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How did California Mennonites confront the challenges and promises of modernity? Books about Mennonites have centered primarily on the East Coast and the Midwest, where the majority of Mennonite communities in the United States are located. But these narratives neglect the unique history of the multitude of Mennonites living on the West Coast. In California Mennonites, Brian Froese relies on archival church records to examine the Mennonite experience in the Golden State, from the nineteenth-century migrants who came in search of sunshine and fertile soil to the traditionally agrarian community that struggled with issues of urbanization, race, gender, education, and labor in the twentieth cen...
Junaluska is one of the oldest African American communities in western North Carolina and one of the few surviving today. After Emancipation, many former slaves in Watauga County became sharecroppers, were allowed to clear land and to keep a portion, or bought property outright, all in the segregated neighborhood on the hill overlooking the town of Boone, North Carolina. Land and home ownership have been crucial to the survival of this community, whose residents are closely interconnected as extended families and neighbors. Missionized by white Krimmer Mennonites in the early twentieth century, their church is one of a handful of African American Mennonite Brethren churches in the United Sta...
Luke is a gospel of joy, amazement, and warmth. From the jubilant birth narrative and Magnificat at the beginning to the wonder of the ascension at the end, Luke offers a matchless portrait of Jesus Christ of Nazareth and those who followed him. In the 36th volume in the Believers Church Bible Commentary series, New Testament scholar Mary H. Schertz helps readers inhabit the pages of the third gospel, replete with parables and paradoxes and ministries of mercy. In vibrant writing and with careful exegesis, Schertz invites readers to investigate for themselves the surprise, light, and awe of the kingdom of God, in which people find healing, the marginalized find welcome, and the poor find flo...
What if rather than only reading Philippians, we allowed Philippians to read us? In this 31st volume in the Believers Church Bible Commentary series, New Testament scholar Gordon Zerbe challenges readers to allow Paul’s prison letter to interpret our own lives—not by extracting lessons out of historical and cultural context but by imagining ourselves into the ancient Roman world . . . and back again.
Purity, worship, obedience, and hope: 1 & 2 Chronicles called the early Hebrew people to faithful practice of these things, and they issue the same call to readers today. As August H. Konkel writes in the 30th commentary in the Believers Church Bible Commentary series, the Chronicler provided a unifying vision of the community’s rich traditions in an era of despondency and apathy. Exile had robbed the people of Israel of their wealth, and their return to the land of Judah had created resentment with the surrounding peoples. Struggling to maintain their faith amid intense social pressures, the Hebrew people needed to look to their past for lessons for the present. As two of the most overloo...
What constitutes a faithful life? At its most basic level, the New Testament book of Hebrews considers this essential question and pleads with its audience to find in faithful living the rest that Christ offers. Hebrews begins with a poetic reflection on the one who lived the most faithful of lives—Jesus—and concludes with exhortations to go and do likewise. In the 37th volume in the Believers Church Bible Commentary series, scholars Debra J. Bucher and Estella Boggs Horning examine at great length one important aspect of Hebrews: Jesus as the new covenant and the once-for-all, better sacrifice who replaces the daily and yearly temple offerings in Jerusalem. The authors also consider how...
Although each is quite different, the books of Joel, Obadiah, and Micah are all survival literature. All three address the community that survived the crushing Babylonian destruction of Judah in 586 BCE. And all three seek to help this community cope by giving voice to its disorientation, trauma, anxiety, and rage. Each book insists that God will wrestle a positive future out of catastrophe, granting both physical and spiritual renewal. No matter how dire the circumstances, Israel can trust in the gracious God who will never abandon the faith community. In this thirty-fifth volume in the Believers Church Bible Commentary series, Old Testament scholar Daniel Epp-Tiessen explores the diverse, ...
Christians in the bustling, diverse city of Corinth in 50 BCE quarreled about how to be faithful to Jesus. In Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, he calls the small band of new believers to unity and cautions against factionalism, themes that pastor Dan Nighswander unpacks for contemporary readers in this thirty-second volume in the Believers Church Bible Commentary series. Any Christians who experience division over loyalty to different leaders, who find it hard to agree on sexual ethics (or to live up to them), and who feel tension between their theological convictions and social context will find common ground with believers in Corinth. Home of the exalted “love chapter,” which roots all Christian action in the greatest gift, 1 Corinthians equips those who follow Jesus to craft true community with other believers, differences notwithstanding. With keen theological, biblical, and pastoral insight, Nighswander illuminates for readers the apostle Paul’s challenge to the Corinthian church and calls Christians today to unity through the reconciling work of Christ. Free downloadable study guide available here.