Christianity Books - Page 10

The Longing (The Courtship of Nellie Fisher, Book 3)

Beverly Lewis

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 12 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Very good, but nees to be read in sequence 4 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

The book was very good if you like inspirational books but needs to be read in sequence......there are two books before this one in the series.

Editorial Review:

Although she still prays for Caleb, Nellie Mae Fisher has broken up with her beau. Now, her heart's greatest longing is for more knowledge of the Lord. Caleb yearns for freedom, as his plans to leave Honeybrook have been thwarted. He must stay on as caretaker for his father, who was crippled in a wintertime accident. He also longs for Nellie Mae, still hoping that she will return to the Old Order...and to him. Christian Yoder, a young Mennonite man, longs to get to know Nellie Mae better...and to share with her the secrets of her sister Suzy's final days. Rhoda, Nellie's older sister, longs for more of what the world has to offer--from fancy clothes, to her own car, to a new English boyfriend. Meanwhile, father Rueben Fisher longs for unity--among his family and all the brethren. Whose longing will be satisfied, and whose will not?

Cast of Characters: Common People in the Hands of an Uncommon God

Max Lucado

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

How God uses flawed people... 5 out of 5 stars.
7 of 7 people found this review helpful.

Max Lucado is one of my favorite Christian inspirational authors, and his latest book Cast of Characters: Common People in the Hands of an Uncommon God continues to reinforce that opinion. Max has a gift of taking a character or story from the Bible, resetting it in an unusual environment, and then drawing out the application and message. It's wonderful to encounter a common passage and see it in a whole new light.

Contents:
Joseph - Joseph's Prayer; Matthew - Friends of Flops; Woman Who Washed Jesus' Feet - The 7:47 Principle; Mephibosheth - The Privilege of Paupers; Samaritan Woman - Two Tombstones; Mary, Martha, and Lazarus - Your Place in God's Band; Abigail - Barbaric Behavior; Paralyzed Man - Bright Lights on Dark Nights; John - I Can Turn Your Tradegy into Triumph; Paul - Hidden Heroes; Two Criminals - I Will Let You Choose; Moses - The Voice from the Mop Bucket; Joseph - When Crickets Make You Cranky; David - Facing Your Giants; Esther - Touching the King's Heart; Job - Where Man Covers His Mouth; Nicodemus - The Most Famous Conversion in the Bible; Jairus - The Sparkle from Eternity; Rich Young Ruler - The Affluent Poor; Sarah, Peter, and Paul - The Kingdom of the Absurd; Lazarus - The Final Witness; Peter - The Gospel of the Second Chance; Conclusion - Cast of Characters; Notes; Sources

It's tempting to look at Biblical characters and attribute spiritual qualities to them, to "clean them up" to fit the way God used them. But the reality is that most of them were common people who were deeply flawed in many ways. Despite their failures, God used them in ways that made a huge impact. For instance, Moses was used to lead an entire nation to a land promised to them by God. But he spent many years hiding out in the desert, trying to escape an act of murder he committed. Peter turned his back on Jesus when he was being led to His death, yet he was used to spread the gospel to many nations. And Paul... an avowed enemy of Christianity who became an evangelist after a close encounter with God on a road in Damascus. Thought-out the book, you see that your background and status is irrelevant in terms of how God wants to use you.

On top of his inspirational messages, Lucado does an exceptional job in resetting the stories in ways that make you stop and think. Moses and the burning bush becomes Henry the janitor and the glowing mop bucket. Matthew the tax collector is living the life of a organized crime member, complete with all the bling. Jairus the rabbi becomes Wallace the high ranking official of a religious denomination. Even though the trappings of the story change, the underlying truth remains the same. Each chapter ends with a series of questions for reflection and discussion, so it can easily be used for personal devotions or small group discussions.

This is one of those books that you'll read and reread a number of times depending on whatever particular crisis you might be experiencing. And each time, you'll see facets of God's character that you never noticed or understood before...

Editorial Review:

Some of the most powerful stories from the Bible will come alive for today's readers through these inspiring selections from the writings of Max Lucado. Max provides a compelling look at the most high-impact moments in the biblical narrative, drawn from his previous 20+ years of writing. 

At the end of each chapter will be study guide questions so the reader can go deeper into this scripture.

Extraordinary stories are told about the following characters:

Mary, Peter, Matthew, Joseph, Nicodemus, Woman at the Well, David, Esther, Job, The Samaritan Woman, John, Rich Young Man.

And more

Lies Young Women Believe: And the Truth that Sets Them Free

Nancy Leigh DeMoss, Dannah Gresh

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 13 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Required reading!!! 5 out of 5 stars.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful.

This is a MUST READ for adolescent, pre-teen, teen girls and their parents! Not only does it validate the concerns of young women, it gives options for better ways to handle some of the peer and self-inflicted pressures girls feel as "true". I purchased this for my teen age cousin; hopefully it planted some seeds of real truth for her. It was even helpful for me, a woman in my early 40's! A great tool to connect with daughters, nieces, students, any young woman you love and want to see succeed!

SUCH A GOOD BOOK!! 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

This is one of the best books I've read!! It's amazing! This book chapter by chapter shows us teens how to stand against all those lies satan throws at us.. what to do with them! Nancy and Dannah write well, with their own stories and others included, which makes it more interesting. Some of the lies they talk about are lies about God, guys, technology and how we use it, and friends. Many more included! An amazing book focused on teens.

Editorial Review:

Lies Young Women Believe will give girls aged 13-19 the tools they need to identify where their lives and beliefs are off course--the result of buying into Satan's lies about God, guys, media, and more. Nancy Leigh DeMoss teams up youth author Dannah Gresh to speak to teenage girls about the top lies they believe. They then equip young women in the skills and the truths of Scripture that overcome those lies.

Sheet Music: Uncovering the Secrets of Sexual Intimacy in Marriage

Kevin Leman

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 80 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

WHOA! 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

This book is extremely open and honest. I loved it and read it in a couple days. My husband is planning to read it too. It helped me remember what life was like before kids.

WOW! 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

Initially I thought I was reading a really erotic book. Christians may find this book offensive because of all the things the author speaks about and ways of improving your marriage via sex. I am here that this book isn't so much about sex (although I can tell you that this book has a lot of sex and how it can be used to not only improve your sex life, but improve you marriage, especially if your marriage has entered a stage of boredom, stagnation, or on the verge of divorce), but on how the 'other' spouse thinks. Men: do yourself a favor-- GET THIS BOOK! You will understand your wife so much and she will love you for it. Women: GET THIS BOOK! Now you will understand why men do what they do and why they seem aloof to you. This is one phenomenal book that I have begun to re-read it a second time, only this time, I have my notebook handy and taking notes. The BEST part is that he uses Biblical passages on why God is the author of sex and why if done His way, you can't possibly go wrong. There is one spot I am a little iffy on, and that has to do with oral sex but this is a subject left to each and every Christian couple to decide if this is for them or not. I strongly suggest this book, if not only to learn how to understand your spouse but to break that taboo way of thinking that sex is a dirty word. It isn't. God intended Christians to have fun during sex. Dr. Leman will show you will Biblically and in a way you never thought. EXCELLENT!

Editorial Review:

With his characteristic warmth and humor, Dr. Kevin Leman offers a practical guide to sex according to God's plan. This frank and practical book is a perfect resource for married and engaged couples. Now in softcover.

Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church

N. T. Wright

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 39 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

For years Christians have been asking, "If you died tonight, do you know where you would go?" It turns out that many believers have been giving the wrong answer. It is not heaven.

Award-winning author N. T. Wright outlines the present confusion about a Christian's future hope and shows how it is deeply intertwined with how we live today. Wright, who is one of today's premier Bible scholars, asserts that Christianity's most distinctive idea is bodily resurrection. He provides a magisterial defense for a literal resurrection of Jesus and shows how this became the cornerstone for the Christian community's hope in the bodily resurrection of all people at the end of the age. Wright then explores our expectation of "new heavens and a new earth," revealing what happens to the dead until then and what will happen with the "second coming" of Jesus. For many, including many Christians, all this will come as a great surprise.

Wright convincingly argues that what we believe about life after death directly affects what we believe about life before death. For if God intends to renew the whole creation—and if this has already begun in Jesus's resurrection—the church cannot stop at "saving souls" but must anticipate the eventual renewal by working for God's kingdom in the wider world, bringing healing and hope in the present life.

Lively and accessible, this book will surprise and excite all who are interested in the meaning of life, not only after death but before it.

Christ the Lord: The Road to Cana (Christ the Lord)

Anne Rice

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 71 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Anne Rice’s second book in her hugely ambitious and courageous life of Christ begins during his last winter before his baptism in the Jordan and concludes with the miracle at Cana.

It is a novel in which we see Jesus—he is called Yeshua bar Joseph—during a winter of no rain, endless dust, and talk of trouble in Judea.

Legends of a Virgin birth have long surrounded Yeshua, yet for decades he has lived as one among many who come to the synagogue on the Sabbath. All who know and love him find themselves waiting for some sign of the path he will eventually take.

And at last we see him emerge from his baptism to confront his destiny—and the Devil. We see what happens when he takes the water of six great limestone jars, transforms it into cool red wine, is recognized as the anointed one, and urged to call all Israel to take up arms against Rome and follow him as the prophets have foretold.

As with Out of Egypt, the opening novel, The Road to Cana is based on the Gospels and on the most respected New Testament scholarship. The book’s power derives from the profound feeling its author brings to the writing and the way in which she summons up the presence of Jesus.

The Screwtape Letters (Gift Edition)

C. S. Lewis

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 370 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Enlightening read for committed (and thinking) Christians 5 out of 5 stars.
5 of 5 people found this review helpful.

I don't know how well this great book translates to agnostic readers, but for me it was a very enlightening and concrete way to understand what it means to try to be a good man in a world of temptation.

In keeping with the time period, I believe it was Winston Churchill who said "All evil needs to triumph is for good men to do nothing". In the Screwtape Letters the senior tempter, tells his apprentice, it is just as affective to get a man to stare into a fire until it turns to ash, as to get him to commit some great sin, because either keeps him from doing what he should. I wonder what Mr. Lewis would have thought of digital cable television? I am as guilty as anyone of staring at that box instead of doing good.

So here's the deal.

This is an excellent book for any believer from High School on up, that wants to be good and avoid evil.

But that's just me.

Editorial Review:

In this humorous and perceptive exchange between two devils, C. S. Lewis delves into moral questions about good vs. evil, temptation, repentance, and grace. Through this wonderful tale, the reader emerges with a better understanding of what it means to live a faithful life.

Great Emergence, The: How Christianity Is Changing and Why (emersion: Emergent Village resources for communities of faith)

Phyllis Tickle

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 10 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

The Great Emergence 4 out of 5 stars.
5 of 6 people found this review helpful.

Up until a few months ago I'd never heard of Phyllis Tickle, but a few weeks ago I ordered her latest book The Great Emergence; How Christianity is Changing and Why

It arrived from the US on Friday; it's only a short book (162pages) so I read most of it the following day.

Tickle (refreshingly) is not an academic or theologian, but is recognized by CNN, USA TODAY, NEWSWEEK, TIME and The NEW YORK TIMES as one of the most respected authorities on religion in the US, she is also the founding editor of the religion department of Publishers Weekly, she is also a lay Eucharistic minister of the Episcopalian Church and a senior fellow of Cathedral College, so she is well credentialed to make these observations.

In the opening pages of the book she makes a timely but also disturbing observation (at least to some!) She says; "every five hundred years or so, the Church cleans out its attic and has a giant rummage sale"

She articulates the challenges facing the Church in a way that few others have, she takes us right back into the early days of Christendom and points out with great accuracy starting with Gregory the great in 500AD and in a brief yet comprehensive fashion creates a broad picture of the issues (and what would appear) and unrelated facets in this period of history and shows with some conviction the factors that contributed to the demise of the first "Great" re-formation. This was followed by a similar tectonic shift around 1000AD and of course the Great Reformation of Luther, Calvin and co in 1517.

Tickle points out in each instance that the great unrest started in years and in many cases sometimes even centuries before the event was officially recognized, and in may cases as pointed out earlier these co-contributors were not religious in nature, a good example of this was the first printing press by Gothenburg, it started its production within a short time of the famous "Wittenberg Door" and the nailing of the thesis to the same, this reformation owes its so called success in no small way to the arrival of the printing press. This fuelled the state, national and international debate and discussion on a level unprecedented in history.

In our own case the end of modernity and the painful dawning of a new era called post-modernism has challenged to the very core all that we hold dear, this in itself has created untold anxiety, fear and uncertainty, we are by nature (not all of us thankfully!) Creatures of habit and the Church more than any other institution has been woefully unprepared for change on any level. Not only do we want things to stay the same, but we will move heaven and earth to make sure that it does, and woe betide anyone who has the temerity to even think of doing this, as one minister once pointed out when taking over a church with a very conservative congregation, `how do you move the organ in a church...inch by inch, week by week'

The emerging Church has attempted over the last few years to move the church with what would appear to be great haste, and the old warhorses of modernity have had much to say about this, most of it scathing in nature. When looking at the different eras of the church over the last 2000years modernity has brought its own unique challenges, its obsession with black and white absolutes, its manic need to have everything reduced to quantifiable outcomes and then bringing out the old black and white plans to see if everything measures up to the millimeter, this has made things difficult indeed, the old guard in terms of all things theological, has mostly produced Christians that are `sentry guards' or `boundary keepers'

McLaren has rightly pointed out that this is a conversation not a blue print for the final model. Unfortunately modernity has for far to long turned any conversation into a monologue, wanting to monopolize the end result, conversation brings with it the suggestion of a mutual exchange of ideas, not the old model where the defense of a worn out theology that has long had its day. The rummage sale will always be stressful, when moving house one will always feel that everything is sacred, it is no longer about what to keep but what to let go of, and the reasons (within this context) will more than likely contain elements of co-dependency. To let go is to feel that one will not be caught and so plummet into the depths. Modernity has finally come to the cross roads, it is time to put aside its adolescent angst, and realize that is time to `grow up and grow out' of its obsession with not only a theology that was systematic but a whole lifestyle, the emerging church as an observer over many years is declaring that this is now problematic. Tickle brings two new words to the table and the conversation, "orthonomy" and "theonomy" these words are a good description of what the `great emergence' are endeavoring to do;

* Orthonomy:

This is a difficult word to describe; it was used in the Septuagint and the New Testament it is best understood as meaning the employment of aesthetic or harmonic purity as a tool for discerning the truth, this word presents a great challenge for those who are steeped in doctrine and or practice.

* Theonomy

It means to say or name the principle that only God can be the source of perfection in action and thought...As is patently clear, the burden of the argument of theonomy is still the principle of sola scriptura, albeit in more modish and culturally attractive clothes.

These new words also describe in more comprehensive fashion the new model;

The old model looked a little like this, it could be described as `the quadrilateral' this was simple divided into four boxes that looked like this;

* Liturgicals
* Renewalists
* Social justice Christians
* Conservatives


These four categories are well defined by four square boxes, this model will never lend itself to any sort of mergence, the boundaries are too well defined, within this old model one was forced to guard the boundaries for fear of theological contamination, this in itself and by its very nature created friction, this was and will always be divisive, forcing people into one camp or the other, and one would be challenged when the pressure was on to declare ones `colors' little wonder that we have more than 20,000 denominations always looking for an edge, this model bordered on compulsive-obsessive, like the man who washed his hands dozens of times a day, never wanting to suffer any contamination, and so with this model theological purity at all costs leads one to break away again and again, pride will always seek to express itself in elitist language, will always major on the minors, never wishing to see that as a body of Christ we will always have much more in common that not.

The new model looks more like a `rose' with the petals interwoven towards the center, indeed as one gets closer to the center the greater cohesion where each petal compliments and supports the other, the goal of this new model is nothing short of miraculous, since when and where has the body of Christ ever worked in harmony every sought to compliment and support those with different ideas and views. This new model is seeking to create a dynamic where for the first time the boundaries (which have always bordered on the level of autistic in the sense that there has been a repulsion of any and all intimacy and contact) are removed and we are encouraged to embrace for the first time. The real need here is for a fresh understanding a more informed view of the bigger picture. Only the spirit of God is capable of creating this sort of cohesion

Editorial Review:

Rooted in the observation that massive transitions in the church happen about every 500 years, Phyllis Tickle shows readers that we live in such a time right now. She compares the Great Emergence to other "Greats" in the history of Christianity, including the Great Transformation (when God walked among us), the time of Gregory the Great, the Great Schism, and the Great Reformation. Combining history, a look at the causes of social upheaval, and current events, The Great Emergence shows readers what the Great Emergence in church and culture is, how it came to be, and where it is going. Anyone who is interested in the future of the church in America, no matter what their personal affiliation, will find this book a fascinating exploration.

Sacred Marriage

Gary L. Thomas

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 74 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Interesting take on marriage, but for the most part helpful. 4 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

My women's group used this book to guide discussions on a weekly basis for about six months. The group contained women with kids, without kids, single, divorce, remarried, widowed, and with traditional marriages. Everyone got something out of the discussions that took place despite their current situation. The author uses a lot of examples to try to get points across. Some are better than others, but all were helpful in getting the discussion going. The one chapter we lingered on the longest was the chapter on sex in marriage. This book speaks plainly about a lot of issues that people deal with in marital relationships. The only weakness I can see is that in a marriage where the wife is a Christian and the husband is abusive or hostile towards Chrisitianity, the advice given could be more harmful than helpful - especially the one on serving. As long as the two people in marriage are relatively equal in regards to their care and concern for each other, the advice given should help their marriages tremendously. Overall, this was a fabulous attempt to conquer difficult subjects. No one can write something that will fit all situations, so this author did a great job reaching the majority of his readers.

Editorial Review:

Starting with the discovery that the goal of marriage goes beyond personal happiness, writer and speaker Gary Thomas invites readers to see how God can use marriage as a discipline and a motivation to love him more and reflect more of the character of his Son.