Regular price: £17.19
In The Day the Revolution Began, N. T. Wright once again challenges commonly held Christian beliefs, as he did in Surprised by Hope. Demonstrating the rigorous intellect and breathtaking knowledge that have long defined his work, Wright argues that Jesus' death on the cross was not only to absolve us of our sins, it was actually the beginning of a revolution commissioning the Christian faithful to a new vocation - a royal priesthood responsible for restoring and reconciling all of God's creation.
Did the historical person Jesus really regard himself as the Son of God? What did Jesus actually stand for? And what are we to make of the early Christian conviction that Jesus physically rose from the dead? In this book, N. T. Wright considers these and many other questions raised by three controversial books about Jesus: Barbara Thiering's Jesus the Man, A. N. Wilson's Jesus: A Life, and John Shelby Spong's Born of a Woman.
The Challenge of Jesus poses a double-edged challenge: to grow in our understanding of the historical Jesus within the Palestinian world of the first century, and to follow Jesus more faithfully into the postmodern world of the 21st century.
N.T. Wright's accessible new volume, built on his Cambridge University Hulsean Lectures of 2004, takes a fresh look at Paul in light of recent understandings of his Jewish roots, his attitude toward the Roman Empire, and his unique reframing of Jewish symbols in relation to his experience of the risen Christ. Then Wright attempts a short systematic account of the main theological contours of Paul's thought and its pertinence for the church today.
With every earthquake and war, understanding the nature of evil and our response to it becomes more urgent. Evil is no longer the concern just of ministers and theologians but also of politicians and the media. We hear of child abuse, ethnic cleansing, AIDS, torture and terrorism, and rightfully we are shocked. N. T. Wright says that we should not be surprised. For too long we have naively believed in the modern idea of human progress.
Many people think the message of the Gospel is that if we believe in Jesus, we will be saved from hell and be transported to heaven after we die. But what if that is not what the Bible actually teaches? What if the good news Jesus came to announce is much bigger, much better, and includes much more than merely what happens after we die? Revered best-selling scholar N. T. Wright reveals what the gospel really is and how it can transform our todays just as much as our tomorrows.
In The Day the Revolution Began, N. T. Wright once again challenges commonly held Christian beliefs, as he did in Surprised by Hope. Demonstrating the rigorous intellect and breathtaking knowledge that have long defined his work, Wright argues that Jesus' death on the cross was not only to absolve us of our sins, it was actually the beginning of a revolution commissioning the Christian faithful to a new vocation - a royal priesthood responsible for restoring and reconciling all of God's creation.
Did the historical person Jesus really regard himself as the Son of God? What did Jesus actually stand for? And what are we to make of the early Christian conviction that Jesus physically rose from the dead? In this book, N. T. Wright considers these and many other questions raised by three controversial books about Jesus: Barbara Thiering's Jesus the Man, A. N. Wilson's Jesus: A Life, and John Shelby Spong's Born of a Woman.
The Challenge of Jesus poses a double-edged challenge: to grow in our understanding of the historical Jesus within the Palestinian world of the first century, and to follow Jesus more faithfully into the postmodern world of the 21st century.
N.T. Wright's accessible new volume, built on his Cambridge University Hulsean Lectures of 2004, takes a fresh look at Paul in light of recent understandings of his Jewish roots, his attitude toward the Roman Empire, and his unique reframing of Jewish symbols in relation to his experience of the risen Christ. Then Wright attempts a short systematic account of the main theological contours of Paul's thought and its pertinence for the church today.
With every earthquake and war, understanding the nature of evil and our response to it becomes more urgent. Evil is no longer the concern just of ministers and theologians but also of politicians and the media. We hear of child abuse, ethnic cleansing, AIDS, torture and terrorism, and rightfully we are shocked. N. T. Wright says that we should not be surprised. For too long we have naively believed in the modern idea of human progress.
Many people think the message of the Gospel is that if we believe in Jesus, we will be saved from hell and be transported to heaven after we die. But what if that is not what the Bible actually teaches? What if the good news Jesus came to announce is much bigger, much better, and includes much more than merely what happens after we die? Revered best-selling scholar N. T. Wright reveals what the gospel really is and how it can transform our todays just as much as our tomorrows.
In this book of pastoral reflections, N. T. Wright explores how the Lord's Prayer sums up what Jesus was all about in his first-century setting. Wright locates the Lord's Prayer, clause by clause, within the historical life and work of Jesus and allows the prayer's devotional application to grow out of its historical context. The result is a fresh understanding of Christian spirituality and the life of prayer. This deeply devotional book will refresh and stimulate the heart and mind of any listener.
Best-selling author Rob Bell, using his inspired and inquisitive approach, focuses on the most widely read book of all time. He provides surprising insights and answers about how the Bible actually works as a source of faith and guidance, showing a brand-new way of interpreting this sacred text. Rob Bell, the beloved author of Love Wins and What We Talk About When We Talk About God, goes deep into the Bible to show how it is more revelatory, revolutionary, and relevant than we ever imagined....
2012 marks the 60th anniversary of the publication of C. S. Lewis’s classic, Mere Christianity. Having sold over half a million copies in the UK alone, his overview of Christianity has been imitated many times, but never outdone. Mere Christianity brings together Lewis’s legendary broadcasts from the war years; talks in which he set out simply to ‘"explain and defend the belief that has been common to nearly all Christians at all times."
The Trinity is supposed to be the central doctrine grounding Christianity, yet we're often told that we shouldn't attempt to understand it because it's a mystery. But what if we breached that mystery? How might it transform our relationship with God?
An intelligent, intellectually rigorous examination of why the Christian faith still makes sense in an age of scepticism. As the pastor of an inner-city church in New York City, Timothy Keller has compiled a list of the most frequently voiced doubts sceptics bring to his church as well as the most important reasons for faith. In The Reason for God, he addresses each doubt and explains each reason.
In honor of the 50th anniversary of C. S. Lewis' death, celebrated Oxford don Dr. Alister McGrath presents us with a compelling and definitive portrait of the life of C. S. Lewis, the author of the well-known Narnia series. For more than half a century, C. S. Lewis’ Narnia series has captured the imaginations of millions. In C. S. Lewis - A Life, Dr. Alister McGrath recounts the unlikely path of this Oxford don, who spent his days teaching English literature to the brightest students in the world and his spare time writing.
The rise of secular gods presents the most serious challenge to the absolute claims of Christ since the founding of Christianity itself. The Christian worldview has not only been devalued and dismissed by modern culture, but its believers are openly ridiculed as irrelevant. In Jesus Among Secular Gods, Ravi Zacharias and Vince Vitale challenge the popular "isms" of the day, skillfully pointing out the fallacies in their claims and presenting compelling evidence for revealed absolute truth as found in Jesus.
The NIV Audio Bible read by David Suchet has been arranged into daily readings to help you listen to the complete Bible in one year. In this digital download version, there is a portion from the Old Testament, the New Testament and the Psalms or Proverbs each day - each on a separate track, to make it easy to navigate. Ever since he became a Christian at the age of 40, it was Poirot actor David Suchet's dream to make an audio recording of the whole Bible.
Brian McLaren guides us on this quest for an explanation of these spiritual practices, many of which go all the way back to Abraham and the establishment of Israel. In the midst of contemporary Christianity, we discover the beauty of these ancient disciplines and the transformation through Christ that each can provide.
The most profound characteristic of Western Europe in the Middle Ages was its cultural and religious unity, a unity secured by a common alignment with the Pope in Rome and a common language - Latin - for worship and scholarship. The Reformation shattered that unity, and the consequences are still with us today.
New York Times best-selling author Rob Bell shows us how to discover the greatness we were born for, successfully pursue our dreams, find our paths, and live confident, fulfilled lives. Rob Bell believes that each of us has a path, a calling - whether it's writing a novel, starting a business, joining a band, or simply becoming a volunteer. But many people are afraid to start on that path. Who are we to do that? Bell counters, why not you? We need to learn to turn off the internal and external critics and leap.
What can the call to discipleship, the adherence to the word of Jesus, mean today to the businessman, the soldier, the laborer, or the aristocrat? What did Jesus mean to say to us? What is his will for us today? Drawing on the Sermon on the Mount, Dietrich Bonhoeffer answers these timeless questions by providing a seminal reading of the dichotomy between "cheap grace" and "costly grace."
One of the world's most trusted Bible scholars, N. T. Wright turns his attention to the central collection of prayers that Jesus and Paul knew best: the book of Psalms. Wright points out that the Psalms have served as the central prayer and hymnbook for the church since its beginning - until now. In The Case for the Psalms, Wright calls us to return to the Psalms as a steady, vital component of healthy Christian living.
Reading, studying, and praying the Psalms is God's means for teaching us what it means to be human: how to express our emotions and yearnings, how to reconcile our anger and our compassion, how to see our story in light of God's sweeping narrative of salvation. Wright provides the tools for understanding and incorporating these crucial verses into our own lives. His conclusion is simple: all Christians need to read, pray, sing, and live the Psalms.
Five years ago, if you had asked me what my least favorite part of the bible is, I would have probably said the Psalms. I might have said the lists genealogies or Numbers, but most likely I would have said Psalms.
However, The Case for the Psalms is the third book on the Psalms I have read this year and I am moving toward a greater appreciation of the role of the Psalms, not only as illustrations of the range of biblical expression but as important centers for Christian worship and theology.
I grew up low church, I remain low church, but I appreciate more all the time the liturgical parts of the Christian church and the role of the Book of Common Prayer and various other expressions of historic worship. Not because I have an emotional attachment to them, but because I see how the role of liturgy shapes the life of the Christian.
I have not completely bought into James Smith’s liturgical project (Imagining the Kingdom), but I continue to struggle with how to think about transforming the overtly evangelistic worship of my megachurch to include more historic elements of Christian liturgical worship. (Not that I am a decision maker or in anyway involved in worship planning at my church.)
And this where NT Wright comes in again. As a consistent voice calling for the church to maintain the importance of scripture (see Scripture and the Authority of God) Wright has helped me see that a church that is not shaped by scripture is not doing the work of the church. No Evangelical churches are explicitly rejecting scripture, but there are many that, while verbally upholding the importance of scripture, do not actually spend much time reading it publicly or using it as part of worship.
I am all for modern worship music. And I fully admit that modern worship music does not have the full theological richness of some historic hymns. However, that is a false comparison, it is comparing the best of history of the wide swath of current music. But even the historic best of Christian hymns did not spend a lot of time including the Psalms. Prayer books and liturgical orders of service always included the Psalms and historically most church worship has had a mixture of scripture, current musical expression, historic worship and some amount of teaching.
The Case for the Psalms is not a commentary on Psalms, but an exploration of the themes of Psalms and the reason why Psalms are indispensable for Christian worship. Wright commonly moves into hyperbole in many of his books, but this is one case where I think he has made his case without overstating the case too strongly.
The Psalms keep our worship grounded. They show a wide range of human emotion toward God and keep us from minimizing our humanness as created by God. The Psalms center our focus on worship using temple, heavenly, nature and other metaphors for bringing wonder to the fore.
The Psalms give the church a common worship language, which may be even more important as the church, even in a small geography, has lost a lot of its common cultural language.
The Psalms also are historic, the same Psalms that we use in worship were used by the early church, by Jesus, by Israel in Exile, by the Reformers, by 5th Century Monks and by 21st Century believers around the world.
The Case for the Psalms ends with a personal appendix from Wright about how he personally uses the Psalms for worship and how he has been transformed by them. This is a good illustration of why I think he is such an important figure in modern Evangelical scholarship. Because even in the midst of the densest of his academic writing, there are glimmers of his pastoral experience and pastoral heart. The Case for the Psalms is overt in his pastoral focus. This still has an academic tint, but it is more a pastoral call than an academic treatise.
(originally posted on my blog, Bookwi.se)
4 of 4 people found this review helpful
Wonderful exposition of the timeless truths in the Psalms. Simplicity, direct and clear analysis. The afterward is tremendous. Nice job by the reader.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful
I was disappointed in this as an audiobook. Wright reads well, and is engaging, but too much is given to lengthy psalm quotes. I am sure that more conventional believers will love the book, but it just didn't work for me despite the brilliance of the ancient poetry is is addressing.
2 of 3 people found this review helpful
not as good as c.s. Lewis's work on the psalms but its probably better than anything else available on audible with regards_to_the_psalms.if_you_read_N.T._Wright_before_this_is_basically_his_same_ideas_but_focused_on_psalms. so read CS.Lewis & then this.
What was most disappointing about N. T. Wright’s story?
I was unable to focus on the content because the narration is so dry and boring and at times: painful.
0 of 2 people found this review helpful