Scot McKnight

Biblical Studies & Commentaries

“The Gospel of John traps us. We open it, we read it, we get lost in it; we learn its vocabulary and themes and movements and sudden bursts of claims; we meet characters we've never met before, and we hear conversations up close and personal, and we get lost in this Gospel's time and place—and we are trapped. In a good way. Never to be the same again. When we look up from this Gospel's pages to see the world around us, it's a little like the Pevensie children finding themselves again in the wardrobe, tumbling back on the floor of reality. As they wanted to return to Narnia, so we want to return to John's world. He first trapped me in 1974, and I've not been the same since. Rodney Reeves leads us to the door of the wardrobe, he opens the door, and he guides us long enough to get lost in the Gospel itself. What a wonderful book!”

The Acts of the Apostles

Biblical Studies & Commentaries

Foreword

“In this little commentary by Dunn you have insight, measured judgment about history and theology and context, and suggestions that take the preacher to the heart of what the book of Acts can mean for us today. I always begin any study of any passage in the book of Acts by pulling out Jimmy's commentary. I go to others when I'm done, but often enough I get all I need in Dunn.”

The Bible vs. Biblical Womanhood

Theology

“No scholar of the New Testament and church has spent more energy in examining and explicating the role of women in leadership and teaching and preaching than Phil Payne. His scholarship is well-known and impeccably fair-minded. This book judiciously and pastorally unravels the tight threads woven by complementarians and weaves them into a fresh, new tapestry that is both biblical and pastoral. It will be for me the go-to book for lay folks who need a response to the complementarians.”

The Books of the Bible

Biblical Studies & Commentaries

“There is no Bible more suited to reading from beginning to end.”

The Crucifixion

Theology

“In this amazingly complex but clear book Fleming Rutledge goes deftly where few seem willing to go — to the variety of imaginations shaping early Christian explorations of the significance of Jesus' death. She is one of the few theologians who not only preach inclusivism but practice it by inviting all points of view into the discussion.”

The Crucifixion of the Warrior God

Theology

“Nothing shakes the faith of the morally sensitive more than the shocking violence of God as depicted in specific Old Testament texts, and yet nothing confirms the faith of the same people more than the cruciform love and peace of Jesus in the New Testament. Boyd's proposal is to bring these two poles into a cruciform hermeneutic. The old approach of Marcion doesn't resolve the problem, and neither do dismissals of the Old Testament in favor of the New nor do question-betting theological explanations help. What Greg Boyd does in The Crucifixion of the Warrior God is nothing less than a stunning re-imagination of how to read the Bible afresh through the cross of Jesus.”

The Death of the Messiah and the Birth of the New Covenant

Theology

“Atonement theologies have for some become atonement wars that mirror culture wars. Atonement theologies have become obsessed with the mechanics of atonement, that is, how God accomplished atonement--how justice was dealt with, how sin was erased, how God's wrath was pacified. Far too often atonement theologies have focused on what is less known and ignored what is known. Michael Gorman in The Death of the Messiah and the Birth of the New Covenant, has accomplished keeping our eyes on what is known: that in the death and resurrection of Jesus, God has formed a new covenant people.”

The Divine Conspiracy Bible Study Participant's Guide

Bible Studies & Devotionals

“The Divine Conspiracy shaped an entire generation.”

The Drama of Ephesians

Biblical Studies & Commentaries

“Tim Gombis knows Ephesians from the inside out, from what Paul meant in his world to what Paul means now--in our world, at the most mundane of levels. Gombis writes both as professor and pastor, as one who thinks clearly and one who applies thoroughly. The Drama of Ephesians blew strong winds on flickering flames in my own thought, and I hope it does the same for you. Pay attention to Tim Gombis, because he's a professor who knows the church is his community's center.”

The Emotions of God

Biblical Studies & Commentaries

“We need this book because so many today are afraid or uncomfortable with God's emotions that stand up and shout at us. All over the place. Theologians have concocted an unemotional (impassible) God, but that God is not the God of the Bible. DavidLamb has patiently examined seven emotions of God, and he has done so in the context of ancient and modern discussions of feelings. What we discover is that our discomfort is not God's: our God is an emotional God, and those divine emotions can become our instructors for our feelings. A must-read.”

The End of Evangelicalism? Discerning a New Faithfulness for Mission

Theology

“In your hands is one of the sharpest and informed evaluations of the state of evangelicalism. Read it slowly. Ponder it. Plot a better evangelicalism.”

The Epistle of James

Biblical Studies & Commentaries

“James has emerged from an unlit corner in the library of early Christian scholarship onto the front table, and this series of studies, using systemic-functional linguistics wrapped up in classic historical exegesis, penetrates deeply into this letter with force and insight. For a long time this study will prove itself useful to anyone serious about studying James.”

The Fourfold Office of Christ

Theology

“The news media surround-sounds us with politics and elections, 24/7. It has become impossible not to take a stand, not to develop a view, not to form a politics. It’s also possible to do all this without solid footings in the gospel or the design of God for his people to be witnesses in the world. John Nugent’s very clever, but compelling model of the fourfold offices of Christ as the Christian posture toward politics will prove to be useful to all who listen carefully.”

The Freedom of Surrender

Bible Studies & Devotionals

“A word of Jesus stands alongside these daily reflections, and that word is 'self-denial.' It was the word, along with the image of a looming cross, that Jesus gave to his close followers immediately after Peter astounded them all when he named Jesus as 'Messiah.' Self-denial is a beautiful Christian term until it is something we need to deny to ourselves, and forty of such things are named by Mary DeMuth in this book. In The Freedom of Surrender we experience the joys of freely surrendering to God what God wants us to give up, while we also experience the hazards to our propensities to hang on to them. A deeply formative book. A voice for our day.”

The Good and Beautiful God

Prayer & Spiritual Formation

“Most of us want to change, whether it is changing some bad habit to changing a deeply ingrained character defect, and Smith reminds us that change does not result from willpower. The will has no power. Spiritual change begins with God—what we think about God shapes what we think about ourselves and those around us and our world. Spiritual change begins with a narrative where God is the center: What is our 'narrative' of God? What are the narratives that hinder ourperception and life in God? A major feature of this series is the power of false narratives in our lives and the power of good narratives that can effect change. The false narrative is that effort and willpower leads to change. The true narrative is about God—about Christ—about the Spirit—and about your place in the God Narrative.”

The Good and Beautiful You

Christian Living

“More than most realize, the bottom level of discussions about many of the currents in our life is, Who are we? That is, anthropology. Jim Smith fulfills one of Dallas Willard's major hopes for the spiritual formation movement in this book—a Christian and biblical framing of who we are as persons, as souls. The danger of all such studies is self-idolatry, and that is why I so heartily recommend this book. Here we are called to understand ourselves as God created us and understands us and envelops us in Christ, that is, in his love and grace and transforming power.”

The Gospel According to Paul

Biblical Studies & Commentaries

“Graham Twelftree's meticulous examination contends the gospel must be seen in all its fullness and not through a single, narrow lens. This book will prove to be a significant turning point in gospel studies and deserves a wide, fair, and conversational reading.”

The Gospels Are Reliable History

Apologetics

“I am persuaded that the New Testament Gospels intended to tell their audiences, whether readers or listeners, about Jesus and that is why the evangelists chose to write ‘lives’ of Jesus, or what Keener has called ‘Christobiographies.’ Alongside that persuasion, I am persuaded too that the evangelists intended to communicate living truths to their audiences. This means the Gospels are designed to achieve two goals at once: to bear witness to Jesus and to teach their audiences. And they did so according to the standards of history in their world. No author has done more today to establish the general reliability and trustworthiness of the Gospels than Craig Keener, and this book makes his decades of research available to a more general audience. In a day when many scholars think all we have are ‘memories’ about Jesus, Keener shows that the texts capture in writing certain facts about the life of Jesus, facts that had been told and retold for decades by his earliest followers.”

The Herods

Biblical Studies & Commentaries

“The Herodians are an irritation for a number of reasons, not least because their motives and theocratic rationales have to be read through another irritation--Josephus. What irritates scholars in the study of the Herods is the welter of opinions about each of the Herodians as well as the lengthy cast of characters outside that family that appear here and there on the stage and then, with lights on someone else, disappear without resolving our questions. Chilton's study adds to all these irritations and, in so doing, sorts through the literature and history and scholarship with scholarly acuity and the literary skills for which he is known. Throughout, Chilton has his eye for wisdom about governance the dangers of religiously based empire as he meanders through the twists and turns and tortures of these potentates. Don't be surprised if your politics, your theo-politics, are under review as this book unfolds.”

The High Definition Leader

Church Leadership & Ministry

“Pastors listen to pastors who do pastoring well, and churches ought to listen to churches that do church well. Theory sounds better on paper more often than it works, but churches that have learned how to be the church in a fast-changing America deserve our ear. Transformation Church in Charlotte and their courageous leader, Derwin Gray, deserve our ear for one reason: they are mapping the path that leads to the multiethnic church, to a high-definition vision of what the church must become in an America increasingly filled with racial tension. Both Derwin’s story and Transformation Church’s are visions of a new kind of church. No vision is more needed in the United States of America because if our churches don’t become multiethnic the word united at the federal level will be mocked by the word divided in the churches. Derwin Gray has a better idea: let local churches lead by becoming united churches as a prophetic voice for a more united nation.”