N. T. Wright. The Challenge of Jesus: Rediscovering Who Jesus Was and Is. IVP, 1999. 202 pp.
Today a renewed and vigorous scholarly quest for the historical Jesus is underway. In the midst of well publicized and controversial books on Jesus, N. T. Wright’s lectures and writings have been widely recognized for providing a fresh, provocative and historically credible portrait.
Out of his own commitment to both historical scholarship and Christian ministry, Wright challenges us to roll up our sleeves and take seriously the study of the historical Jesus. He writes, “Many Christians have been, frankly, sloppy in their thinking and talking about Jesus, and hence, sadly, in their praying and in their practice of discipleship. We cannot assume that by saying the word Jesus, still less the word Christ, we are automatically in touch with the real Jesus who walked and talked in first-century Palestine. . . . Only by hard, historical work can we move toward a fuller comprehension of what the Gospels themselves were trying to say.”
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David Instone-Brewer. Divorce and Remarriage in the Church: Biblical Solutions for Pastoral Realities. IVP, 2006. 212 pp.
“Most of society thinks that the Bible has nothing sensible to say about divorce and remarriage, and even many Christians think that they can ignore the Scriptures on this particular subject. The laws of Western nations, which are based largely on biblical principles, have deliberately avoided the issue of grounds for divorce by allowing no-fault divorce. This has resulted in a huge increase in divorces, as well as a feeling that marriage can be ended for just about any reason, and this in turn has resulted in disillusionment with the whole institution of marriage.”
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Mark Labberton. The Dangerous Act of Worship: Living God’s Call to Justice. IVP, 2007. 198 pp.
What’s at stake in our worship? Everything.
Worship is the dangerous act of waking up to God and God’s purposes in the world. But something has gone wrong with our worship. Too often worship has become a place of safety and complacency, a narrowly private experience in which solitary individuals only express their personal adoration. Even when we gather corporately, we often close our eyes to those around us, focusing on God but ignoring our neighbor. But true biblical worship does not merely point us upward—it should turn us outward as well.
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R. C. Sproul. Faith Alone: The Evangelical Doctrine of Justification. Baker, 1999. 224 pp.
What can we add to God’s mercy to be saved? The Reformers broke with the Roman Church when they answered that Christians are justified by faith alone. But evangelicals no longer seem certain about that keystone of faith.
In Faith Alone, a Gold Medallion finalist and Evangelical Book Club main selection, R. C. Sproul discerns a softening of the doctrine of justification and explains why Christians must return to the biblical, Reformation view. He provides biblical evidence and theological reasons why Protestantism and Roman Catholicism divided in the first place, and why that division remains an uncrossed chasm.
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David F. Wells. Above All Earthly Pow’rs: Christ in a Postmodern World. Eerdmans, 2005. 339 pp.
In our postmodern world, every view has a place at the table but none has the final say. How should the church confess Christ in today’s cultural context?
Above All Earthly Pow’rs, the fourth and final volume of the series that began in 1993 with No Place for Truth, portrays the West in all its complexity, brilliance, and emptiness. As David F. Wells masterfully depicts it, the postmodern ethos of the West is relativistic, individualistic, therapeutic, and yet remarkably spiritual. Wells shows how this postmodern ethos has incorporated into itself the new religious and cultural relativism, the fear and confusion, that began with the last century’s waves of immigration and have continued apace in recent decades.
Wells’s book culminates in a critique of contemporary evangelicalism aimed at both unsettling and reinvigorating readers. Churches that market themselves as relevant and palatable to consumption-oriented postmoderns are indeed swelling in size. But they are doing so, Wells contends, at the expense of the truth of the gospel. By placing a premium on marketing rather than truth, the evangelical church is in danger of trading authentic engagement with culture for worldly success.
Welding extensive cultural analysis with serious theology, Above All Earthly Pow’rs issues a prophetic call that the evangelical church cannot afford to ignore.
Author: Eerdmans Bio | Gordon-Conwell Bio | Theopedia
Overview: Amazon | CBD | Eerdmans | Google Books
Excerpts: TOC | Intro | Browse in Amazon | Browse in Google Books
Reviews: Amazon | Eerdmans | CBD | LibraryThing
Professors
- Douglas Groothuis at Denver Seminary (06/06) Review
Pastors/Church Leaders
- Ron Gleason at The Chalcedon Foundation (03/06) Review
- Richard Kew at The Kew Continuum (02/07) Review
- Guy Davies at Exiled Preacher (01/07) Review
Seminary/Ministerial Students
- Darren Larson at The Darren Larson Blog (06/07) Review
Laymen/Unknown
- Randy Newman at CLM’s Academic Imperative (ND) Review
- Walt Mueller at CPYU (ND) Review
- Will at Neither Here Nor There (06/07) Review
- Berny at The Inn Dwelling (12/06) Review
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D. A. Carson. Becoming Conversant with the Emerging Church: Understanding a Movement and Its Implications. Zondervan, 2005. 256 pp.
A careful and informed assessment of the “emerging church” by a respected author and scholar.
The “emerging church” movement has generated a lot of excitement and exerts an astonishingly broad influence. Is it the wave of the future or a passing fancy? Who are the leaders and what are they saying?
The time has come for a mature assessment. D. A. Carson not only gives those who may be unfamiliar with it a perceptive introduction to the emerging church movement, but also includes a skillful assessment of its theological views. Carson addresses some troubling weaknesses of the movement frankly and thoughtfully, while at the same time recognizing that it has important things to say to the rest of Christianity. The author strives to provide a perspective that is both honest and fair.
Anyone interested in the future of the church in a rapidly changing world will find this an informative and stimulating read.
Author: Zondervan Bio | Wikipedia | Theopedia
Overview: Amazon | CBD | Zondervan | Google Books
Excerpts: TOC, Preface, pp. 11-15 | Misc.
Reviews: Amazon | LibraryThing
Pastors/Church Leaders
Seminary/Ministerial Students
Laymen/Unknown
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Wayne A. Grudem, ed. Are Miraculous Gifts for Today? Four Views. Counterpoint Series, ed. Stanley N. Gundry. Zondervan, 1996. 368 pp.
This thought-provoking book presents the four major views of miraculous gifts today and will help Christians on every side of the miraculous gifts debate to better understand their own position and the positions of others.
Are the gifts of tongues, prophecy, and healing for today? No, say cessationists. Yes, say Pentecostal and Third Wave Christians. Maybe, say a large sector of open-but-cautious evangelicals. What’s the answer? Is there an answer?
Are Miraculous Gifts for Today? takes you to the heart of the charismatic controversy. It provides an impartial format for comparing the four main lines of thinking: cessationist, open but cautious, third wave, and Pentecostal/charismatic. The authors present their positions in an interactive setting that allows for critique, clarification, and defense.
This thought-provoking book will help Christians on every side of the miraculous gifts debate to better understand their own position and the positions of others.
Wayne Grudem has brought online the four major views on miraculous gifts today. Downloading them into your own understanding takes effort, but the worldwide network that you join is the fellowship of the Spirit!
Authors:
Overview: Amazon | Zondervan | CBD | Google Books
Excerpts: Contents & pp. 1–32 | Browse in Amazon
Reviews: Amazon | CBD | LibraryThing | Zondervan
Extras:
- Sam Storms article, “Are Miraculous Gifts for Today?”: Part 1 | 2
- Tim Challies: Continuation/Cessation discussion with Wayne Grudem: Part 1 | 2
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Craig A. Evans. Fabricating Jesus: How Modern Scholars Distort the Gospels. IVP, 2006. 290 pp.
Modern historical study of the Gospels seems to give us a new portrait of Jesus every spring—just in time for Easter. The more unusual the portrait, the more it departs from the traditional view of Jesus, the more attention it gets in the popular media.
Why are scholars so prone to fabricate a new Jesus? Why is the public so eager to accept such claims without question? What methods and assumptions predispose scholars to distort the record? Is there a more sober approach to finding the real Jesus?
Commenting on such recent releases as Bart Ehrman’s Misquoting Jesus, James Tabor’s The Jesus Dynasty, Michael Baigent’s The Jesus Papers and The Gospel of Judas, for which he served as an advisory board member to the National Geographic Society, Craig Evans offers a sane approach to examining the sources for understanding the historical Jesus.
Author: IVP Bio (PDF) | CraigAEvans.com
Overview: Amazon | IVP
Excerpts: TOC | Preface | Intro | Ch 1 | Endnotes | Amazon
Reviews: Amazon | IVP | LibraryThing
Pastors/Church Leaders
- Scott Lam, Wisdom of the Pages (02/07) Review
Laymen/Unknown
- J. P. Holding, Tekton Apologetics Ministries (ND) Review
- Noah Tutac, (01/07) Review
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Dean E. Flemming. Contextualization in the New Testament: Patterns for Theology and Mission. IVP, 2005. 344 pp.
From Cairo to Calcutta, from Cochabamba to Columbus, Christians are engaged in a conversation about how to speak and live the gospel in today’s traditional, modern and emergent cultures. The technical term for their efforts is contextualization. Missionary theorists have pondered and written on it at length. More and more, those who do theology in the West are also trying to discover new ways of communicating and embodying the gospel for an emerging postmodern culture. But few have considered in depth how the early church contextualized the gospel. And yet the New Testament provides numerous examples.
As both a crosscultural missionary and a New Testament scholar, Dean Flemming is well equipped to examine how the early church contextualized the gospel and to draw out lessons for today. By carefully sifting the New Testament evidence, Flemming uncovers the patterns and parameters of a Paul or Mark or John as they spoke the Word on target, and he brings these to bear on our contemporary missiological task.
Rich in insights and conversant with frontline thinking, this is a book that will revitalize the conversation and refresh our speaking and living the gospel in today’s cultures, whether in traditional, modern or emergent contexts.
Author: IVP Bio | European Nazarene College Bio
Overview: Amazon | IVP
Excerpts: TOC | Preface | Intro | Ch 1
Reviews: Amazon | CBD | IVP | LibraryThing
Professors
Pastors/Church Leaders
Extras:
- Winner of a 2006 Christianity Today Book Award for Missions/Global Affairs
- Honored as one of the “Fifteen Outstanding Books of 2005 for Mission Studies” by International Bulletin of Missionary Research
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Doug Pagitt and Tony Jones, eds. An Emergent Manifesto of Hope. Baker, 2007. 320 pp.
Many have heard of the emerging church, but few people feel like they have a handle on what the emerging church believes and represents. Is it a passing fad led by disenfranchised neo-evangelicals? Or is it the future of the church at large?
An Emergent Manifesto of Hope represents a coming together of divergent voices into a conversation that pastors, students, and thoughtful Christians can now learn from and engage. This unprecedented collection of writings includes articles by some of the most important voices in the emergent conversation, including Brian McLaren, Dan Kimball, and Sally Morgenthaler. It also introduces some lesser known but integral players representing “who’s next” within the emerging church. The articles cover a broad range of topics, such as spirituality, theology, multiculturalism, post-colonialism, sex, evangelism, and many others. Anyone who wants to know what the emerging church is all about needs to start here.
Authors:
Overview: Baker | Amazon
Excerpts: TOC, Intro, Ch 13–14 | Excerpt | Amazon | CBD
Reviews: Amazon | CBD | LibraryThing
- Roger N. Overton, A-Team Blog (04/07) Review
Extras:
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Last updated 04/17/07
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