Scot McKnight

Unarmed Empire

Ethics, Culture & Social Issues

Foreword

(wrote the foreword)

Unveiling Paul’s Women

Biblical Studies & Commentaries

Foreword

“I’m persuaded that Lucy Peppiatt is pushing us to significant improvement [in interpretation] when it comes to 1 Corinthians 11.”

Using Our Outside Voice

Biblical Studies & Commentaries

“Using Our Outside Voice responds to the ongoing claim by many evangelicals that progressives have a low view of Scripture. Here one will find an introduction to biblical hermeneutics that is pointed without being polemical, alert about how we move the Bible into the public without being pedantic, and most of all, Carey offers us all a wonderful example of how a first-rate teacher works out interpretation with students. What we say about the Bible works ripple-like into our culture and Using Our Outside Voice reminds us that what we professors and preachers say, what we write, and what we claim matters more than we may ever know.”

Vote Jesus Christ

Biblical Studies & Commentaries

“The problem with Scott Spencer’s book is that it is too perceptive to be listed among the political theology books. There is a pastoral theology in abundance, institutional critique cropping up, and personal discipleship challenges on every page. Plus, it’s clever and fun and satirical all at once. I hope churches preach this book in the run-up to elections because it offers a bold Jesus- and cross- and kingdom-shaped vision of Christianity, the church, and Christian leaders. This book shows that we have failed to realize this vision more than we care to admit.”

What Did the Ancient Israelites Eat?

Biblical Studies & Commentaries

“I heartily recommend it for three big reasons: a very readable book, careful in method and approach, and judicious in conclusion. There is nothing simplistic and grandiose about this book. There's a 'just the facts' approach that is more than willing to admit when we can't be sure. This could be a wonderful addition to any Old Testament course because it is interesting, well-written, and a model for how to do judicious work.”

What If Jesus Was Serious about the Church?

“"The most common word for church in the New Testament is not in fact 'church.' It's not building or institution or enterprise either. No, the most common word for church is two words: brothers and sisters. In other words, Jesus came to form you and me into siblings in a new family. Skye Jethani's short, crisp, always to-the-point chapters in this book sketch a way not for church shift or church change but church transformation from the ground up. His vision begins with the church as the family God and each of us as brothers and sisters. He offers an old vision that has been lost in churches that have gotten lost in their vision of church as corporation and managed by entrepreneurs. The old vision is that church is a family where Jesus and the Table are the focus. A wonderful book!”

What's So Funny About God?

Theology

“We Christians live between the deadly serious crucifixion and the incredibly exhilarating resurrection. One leads us to somber reflections on our mortality, injustice, and the gifts of grace and forgiveness. The other leads us to ponder immortality, to live with courage, and yes, to consider the utter hilarity of God entering death to bring life, of becoming human so we could become godly, and of telling stories (like Job, Jonah, and the parables of Jesus) so we could find the mysteries of life. Over the years of teaching the New Testament, I am convinced that humor, sometimes subtle and indirect and other times overt and direct, is found in the New Testament and can be used to enlighten our faith. It takes no imagination to consider those overhearing Jesus give it to the political and religious leaders poking one another in the ribs, and one can't read Paul's letter to Philemon and not feel the clever moves Paul makes to convince the man to welcome his runaway slave home. There it is: utterly serious dimensions of life-opening grace through the gift of humor. The funniest evening I ever had with theologians was in Baltimore, and Steve Wilkens was in the middle of it. Every pastor and professor needs to read this book, perhaps a few pages at a time before speaking to humans who can know God's ways through humor. Hilarity is the reverse side of serious.”

Whispers of Revolution

Theology

“A one-stop sketch of all things Jesus: his identity, his life, his teachings, his relation with contemporaries, his battles during the last week, his death, and his resurrection—all with citation and commentary on the best of recent scholarship. What others have done in a multivolume set or in multiauthored volumes Bird has done for us in the compass of a single, accessible, and splendid read. Bird cuts a clear path between the skeptical and the fideistic approaches to Jesus and, in doing so, has laid a foundation for further development of a New Testament theology.”

Why the Gospel?

Theology

Foreword

“Matthew Bates’s Why the Gospel? will help you discover God’s fullest gospel purposes, so that you and others can more thoroughly embrace a lifestyle of loyal discipleship.”

Women and the Gender of God

Theology

“The story of God is the story of Jesus Christ, and the story of Christ is also the story of Mary of Nazareth. No story of the Christian God can be told without the story of Mary. Incarnation through a woman reveals who God is. Pause with that thought as you consider most Protestant theologies, most Protestant sermons, most Protestant approaches to Christian formation, and most Protestant Sunday school curricula. All the way down, Mary has disappeared from the only story we know in the Bible. Protestant theology needs to be schooled in theotokos theology. Amy Peeler’s Women and the Gender of God has done this for us, dismantling the patriarchy by exclaiming precisely what Mary prophesied, ‘From now all generations will call me ‘Blessed!’”

World Christianity

Church Leadership & Ministry

Foreword

“How can we become more global without losing our connection to the local? How can we become more global by learning a narrative that embraces our local story into the global church’s story? I recommend heartily the new book by Graham Joseph Hill called World Christianity: An Introduction. This truly is an important book, and its impact will take years to absorb—generations. Absorbing it, however, can be revolutionary as it draws us into a worldwide movement of God.”

Yesterday, Today, and Forever

Bible Studies & Devotionals

“The grandeur and beauty of the book of Hebrews are only matched by its avoidance and near ignorance in the church. . . . In Yesterday, Today, and Forever, Cockerill puts his lifetime of studying and living Hebrews on the table in front of us and in a plate served just to us. This beautiful, timely book is what the church needs!”

Young, Restless, No Longer Reformed

Theology

Foreword

“This book tells Austin Fischer's story, and I hope you read it, and I hope you get a bunch of friends to read it together. Talk about it and ask [the] question, . . . "Is the Calvinist God the God we discover when we look into the face of Jesus, the incarnation of God?" Austin tells his answers to [this question] at the age many need to begin answering [that] question.”