Showing results by publisher "Blackstone Publishing" in Religion & Spirituality

It is a dazzling decade, and Barbara Bond is a beautiful young singer torn between her fierce desire for independence and her deep, abiding love for her husband, a brilliant doctor. She has trained for years to sing grand opera, but soon after her marriage to Harvey Perkins, she learns that he has accepted an assignment as a medical missionary in the country of Siam. Suddenly Barbara is forced into the duty of a “good wife"—to support her husband’s career, not her own. As resentment slowly grows, she travels with Harvey first to the jungles of Siam, then to the capital city of Bangkok.

Commentaries by James Montgomery Boice explain the meaning of the biblical text verse by verse and section by section, while also relating the text to the realities of Christian life. This latest addition to Boice’s popular expositional commentary series discusses the themes of obedience and love in the context of the life of Joshua, a chosen military commander. Boice’s easy-to-understand writing makes Joshua a helpful commentary for pastors, students, and laypeople alike.

The father of the intelligent design movement, Phillip E. Johnson, thinks the new atheists are right! How? They’ve put serious discussion about God back on the public agenda. Despite their conclusions, folks like Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Daniel Dennett are asking the right questions. They’re making belief in any religion an issue again, especially in the university context where, for decades, questions about faith and reason have been taken off the table for serious discussion. Open debate is exactly what we need on the topics of God, evolution, and creation.

Fred Rogers was one of the most radical pacifists of contemporary history. To critics who dared call him “namby-pamby”, Rogers said, “Only people who take the time to see our work can begin to understand the depth of it.” This is the invitation of Peaceful Neighbor, to see and understand Rogers’ convictions and their expression through his program. Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, it turns out, is far from sappy, sentimental, and shallow; it’s a sharp political response to a civil and political society poised to kill.

This two-volume expositional commentary on one of the Bible’s most powerful books integrates rigorous scholarship and clear communication. Boice not only explains the meaning of the text verse by verse and section by section, he relates the text’s concerns to the world in which we live, the life of the church, and the realities of the Christian life. Based on messages preached at Philadelphia’s world-renowned Tenth Presbyterian Church, The Gospel of Matthew displays Dr. Boice’s hallmark blend of thoughtful interpretation and contemporary insight for daily living.

A single mother of four, Angie Cella, dreamed one night about a device that put gems in her hair. She woke up thinking she would invent it, because she loved what she had seen. A few weeks later, she had a second dream. In this one, God told her, “I want you to make this product.” As a woman with a burgeoning faith who’d been waiting for just this kind of direction, Angie spent the next several years navigating the tough and often painful - yet ultimately gratifying - road to success.

UFOs are a myth, says David J. Halperin, but myths are real. The power and fascination of the UFO has nothing to do with space travel or life on other planets. It’s about us, our longings and terrors, especially the greatest terror of all: the end of our existence. This is a book about UFOs that goes beyond believing in them or debunking them, to a fresh understanding of what they tell us about ourselves as individuals, as a culture, as a species.

In this intellectual biography, Bennett W. Rogers analyzes the complicated life and times of a man variously described as traditional, moderate, and even radical during his 58-year ministry. Ryle began his ministerial career as a rural parish priest; he ended it as a bishop of the second city of the British Empire. In the time between, he became a popular preacher, influential author, effective controversialist, recognized party leader, stalwart church defender, and radical church reformer.

Ted Kluck, Ronnie Martin, and Barnabas Piper, hosts of the Happy Rant podcast, take their faith-based back-and-forth from the recording booth to the book chapter with this collection of insightful and often hilarious takedowns of pastor trends, personality tests, political engagement, and more.

Building on years of research, writing, and cross-cultural ministry, renowned author and theologian David Wells calls our attention to that which defines God's greatness and gives shape to the Christian life: the holy-love of God. In God in the Whirlwind, Wells explores the depths of the paradox that God is both holy and loving, showing how his holy-love provides the foundation for our understanding of the cross, sanctification, the nature of worship, and our life of service in the world.

In Cult Following, Ocker sheds light on the terrifying attraction of cults, demonstrating the elasticity of belief, the desperateness of belonging, and the tragedy of trust.

Drawing on ten years of survey data with over three thousand teenagers and over two hundred interviews, God, Grades, and Graduation offers a revealing and at times surprising account of how teenagers' religious upbringing influences their educational pathways from high school to college. Dr. Ilana M. Horwitz estimates that approximately one out of every four students in American schools are raised with religious restraint. These students orient their lives around God so deeply that it alters how they see themselves and how they behave, inside and outside of church.

In This Earthly Frame, David Sehat describes the making of American secularism through its most prominent proponents and most significant detractors. He shows how its foundations were laid in the US Constitution and how it fully emerged only in the 20th century.

We tend to believe either God must not be loving or must not be actively involved. Yet throughout history, believers and nonbelievers alike have pressed forward to respond to this great challenge at the core of all life. From Lenin, to Mao and Hitler, to Tolstoy, Gandhi, and MLK Jr., adjunct professor of biblical studies Jered Gritters details how some of the worst evil has not prevented the greatest solution the world has ever seen from having its impact.

For many, "being rich" could be defined simply as the accumulation of money. For others, it has become the ultimate goal of life. CEO of Crown Financial Ministries Chuck Bentley writes of his own life, admitting, "the desire to be rich...grew beyond a mere financial goal; it became a status and an identity that I hungered to achieve. Although my relentless pursuit of it eventually drove me to the brink of financial ruin and beyond, I could not rest until it was mine."

ESPN broadcaster and coach Jimmy Dykes guides listeners through a tough but crucial evaluation process, incorporating wisdom from both sports and scripture as he demonstrates how to search your heart like a coach scrutinizes game film. Whether you’re experiencing a difficult period in life or simply feel called to something greater, The Film Doesn’t Lie is certain to provoke men to live with passion, conviction, and bold determination.

With real-life talk, humor, and convicting biblical truths, Kristin Funston helps hardworking mamas to look at each day and each facet of their life to discover what happens when they believe God has more for them than what they think the world needs from them. And what He has available is a whole and holy life, just waiting to be claimed - a salvation and day-to-day reality complete just as it is. The pieces of each mom’s life - the work life, mom life, social life, etc. - are mended together through Christ to complete her one whole life, set apart because of Him.

Phillip E. Johnson pries the lid off public debate about questions of ultimate concern - questions often suppressed by our society’s intellectual elite. Moving far beyond matters of creation and evolution, Johnson outlines the questions we all ought to be asking about the meaning of human history, the limits of scientific inquiry, religion and education in a pluralistic society, truth, liberty and moral choices, and God and his word, Jesus Christ. 

Science is the supreme authority in our culture. Science speaks so authoritatively in our culture that many are tempted to use its clout to back claims that go beyond the available evidence. How can we identify when such ideological sleight of hand has taken place? This wedge of truth does not “wedge out” a necessary foundation of rational thought. But it does “wedge in” the much-needed acknowledgment that reason encompasses more than mere scientific investigation.

Monsters aren’t real. As reasonable adults, we know this. But we also know that, while fake, the monsters of fairy tales, movies, and Netflix series embody our very real fears. Large, powerful beings that hunt us in the dark make us feel small, weak, vulnerable. When characters in these stories run away, they temporarily feel safe, but it’s not until the monster is faced head on that the story can have a happy ending - and, more importantly, the hero can become all he or she was created to be.