Scot McKnight

Apologetics

“The Bible presents many problems to many readers, and they can be forceful and fearless in their questioning traditional beliefs in the Bible. It’s because Dan’s pastoral heart has heard people ask these questions and because he has worked through their issues that there is no one in the world better to write this book than Dan Kimball. A book full of theological wisdom and pastoral care for honest Bible readers who have genuine and difficult questions about the Bible.”

How (Not) to Read the Bible Study Guide plus Streaming Video

Bible Studies & Devotionals

How God Became King

Biblical Studies & Commentaries

“One quiet step for the world but one courageous step for the church. That’s what How God Became King can be today. Tom Wright continues to urge and prod and propose how the church can regain a kingdom footing and end its empire heritage. And, he shows us how we can reshape both what we think about Jesus and how we follow him in our world. We need kingdom proposals not only for the church, but for the world -- and when the church starts to look more like kingdom the world will begin to hear its quiet steps.”

How Scripture Interprets Scripture

Biblical Studies & Commentaries

“New Testament professors might remind us that if Paul were to take our seminary exegesis classes, he’d fail because he doesn’t use the historical-critical method, which shows that there’s something not quite right about what we teach. Graves joins a new wave of scholarship that challenges the adequacy of the historical-critical method, takes comprehensive theological exegesis seriously, and finds in the Scriptures themselves nothing less than Scripture interpreting Scripture in an unfolding drama that leads us into the wisdom of God. Knowing what an author meant in context may be the place to begin, but once we hear the text, we realize the Word of God is alive and at times takes us to unanticipated and wholly glorious places.”

If Jesus Is Lord

Theology

“Over and over lone voices, the most significant being Ron Sider’s, have been calling Christians to think again, probe more deeply, and become more faithful to the paradigm of the cross. But that cross emerged from the teachings and life of Jesus. From Jesus’s opening sermon in Nazareth to the cross there is a consistent vision—pacifist to the core—that needs to become our vision all over again. A consistent follower of Jesus is a pacifist, and Ron Sider has demonstrated this one more time. I have been reading Sider for forty years, and this is his best case yet.”

In God We Trust

Ethics, Culture & Social Issues

“What we need in the United States is a primer by a responsible historian providing the basic questions people ask about Christianity and the country’s founding and then answering those questions clearly and compellingly. In God We Trust does just that: ten bold questions with ten nuanced responses. Fea’s prose is so clear that political and Christian leaders can distribute this book by the dozen to discussion groups. This primer will be as useful to a local library as to a local church. What the First Amendment does not seem to do, this book does.”

Interpreting Paul

Biblical Studies & Commentaries

“Just when I wondered what N. T. Wright might write next we get a 3 volume circus of revolving themes and perspectives and worldviews that illustrate why Wright is the most influential biblical scholar in the English-speaking world: Wright is one of the few who shapes conversations in both Gospels studies and Pauline studies. These essays bring to the front Wright's engaging prose, his undeniable courage to go where few have gone, and his joy to bridge the work of the academy and the church. Another treasure trove of studies.”

Introducing Theological Method

Theology

“A paradigmatic book for students of theology as it sketches with skill the context and method of the most important theological voices of the last century. Moreover, it does not tell students how to do theology but shows how great thinkers do theology, leaving the student with a diversity of approaches and the challenge to discover what will be best for that student.”

Introverts in the Church

Christian Living

Foreword

(wrote the foreword)

Jesus according to the New Testament

Biblical Studies & Commentaries

“Jesus according to the New Testament comprises dozens of insights for professors, a bag full of learning opportunities for students, and a multitude of suggestions for preachers and pastors. Dunn’s top-level, judicious scholarship shines forth on each page. Too often we get lost in battles about theological topics or historical connections and miss the main point. Dunn keeps us focused on the heart of the gospel and the New Testament—the Lord Jesus.”

Jesus and Christian Origins

Biblical Studies & Commentaries

“Jesus and Christian Origins penetrates deeply into how New Testament studies are done . . . This book is both an introduction to how history and Jesus fit into the New Testament while at the same contributing to each topic discussed. A remarkable achievement!”

Jesus and the Cross

Theology

“How, Laughlin asks, can we connect God's will to the cross of Jesus if the cross was itself an act of evil and injustice? How can the Christian theologian not see the inherent contradiction of God's love and grace in (an) act of such barbaric injustice? Do not some atonement theories implicate God in evil? Laughlin goes to this set of questions and to the theodicy problem to begin resolving atonement theory, and alongside that issue he contends an atonement theory must be consistent with how Jesus himself spoke of his death. This book breaks fresh ground for anyone interested in atonement theory.”

Jesus at Thirty

“No finer study ... an absolute must for those who want to keep up with the racing field of Jesus studies. His sections about family estrangement, the use of the term Father for God, and Jesus' age-thirty transition are special stopping spots in this journey into Jesus.”

Jesus v. Evangelicals

Ethics, Culture & Social Issues

“Sometimes it takes someone from a foreign country to perceive the impact of the USA on its version of evangelicalism. Add to that a person’s excruciating experiences among evangelicals. Both can provoke serious questions about the integrity and faithfulness of the movement. Con Campbell has watched American evangelicalism from afar and up close, and he has experienced one of life’s biggest tragedies. This book is a testimony of his experience within evangelicalism as one of its leaders, in the USA and abroad, and it becomes through his pain a heartfelt plea that evangelicalism turn back to Jesus to rediscover all over again the way of Jesus. Jesus v. Evangelicals is a painful healing many of us need.”

Justification

Theology

“Of all the multiple views books, this one was needed most. It is also perhaps the best yet: getting Horton, Dunn, Bird, Kärkkäinen, O'Collins and Rafferty all at the table at the same time under the same roof is both a tour de force and a brilliant example of how their interaction can teach each of us. One word is needed most for the justification debate at work among (mostly) evangelicals, the word listen, and if you listen to the pages of this book you will see examples of not listening and listening. The challenge remains for all of us: will we listen again to the Scriptures to hear what it says about justification? Or will we impose our systems of thought on the Bible?”

Kingdom Politics

Ethics, Culture & Social Issues

“Whether they know it or not, churches perform their message in their way of life as an expression of the gospel, and this all means--as this exceptional study by two young, sophisticated observers contends--that every church is a political way of life. . . . This book may be used as an introduction to the politics of the kingdom or as a refresher for those who have already been thinking along this line, but what it is even more is a collection of keen insights into the realities of America's diverse church-as-politics life.”

Knowing God Through the Old Testament

Biblical Studies & Commentaries

“Many of us think the most enduring and authoritative approach to theology is to do biblical theology—that is, to let the Bible speak in its context and in its developing narrative and very few have done this more insightfully and faithfully than Chris Wright. Knowing God Through the Old Testament brings together the best of Chris Wright on the Father, the Son, and the Spirit and is eminently accessible for illustrating how to do biblical theology.”

Law and Theology

Theology

“As a young professor, I remember hearing a Hebrew Bible professor discuss the laws of Israel as a constitution, concluding that thus the laws were not unlike contemporary laws. Since then, I have always tried to keep that larger constitutional perspective in reading what the Bible says about law as covenant obligation for Israel. However, few books have crossed my desk that seriously took up the discussion of how the Bible’s law emerges into or relates to contemporary law—natural, positive—and how Christians relate to laws of the land. David W. Opderbeck offers to Bible professors as well as to pastors and serious readers a full-orbed discussion of law in the Christian tradition. This book will generate much light and many discussions.”

Life After Church

Christian Living

“This is the only book I know of that is about leaving church, not in the sense of tossing in the towel, but of thoughtful, deliberate, wise leaving because one's heart burns for the kingdom more than one's local church does. This book is not crazy or angry; it's thoughtful, judicious, and programmatic for those who want to pick up stakes and do church differently, more radically.”

Living Justification

Theology

“What Living Justification proves, in the best of the Reformed tradition, is that even the heart of its soteriology, namely the doctrine of justification by faith, is alive and well, and growing, and learning, and shifting. I heartily recommend this fair-minded and accurate comparison of what justification means to Calvin, Edwards, and N. T. Wright.”