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Различные книги в жанре СловариContemplative Prayer
The current popularity of contemplative prayer is not accidental. A twenty-first-century understanding of the human condition has made us suspicious of words and the understanding we craft out of words. Theology generally offers us words that purport to give us a more precise and certain understanding of God, but the mystic has always known that our relationship to God transcends words and the kind of understanding that words produce. The theology of the mystic has always been about understanding our communion with the mystery that is God in order to fall evermore deeply in love with the Divine. That is the ultimate purpose of contemplative prayer, and the purpose of this book is to offer a philosophy and theology of contemplative prayer in the twenty-first century.
C. S. Lewis and Friends
C. S. Lewis is one of the best-loved and most engaging Christian writers of recent times, and he continues to be a powerful defender of the faith.
It is in his imaginative fiction that his genius finds its fullest expression and makes its most lasting theological contribution. Famously, Lewis had friends who, like him, employed powerfully creative imaginations to explore the profundities of Christian thought and their struggles with their faith.
These illuminating essays on C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, Charles Williams, Dorothy L. Sayers, Rose Macaulay, and Austin Farrer are written by an international team of Lewis scholars.
The Spirit Hovers
This book is a collection of prayers based on the Old Testament texts–a good resource for worship leaders or generally for those interested in spirituality. The Spirit breathes life into us as we breathe and pray, thus granting us the hope that the Spirit can quicken and transform troubled waters into overflowing streams. This is an invitation to readers to breathe with God's Spirit despite the unformed abyss, lifeless chaos, and life's vicissitudes. It is often crisis or weakness that gets us to bend our knees. Through prayer, any dilemma or challenge can become fertile ground for growing in humanity as we journey with God, and consequently sojourn with one another and with creation.
Making a Welcome
Making a Welcome combines an engaging personal story with an examination of the meaning and possibilities of hospitality, both as a domestic practice much in need of revival, and as a fundamental Christian orientation, with emotional, intellectual and spiritual implications.
Maria Poggi Johnson draws on her knowledge of the Christian tradition, and on two decades of personal experience of trying to welcome well, to consider what happens when we open our homes to others, what is involved in offering a genuine welcome, and how the skills we develop in doing so can shape our relationships with our spouses, with the society around us, with our own beliefs and commitments, and with God. Illustrated by stories drawn from Scripture, literature, film, and from the author's own experience, Making a Welcome challenges readers to discover the life-changing practice of true hospitality, not only in their homes, but in all aspects of their lives
Preaching Creation
The human race, along with the animals and plants that make up the creation of God, face a difficult future due to the multiple ways that the ecosystem on which they all depend is currently under stress. Temperatures are rising along with the oceans. Rain forests are falling along with the polar ice caps. Questions of the environment are now front and center in any catalog of concerns.
Those who are called to preach need to include in the subjects of their sermons these environmental issues. Our Bible contains significant resources, often overlooked, as bases on which powerful environmental sermons can be preached. This book introduces the subject of preaching and the environment, offering close looks at important biblical passages that address the cosmos of God, and presenting sample sermons founded on those passages. The book calls for preachers both to name the vast problems we face and to offer the hope of the gospel of God to address them.
Magnificent Surrender
"God's kingdom is our true home, but we've picked up a habit of resisting it. And when, finally, we do fall in, most of us find we've survived so long outside his kingdom that we've lost all instinct for thriving in it. That's where Roger Helland meets us. Roger has thought long and studied hard on these matters. He has pondered deeply what it means to be fully alive in Christ and for Christ, and he's tested his insights in classrooms, in churches, with denominations, but mostly in his own life. In Magnificent Surrender, he's distilled what he's learned into a field guide for kingdom living. But Roger draws from an even deeper source. His book derives its force and depth from Paul's letter to the Colossians. Indeed, Magnificent Surrender is an extended pastoral reflection on and application of that letter. Colossians, in four brief chapters, presents the glory of Jesus Christ and the glory of a life wholly submitted to him. It is a manifesto of the rich life. Magnificent Surrender heralds that brilliantly. It's a wise, loving, and sometimes stern invitation to read Colossians again, with fresh eyes and fierce resolve. It's also a challenge to take to heart its promise and its exhortation–that we can and must live in, through, with, and for Christ, who is all and in all, supreme and sufficient." –Mark Buchanan, from the Foreword
The Future of John Wesley’s Theology
This book approaches the future of John Wesley's theology in terms of a preferred future by looking back to the Apostle Paul. In a comparison of Wesley's theology with the writings of St. Paul, Tex Sample maintains that Wesleyans tend to read Paul through Wesley, but that in the future we need to read Wesley through Paul. Key issues between Wesley and Paul are considered in this book: justification by faith, sanctification, the faith in/of Christ, the powers, the individual/social concept in Wesley that is absent in Paul, and, finally, the issue of a justice of the common good. The conclusion develops the implications of this study for the future of the church and its witness.
Keeping Faith
Keeping Faith offers resources to help Christians reclaim the importance of doctrine and thereby know and love well God and God's creation. Although it gives particular attention to the Wesleyan and Methodist tradition, it is of necessity an ecumenical effort. Neither the Wesleyans nor the Methodists invented Christian doctrine. In fact, the Wesleyan tradition contributes little that is distinctive or unique. This is a good thing, for unlike other disciplines where originality and uniqueness matter greatly, Christian doctrine depends on others and not the genius of some individual. Chesterton once said that Christianity is the democracy of the dead. In other words, doctrine depends on the communion of the saints. They help us speak of God as we should. We need to hear their voice. For this reason, this work is an ecumenical commentary on the Confession of Faith and Articles of Religion found in the Wesleyan tradition that also draws on ancient and modern witnesses to God's glory. It is ecumenical because it brings these doctrines into conversation with the broader Christian tradition. Doctrine unites us in a «communion,» which is greater than any single denomination and makes us what we otherwise cannot be: one, holy, catholic and apostolic.
Dear Brothers, With Leader’s Guide
Sooner or later every person faces questions about death and whether there is anything beyond it. This little book consists of personal and sometime private letters between three brothers who realize their own lives may soon come to an end. The wisdom they offer is not only for their own families and friends left behind, but for others who have faced the loss of loved ones. Writing from different religious perspectives, the letters are nonetheless spiritual in the way they seek to wrest from a life lived in the face of death some wisdom for one another as well as others who have shared their struggles with life's deepest questions. When he was asked about the essence of his philosophy, Plato reportedly said, «Practice dying.» These letters take his wisdom to heart in a series of heartfelt exchanges over the course of a year, concluding with each author's request for what his memorial service would be like.
Instituted by God
How would Jesus vote? That's the one question people ask repeatedly, and folks on both sides of the political aisle think they know the answer. Into this overwhelmingly complex political question, Adam Murrell brings a concise, compelling, and nonpartisan exploration of what God's Word has to say on a myriad of issues ranging from the role of civil government and single-issue voting to the ethics of voting and a woman's role in politics. Instituted by God isn't intended to tell you which candidate to support; rather it offers you a wholly biblically centered way of looking at candidates to help you draw your own political conclusions. This election season, don't cast an uninformed vote that fails to reflect your Christian values. Instead, learn how to apply the teachings of the Bible, your faith, and your obedience to God to your ballot. This timely, helpful, and daring book will enable you to do just that.