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Thirteen studies (each with an optional companion video) to help you explore your Bible questions. Approaching the Bible topically comes with both a challenge and a danger. The challenge is in the vastness of Scripture—how can you discover the answers to your specific questions among so much information? The danger is in reading Scripture out of context, which is one of the greatest threats to biblical literacy today.

The Beatitudes illustrate the ways of God. With genuine faith, true Christian disciples willingly embrace what many choose not to experience out of fear, conformity, or slothfulness. And in return for their desire to magnify God’s glory in a darkened world, God blesses them with His presence, peace, comfort, and encouragement, culminating in an abundance of heavenly joy! Oh, the joy that comes from living out the Beatitudes!

Jesus is the true bread of life, come down from heaven. His flesh, His true humanity, is our bread of life; this He gives for the life of the world. We are in Him no longer the sinful and death-bound sons of fallen Adam, but the just and life-bound people of the last Adam. Christ gives us His flesh, His glorious humanity, so that we are remade into people of righteousness and eternal life.

Written between A.D. 413 and 426, The City of God is one of the great cornerstones in the history of Christian thought, a book which is vital to the understanding of modern Western society. Augustine originally intended it to be an apology for Christianity against the accusation that the Church was responsible for the decline of the Roman Empire, which had occurred just three years earlier. Indeed, Augustine produced a great amount of evidence to prove that paganism was responsible for this event. However, by the time the work was finished, the book had taken on a larger theme.

My 2019 writings on topics from tech to politics to God.

This collection of Buechner’s many sermons delivered throughout his lifetime is organized chronologically to reveal the development of his theology and thinking. Culled from great works such as The Magnificent Defeat, The Clown in the Belfry, A Room Called Remember, The Hungering Dark, and The...

For generations, the Black church has been a cornerstone of resilience, community, and empowerment, serving as a sanctuary for African Americans facing systemic oppression. Rooted in liberation theology and social activism, it has played a crucial role in social movements and cultural identity. However, while the Black church continues to be a source of strength, it also mirrors the complexities and contradictions of the communities it serves.

Are You Still Watching?: Using Pop Culture to Tune In, Find God and Get Renewed for Another Season highlights different entertainment vehicles like television shows, movies, music, and podcasts that showcase the best in humanity or demonstrate ways we can grow in our faith.

During the global Week of Prayer for Christian Unity in January 2024, Australian entrepreneur Philip Ryall and his wife Jennie invited more than sixty church leaders from various Christian backgrounds and denominations into their home for what they hope will be the first of many Unity Meals around the world. Like yeast leavening a loaf of bread, out of that meal grew the impetus for the book Dear Unity, a collection of thoughts from over thirty prominent Christian leaders around the world.

Even the most die-hard atheist would consent that justice was lacking in the trial of Jesus Christ. There was absolutely no appearance of compliance with the laws that were in place in any of Jesus' six separate trials.

In these chapters, you’ll find personal testimony to love’s power, reminders of the centrality of love throughout the long histories of Universalism and Unitarianism, and theologies of love drawn from many different expressions of Unitarian Universalism—from the natural world to the justice rally, to a loved one’s deathbed, to the quiet moment before a worship service begins. May Love at the Center serve as an invitation to deepen your own understanding and practices of love.

What if the shortest book in the Old Testament held the loudest warning for our modern hearts? Enemies of the Heart brings the ancient words of the prophet Obadiah into urgent focus for today’s world. In just 21 verses, Obadiah unmasks the deadly effects of pride, silence, misplaced trust, and gloating over others’ pain. But he also reveals a stunning hope: God sees everything, and justice is not delayed forever.

Hebrews? Africans? Or Does It Matter? Revised Edition delves into the intricate intersection of history, culture, and spirituality specifically concerning the descendants of the formerly enslaved people in America but also throughout the diaspora. This people’s history can never be told truthfully without being labeled “controversial.” The listener will understand why this powerful history is also referred to as “The World’s Best Kept Secret.”

Eavesdrop on a debate between a Christian elder and young agnostic as they pore over the first book of the Holy Bible. Genesis: Biblical Commentary Through Dialogue examines the Judeo-Christian origin stories through the eyes of a critic and an apologetic alike, finding common ground to derive lessons from the ancient tales. Grab yourself a bowl of popcorn as these two generations duke it out in a serious philosophical approach to Scripture with a humorous twist.

In this luminous addition to the "Bite Sized Boreham" series, F.W. Boreham captures the fleeting joy of spotting The First Swallow of spring, weaving a tapestry of reflection on nature, human connection, and the divine. With his characteristic eloquence, Boreham draws from literature, history, and scripture to explore the swallow’s migratory instinct as a symbol of humanity’s shared longing and eternal hope. This concise, heart-stirring essay invites listeners to pause and ponder the timeless fellowship of life’s simple wonders.

As early as Primary, you may have absorbed this confusing message: "God loves us....but He's so disappointed in you". For a religion that preaches hope, the message of "do more" often seems to win out. With so many programs, assignments, callings, commandments, standards, and honor codes, how can you keep up? The adversary highlights the shame you feel when you constantly fall short. Do you feel only heaviness as you consider the Latter-Day Saint path to exaltation? How can God not be disappointed in someone like me?

Post-religiosi, atei, materialisti: nell’infinita gamma degli atteggiamenti dell’Occidente secolarizzato verso la religione sembra manchi solo quello più semplice: credere. È ormai una scelta marginale, in via d’estinzione? Niente affatto, tanto è vero che il bisogno di Dio sembra tornare alla ribalta ovunque nel mondo, in modi anche drammatici. Perché? È opinione comune che la religione sia stata inventata dagli uomini per autoconsolarsi della propria condizione mortale.

The idea that religion has undergone a radical change since the Christian Reformation—from totalitarian and socially repressive to private and relatively benign—is a familiar part of the story of secularization. It is often invoked to explain and justify the liberal politics and world view of modernity. And it leads to the view that "politicized religions" threaten both reason and liberty. Asad's essays explore and question all these assumptions.

The daughter of an artist, Helen Tworkov grew up in the heady climate of the New York School of Abstract Expressionism; yet from an early age, she questioned the value of Western cultural norms. At the age of twenty-two, she set off for Japan, then traveled through Cambodia, India, and eventually to Tibetan refugee camps in Nepal. Set against the arresting cultural backdrop of the sixties and their legacy, this intimate self-portrait depicts Tworkov's search for a true home but also into the ways each of us can better understand and transform ourselves.

Much has been written about the concept of Trinity or three parts over the centuries. From simply meaning God the Father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit to what we hear in many churches is disturbing. Debates about predestination and subordination seem to never end. Due to the great number of denominations, the definition of a Christian has suffered, watered down in a corrupt world. From the simplicity of the Bible has come a rash of new doctrines that boggles the mind. What used to be straightforward in the 1st century is now twisted and turned into many ways of thinking about the Bible.