Showing results by narrator "Joffre Swait" in All Categories

You have been lied to about Christopher Columbus. You know the year he sailed the ocean blue. And maybe you heard that he committed crimes against humanity. But The Last Crusader sets the record straight. More than anything, Christopher Columbus sought the means to subsidize a new Crusade to free the Holy Land from the Moslem hordes. Yes Columbus hoped to open trade routes to the Indies, and he certainly aspired to the privileges and titles that come with discovering new lands. But Christian zeal for the Great Commission was the animating principle for a life of danger and risk and discovery.

Samuel. Saul. David. Goliath. Jonathan. When we think of 1 & 2 Samuel, these names and the stories that make them memorable generally come to mind. But these narratives are more than mere history. Peter Leithart offers here a typological reading of 1 & 2 Samuel as a unified book. By giving careful attention to the book's literary structures and its patterns of types and antitypes, Leithart unveils the symbolic world of Samuel's cumulative and cohesive story.

Down swept the Vikings from the frigid North. Across the English coastlands and countryside they raided, torched, murdered, and destroyed all in their path. Farmers, monks, and soldiers all fell bloody under the Viking sword, hammer, and axe. Then, when the hour was most desperate, came an unlikely hero. King Alfred rallied the battered and bedraggled kingdoms of Britain and after decades of plotting, praying, and persisting, finally triumphed over the invaders.

The book of Ecclesiastes is confusing to many believers, who see it as a debate between an untrustworthy nihilist and a genuinely wise man who trust in God instead of giving way to despair. However, Douglas Wilson takes issue with this interpretation, arguing that the author of Ecclesiastes is looking at the world with biblically informed vision. Because God is sovereign and will one day judge all men and restore the world, believers can work, rejoice, marry, eat, and worship God in hope.

The church at Corinth was infested with so-called super-apostles. They were stylish and well-spoken, and they were out to turn the church against the apostle Paul. They cast him as a frail, indecisive fumbler who got beat up everywhere he went. So Paul responded with a full-length account of the glory of Christian weakness.

In the Garden of Eden, there was only one "No." Everything else was "Yes." In this short book on childrearing, Douglas Wilson points out that we have a Father who delights in us and makes it easy for us to love and obey him. If that is the kind of Father we have, shouldn't we earthly parents do the same? Wilson explains how parents should not just try to get their kids to obey a set of rules or to make their house so fun that following the rules is always easy. Instead, he calls for parents to instill in their kids a love for God and His standards that will serve them well all their days.

Deftly guiding listeners through “the four,” Peter Leithart delves into both the unique perspective of each gospel and their unifying witness to Jesus. The gospels are riddled with themes and types; Leithart reveals them and explains the Old Testament prophecies that intertwine with these apostolic books, as well as their underlying literary structures. He discusses the dating of the books, showing how the timeline of the four gospels lace together, and lays out Israel's history leading up to John the Baptist's birth.

So begins a dark, but sturdy epic full of warriors, dragons, monsters of the deep, mead halls, and mounds of treasure. Beowulf is the great Norse epic poem, and one of the great inspirations for J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. In this bold and truly innovative translation, Douglas Wilson reproduces the alliteration and stresses of the original, though being more dynamic with particular wording.

To be fully educated, it is necessary to listen to the great pagan classics of Homer and Virgil and the ancient Greek playwrights. However, many Christians are often disgusted by the barbarity and violence, put off by the emphasis on honor and man-centered glory, and simply baffled by the long and tedious descriptions of battle scenes and elaborate ceremonies.

In what shape do we find the doctrine of Sola Scriptura today? Many modern Evangelicals see it as a license to ignore history and the creeds in favor of a more splintered approach to Christian living. In the past two decades, Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox apologists have strongly tried to undermine Sola Scriptura as unbiblical, unhistorical, and impractical. But these groups rest their cases on a recent, false take on Sola Scriptura. The ancient, medieval, and classical Protestant view of Sola Scriptura actually has quite a different shape than most opponents and defenders maintain

The harvest is ready, but the laborers are few. We need evangelists now more than ever, coming from decades of faithful witnessing as a pastor, a U.S. Navy officer, and a door-to-door evangelist, Taking Men Alive: Evangelism on the Front Lines shares Jim Wilson's extensive wisdom on evangelism. Jim's insights have been gleaned from a huge variety of personal interactions and straightforward (yet surprising) exegesis of biblical accounts of evangelism.

This anthology of over a hundred poems written by Calvinists is a surprising introduction to the aesthetics of the Reformed tradition. Who knew there was such a host of Calvinist poets? Containing notes and short biographies to aid your enjoyment, this collection is the perfect starting point for appreciating these men and women—and the faith that inspired their words.

Frank Ewert's disarming collection of short fiction starts off with an inside view of small-time, big identity Canadian hockey, its meaning, its plays, its lingo. But each story's distinct voice quickly reveals universal themes of rivalry, calling, discipline, infatuation, and national dignity that invite every reader to be more than a spectator. The characters have keen direction and surprising priorities that open this unknown world to the uninitiated.

In this short but stimulating work, Peter Leithart draws upon insights from history, theology, philosophy, and literature to connect two of the most glorious and unique truths of Christianity; its hopeful eschatology and its doctrine of a dynamic, personal Trinity. First, Leithart shows that the biblical view of history is essentially comic and hopeful, in contrast to the classical Greco-Roman view, which is essentially and irredeemably tragic.

This cheerful collection of rumbling poetry is the perfect introduction to the good life—the life each Christian should be living. There is wine, there are riddles, there is war with sin, there are jokes...all uttered in appreciation of this world that God made out of his own words. We all can imitate him: Poetry is a way of life.

The Christian faith is a call to adventure. Be inspired by these thirty-two saints and give thanks for their faithful stories. Now go and do likewise where God has put you.

A Taste of Sabbath is a short defense of Sabbath celebration, which includes practical suggestions as to how to better remember the rest which the Lord has given us.

So observes the Church Curmudgeon, the internet's most infamous purveyor of fine vintage whines. With more than nine thousand tweets and ninety thousand followers, he's proven himself a stalwart of holy hilarity. Enjoy this poetic collection of the Curmudgeon's best 140-character compositions.

Covenant nurture of Christian children must begin with God's promises about covenant succession. Christian parents today face a disturbing exodus of their children from the Church to the world. Why is this? What is the place of children within the faith? What do the promises mean? Recognizing that this subject is fraught with difficulty and grief, the twelve contributors to this volume seek to address the hard questions and lay a biblical foundation of hope for our children.

In this collection of essays, Douglas Wilson explores all sorts of areas where the Bible should be applied in our lives--but isn’t. From the home to the public square, from the marriage bed to the pulpit, Doug uses Scriptural wisdom to expose the rot of our modern culture, and to show us how to build a culture with Christ at its center.