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Did the New Testament canon arise naturally from within the early Christian faith? Were the books written as Scripture, or did they become Scripture? Why did early Christians have a canon at all? These are the types of questions that led Michael J. Kruger to pick apart modern scholarship's dominant view that the New Testament is a late creation of the church imposed on books originally written for another purpose. 

In this, his premiere work, Cornel West challenges African Americans to consider the incorporation of Marxism into their theological perspectives, thereby adopting the mindset that it is class more so than race that renders one powerless in America. His work reflects political and cultural perspectives borne out of his own formative life experiences. Decades later, his arguments continue to capture the theological imagination of many and influence the critical engagement of generations of scholars.

Throughout history, Christians have pictured the relationships between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit through analogies. Such illustrations—some from the West but also from Latin America, Asia, Africa, and other places—come laden with theological ramifications that the church has rejected (heresies) or embraced (doctrines). In Three in One, William David Spencer shares a lifetime of insights from teaching within the global church, bringing fresh images and analogies of the Trinity to deepen our theological vocabulary.

Wayne Cordeiro found himself paralyzed by burnout. He had been in ministry for thirty years, and ten years after founding what is now the largest church in Hawaii, he found himself depleted. Wayne took a season out of his growing ministry to recharge and refocus on the truly important. He was able to get back in touch with his life, get back in proper balance, and re-energize his spirit through Christ in a way that propelled him forward to greater levels of service.

For five hundred years, Latina/o culture and identity have been shaped by their challenges to the religious, socio-economic, and political status quo, whether in opposition to Spanish colonialism, Latin American dictatorships, US imperialism in Central America, the oppression of farmworkers, or the current exploitation of undocumented immigrants. Christianity has played a significant role in that movement at every stage. Robert Chao Romero, the son of a Mexican father and a Chinese immigrant mother, explores the history and theology of what he terms the "Brown Church."

Despite the commonly held assumption that the Bible says little about the mother of Jesus, there are many indications that Mary preceded and inspired her son in fostering the emergence of a new faith community. Setting aside presuppositions, Chris Maunder returns to the New Testament to answer the question: "Who was Mary?" He re-examines the virgin conception of Jesus, Mary's contribution to Jesus' ministry, and her central role in the events of the crucifixion and the resurrection. In so doing, Maunder casts a thought-provoking new light on Mary and the women who stood alongside her.

A friend feels rejected. A counselee is angry. A church member's child is ill. You want to help, but where do you begin? Author and counselor Michael R. Emlet outlines a model of one-another ministry based on how God sees and loves his people primarily as saints, while bringing comfort to the sufferer, and faithfully speaking truth to the sinner. Filled with everyday illustrations as well as counseling examples, Emlet demonstrates what it looks like to approach fellow believers simultaneously as saints, sufferers, and sinners.

Fresh Expressions is a canary in the coal mine, alerting congregations to reevaluate what the Church is, where and when it can happen, and who can lead it. Church as we know it is inaccessible to most people. A fundamental premise of the movement is that Church can become accessible again by emerging in every nook and cranny where life already happens. Fresh Expressions is based in simplification, returning to basic scriptural principles, and a recovery of a "priesthood of all believers" - in the three places where people live and relate to others.

Preston Poore has spent decades in corporate America. Despite all the excellent advice he was given for growing in leadership, there was something missing: a way to bring his Christian beliefs to bear in his professional life, not just his personal life. So Preston sought his own answer to how his faith could impact his management of hundreds of employees. What he discovered was this: The first step wasn't adjusting his leadership style. Instead, he needed to let God change him before he could effect real change in his workplace. 

The key to growth as a church, youth ministry, or a business is getting first-time guests to come back. It's about hospitality. The Come Back Effect reveals to church, ministry, and even business leaders the secret to helping a first-time guest return again and again. Through an engaging, story-driven approach, they explain how service and hospitality are two different things, describe how Jesus practiced hospitality, and invite leaders to develop and implement changes that lead to repeat visits and, eventually, to sustained growth. 

Each day men and women diagnosed with mental disorders are told they need to pray more and turn from their sin. Mental illness is equated with demonic possession, weak faith, and generational sin. As both a church leader and a professor of psychology and behavioral sciences, Michael S. Stanford has seen far too many mentally ill brothers and sisters damaged by well-meaning believers who respond to them out of fear or misinformation rather than grace. Grace for the Afflicted educates Christians about mental illness from both biblical and scientific perspectives. 

Thomas G. Long, one of America's most trusted and thoughtful pulpit voices, provides a much needed theological and cultural critique of today's Christian funeral. Long begins by describing how the Christian funeral developed historically, theologically, and liturgically and then discusses recent cultural trends in funeral practices, including the rise in number of cremations and memorial services. 

In The Purpose Gap, Patrick Reyes reflects on a family member's death after a long struggle with incarceration and homelessness. As he asks himself why his cousin's life had turned out so differently from his own, he realizes that it was a matter of conditions. While they both grew up in the same marginalized Chicano community in central California, Patrick found himself surrounded by a host of family, friends, and supporters. They created a different narrative for him than the one the rest of the world had succeeded in imposing on his cousin. 

Institutions remain essential to human flourishing. They are the means by which communities thrive, individual vocations are fulfilled, and society is changed for the good. As a result, we all need to learn how to work effectively within institutions. That is just what Gordon Smith provides. He unpacks the core of institutional intelligence - the wisdom of working effectively within an organization. At the same time, he explains how team leaders, directors, executives, board members, key stakeholders, and employees can avoid what is often their greatest source of stress on the job,

In this fascinating account of the surprisingly violent fifth-century church, Philip Jenkins describes how political maneuvers by a handful of powerful characters shaped Christian doctrine. Were it not for these battles, today's church could be teaching something very different about the nature of Jesus, and the papacy as we know it would never have come into existence. Jesus Wars reveals the profound implications of what amounts to an accident of history: that one faction of Roman emperors and militia-wielding bishops defeated another. 

This is the story of an audacious journey. It's the story of what happens when people garden, worship, and eat together and invite anyone and everyone to join them. In This Is God's Table, writer and pastor Anna Woofenden describes the way that the wealthy and the poor, the aged and the young, the housed and unhoused become a community in this once-empty lot.  

Africa has played a decisive role in the formation of Christian culture from its infancy. Some of the most decisive intellectual achievements of Christianity were explored and understood in Africa before they were in Europe. If this is so, why is Christianity so often perceived in Africa as a Western colonial import? How can Christians in Northern and sub-Saharan Africa, indeed, how can Christians throughout the world, rediscover and learn from this ancient heritage?

How should we think about church growth in our current cultural moment? The golden era ushered in by the industrial revolution led the Protestant church in America to experience unprecedented growth and prosperity in the twentieth century. This environment has formed our understanding of and...

The Apostolic Fathers is an important collection of writings revered by early Christians but not included in the final canon of the New Testament. Here a leading expert on these texts offers an authoritative contemporary translation, in the tradition of the magisterial Lightfoot version but...

Studying the views and lifestyles of your forerunners in the faith can provide incredible guidance for how you live out your spiritual convictions today. In Wisdom from the Ancients, author and scholar Bryan Litfin paints a vivid portrait of the first five centuries of the Christian church, packed with fascinating history and applicable insights for modern believers.