest--though it frequently appears within broader studies of sacraments, liturgy, worship, and ecumenical studies, and within confessional bounds: credobaptist or paedobaptist--yet it is rarely discussed by Evangelicals. This book, however, is neither an apologetic for credobaptism nor paedobaptism; rather Cross believes that, as practiced today, both forms are a departure from New Testament baptism, which, he maintains, was an integral part of becoming a Christian and part of the proclaimed gospel. He argues that the "one baptism" of Ephesians 4:5 is conversion-baptism and that the baptism referred to in the various New Testament strata refers to this "one baptism" (of Spirit and water). The study sets out the case for this interpretation and contends that in key passages "baptism" is an example of synecdoche. The case is then made for a sacramental interpretation of baptism from a thoroughgoing Evangelical perspective. Cross concludes with reflections on the necessity of baptismal reform and the relevance of a return to conversion-baptism for the contemporary church in a post-Christian, post-Christendom, mission setting.
Sola Scriptura Sacramentaque
The practice of the sacraments of baptism and the Eucharist allow Christians to read Scripture in the context of the church and in unity with the Trinity. Charles Meeks argues here, however, that over the centuries since the Reformation, Protestant expressions of the church have often allowed the sacraments to assume a minor role that has led to a weakening of Protestant ecclesiology and a disconnection of these ancient rituals from the gospel. To unpack this reality, Meeks relies on the work of fourth-century bishop Hilary of Poitiers and modern theologian Robert W. Jenson to examine the relationship between the sacraments and Scripture, the Trinity, and the church. With Hilary, he retrieves a hermeneutic that starts from the interdependence of the sacraments with all aspects of Christian life, especially the way one reads Scripture, formulates theology, and understands what the church is and is not. With Jenson, Meeks applies this hermeneutic to the modern church in an appeal to recover a premodern sense of God’s relationship to time, and thus how the church relates to God through Word and Sacrament.
