Showing results by publisher "Blackstone Publishing" in Christianity

These two volumes on the Minor Prophets offer more of James Montgomery Boice's informative and practical commentary. Volume 1 surveys Hosea through Jonah, and volume 2 covers Micah through Malachi. Both volumes offer thorough interpretation of the text in a clearly written manner that will inform and help a wide range of listeners, from serious Bible students to interested laypersons. Based on messages Boice preached, these expositional commentaries explain the meaning of the text verse by verse and section by section.

An intelligent, strong-willed woman, Susanna Wesley suffered much in a male-dominated world while she prepared her children to succeed in it. Her fiery, independent spirit is evident as Arnold Dallimore sets the mother of Methodism within her culture and time in England. Though Samuel Wesley figures prominently in his wife's story, as do John, Charles, and the other children, the story remains fixed on Susanna. Excerpts from Susanna Wesley's letters and writings of her husband and children are included.

According to James Montgomery Boice, Paul’s great letter to the Ephesians is “a minicourse in theology, centered on the church”. Writing to the church in a city much like modern-day New York, Paul laid out his mature vision of the Christian faith’s central elements. The apostle set these fundamental doctrines in the context of the church as the body of Christ. In this compelling commentary, Boice presents the message of Paul with great depth and clarity.

What happens when one of America’s most beloved biographers writes his own biography? For five-time New York Times best-selling author Eric Metaxas, the answer is Fish Out of Water: A Search for the Meaning of Life - a soaring, lyrical, and often mischievous account of his early years, in which the astute Queens-born son of Greek and German immigrants struggles to make sense of a world in which he never quite seems to fit.

What if American culture isn’t collapsing because of crusading secularists? What if it’s failing because many leading Christians identify more with secular elites than with their fellow believers? Those are the provocative questions posed by Stockholm Syndrome Christianity, which exposes how influential Christian leaders are siding with their anti-Christian cultural captors on everything from biblical authority and science to sex, race, and religious liberty.

Through Daniel’s visions and experiences as an exile in Babylon, the Book of Daniel gives us a clearer understanding of history than any other part of the Bible. Daniel also makes it clear that God is in control of all human events that have unfolded or will occur in later times. At the same time, he shows us how to live for God in ungodly times - like our own. In this new addition to James Montgomery Boice’s popular commentary series, pastors, Bible students, and laypersons will find analysis of Daniel’s illuminating insights into history.

Is Atheism Dead? is an entertaining, impressively wide-ranging, and decidedly provocative answer to that famous 1966 Time cover that itself provocatively asked “Is God Dead?” In a voice that is by turns witty, muscular, and poetic, Metaxas intentionally echoes C. S. Lewis and G. K. Chesterton in cheerfully and logically making his astonishing case, along the way presenting breathtaking - and often withering - new evidence and arguments against the idea of a Creatorless universe.

Turning the other cheek does not mean standing by while the enemies of God dismantle Christian civilization and brainwash our children. Decrying the cowardice that masquerades as meekness, Eric Metaxas summons the Church to battle. An attenuated and unbiblical “faith” based on what Bonhoeffer called “cheap grace” has sapped the spiritual vitality of millions of Americans. Paying lip service to an insipid “evangelism,” they shrink from combating the evils of our time. Metaxas refutes the pernicious lie that fighting evil politicizes Christianity.

Exploring chapters 1-4, this first volume on the Gospel of John is an insightful study and devotional guide for serious Bible students as well as interested laypersons. James Montgomery Boice explores the coming of Jesus Christ and discusses the initial reaction some people had toward him.

As James Montgomery Boice points out, no book in the Bible is so filled with joy as Philippians. Even though Paul faced possible execution for his faith, he managed to remain joyful in the midst of terrible circumstances. Beyond providing encouragement, Philippians also contains a wealth of great themes. As Boice explains, it covers most of the major doctrines of the Christian faith and is at the same time extremely practical.

Emeritus Pope Benedict commands both adulation and unremitting criticism. In this second volume of Peter Seewald’s authoritative biography, the story runs from the Second Vatican Council (1965-68) that shaped Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger’s conservative ideas about the role of the Catholic Church, through his short, scandal-ridden papacy and unprecedented resignation. Volume two introduces listeners to the Pope Emeritus living in the Vatican Gardens, contemplating the future of the church and his controversial legacy within it.

When Deb Moerke and her husband decided to become foster parents, they never imagined how their lives would change. And never did they imagine their worst nightmare coming true: Their five-year-old foster daughter, Hannah, murdered at the hands of her birth mom, Karen. The Moerkes were overwhelmed with horror and grief. And just when they didn’t think they could bear any more, Deb received a phone call from Karen in prison. Facing a life sentence for Hannah’s murder, she was pregnant. And Karen had an incredible request: Would Deb take her unborn baby and love it as her own?

No man in Scripture lived more consistently and completely for God than did Joseph, a favorite son of Jacob. In times of adversity and in times of prosperity - both of which offered the temptation to deny God and his lordship - Joseph remained steadfast. Living by Faith is the third and final volume on Genesis. Volume one focused on God’s relationship to the cosmos and to all peoples of the earth. Volume two traced the “new beginning” of God’s plan of redemption. In volume three, Boice follows the complete story of Joseph, a “man for all seasons”.

In the sixth volume of the Swans Are Not Silent series, John Piper celebrates the importance of poetic effort by looking at three influential Christians whose words magnificently display a commitment to truth and a love of beauty. Examining the lives of George Herbert, George Whitefield, and C. S. Lewis, Piper helps us appreciate the importance of carefully crafted words by exploring how Christians can use them to testify to God's glory, wonder at his grace, and rejoice in his salvation.

“Open your ears,” says James Montgomery Boice. “Hear the voice of Christ. Believe him. Turn to him. Throw yourself upon him. Receive him as your Savior.” Even in the midst of pain and persecution, we are to live as Christ would live. Volume 3 of the Gospel of John shows Jesus turning to all who had received him in the midst of, and in spite of, growing hostility from the authorities of Judaism.

Picking up where he left off in his electrifying Letter to the American Church, Eric Metaxas renews and deepens his call to believers not to “practice” their faith but to live it—heroically and with joy. Invoking famous but misunderstood words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, he shows that God’s answer to evil is “religionless Christianity”—the rejection of religiosity and the embrace of a living and active faith, one that consumes the whole person and affects every aspect of his life. The awakening of this faith will bring revival, a “new birth of freedom,” and a renaissance of Christian culture.

Benedict XVI: A Life offers insight into the young life and rise through the Church’s ranks of a man who would become a hero and a lightning rod for Catholics the world over. Based on countless hours of interviews in Rome with Benedict himself, this two-volume biography is the definitive record of the life of Joseph Ratzinger and the legacy of Pope Benedict XVI. This first volume follows his early life, from his days growing up in Germany and his conscription into the Hitler Youth during WWII to his career as an academic theologian and eventual archbishop of Munich.

“Do you want peace?” asks James Montgomery Boice. “Are you willing to receive it at the point where Jesus indicated it may truly be found?" This fourth volume on the Gospel of John calls us to the peace that can be found in Christ’s love. Nowhere in the entire Bible can we walk on more holy ground as we listen to Christ’s final discourses.

Exploring Psalms 107-150, this third and final volume on the book of Psalms offers solid, practical, and well-illustrated expositions on God’s nurturing, grace, comfort, and instruction. James Montgomery Boice expounds on the theme of worship—what true worship is, who should worship, and when and how we should praise God.

Many pastors, students, and teachers have come to know and depend upon James Montgomery Boice’s scholarly yet accessible commentaries on the most popular books of the Bible. Here is an addition to the Boice commentaries that has a unique focus. Instead of examining an entire book of the Bible, it provides listeners with an in-depth look into Matthew 5-7, Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount.