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The Road Less Traveled, 25th Anniversary Edition : A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values and Spiritual Growth

M. Scott Peck

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 179 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Perhaps no book in this generation has had a more profound impact on our intellectual and spiritual lives than The Road Less Traveled. With sales of more than seven million copies in the United States and Canada, and translations into more than twenty-three languages, it has made publishing history, with more than ten years on the New York Times bestseller list.

Now, with a new Introduction by the author, written especially for this twenty-fifth anniversary deluxe trade paperback edition of the all-time national bestseller in its field, M. Scott Peck explains the ideas that shaped this book and that continue to influence an ever-growing audience of readers.

Written in a voice that is timeless in its message of understanding, The Road Less Traveled continues to help us explore the very nature of loving relationships and leads us toward a new serenity and fullness of life. It helps us learn how to distinguish dependency from love; how to become a more sensitive parent; and ultimately how to become one's own true self.

Recognizing that, as in the famous opening line of his book, "Life is difficult" and that the journey to spiritual growth is a long one, Dr. Peck never bullies his readers, but rather guides them gently through the hard and often painful process of change toward a higher level of self-understanding.

The Power of Positive Thinking

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 172 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

A little dated in the presentation, but not the content. 4 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

I found myself a bit distracted by the lack of specific references as to who the annecdotes were about. A lot of "a certain high ranking executive in an important industry, in a major US city..." These days we expect to be told which executive in which industry and and which in which city. Maybe we have all gotten a bit more skeptical about sources in the Internet age.
But that quibble asside, I have been making a concious effort to put Dr. Peale's ideas into practice, and found them very helpful. In another 50 years the presentation will seem more dated yet, but I am sure the ideas will be no less important. I am glad I bought the book.
As as has been noted in many other reviews, this book is about living a rich, full, happy life in a Christian framework. If that's not what you are looking for, keep looking!

Editorial Review:

Faith in yourself makes good things happen to you. This classic guide to self-esteem and success will help you learn how to: break the worry habit; get other people to like you; avoid "the jitters" in your daily work; believe in yourself and everything you do; develop the power to reach your goals, and so much more.

House

Frank Peretti, Ted Dekker

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 282 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Extremely Dissapointed 1 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

I like to find Christian authors for enlightenment combined with entertainment. I have not read any of Ted Dekker other books; however, I have read almost all of Peretti and was disappointed from this book to the point where I would actually write a review. Finished the book like a bad movie just to get it over with.

Editorial Review:

A mind-bending supernatural thriller from the creators of This Present Darkness and Showdown.

Frank Peretti and Ted Dekker - two of the most acclaimed writers of supernatural thrillers - have joined forces for the first time to craft a story unlike any you've ever read. Enter House - where you'll find yourself thrown into a killer's deadly game in which the only way to win is to lose...and the only way out is in.

The stakes of the game become clear when a tin can is tossed into the house with rules scrawled on it. Rules that only a madman - or worse - could have written. Rules that make no sense yet must be followed.

One game. Seven players. Three rules. Game ends at dawn.

El Conocimiento del Dios Santo

J. I. Packer

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 77 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Tremendous Christian Classic 5 out of 5 stars.
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This is one of the great Christian classics that is a must read for every generation. It is not heady theology though it is thoroughly rooted in Scripture. It's underlying theme is the love of God for human kind expressed through his character. I felt very loved!

Knowing God book review 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

I enjoyed the book Knowing God by J. I. Packer, it was thought provoking and very insightful. This book was part of a New Testament class and I usually sell my books after reading them but I am going to add Knowing God to my personal library.

Brilliant 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 1 people found this review helpful.

Next to the Bible this is my favorite book. I have read it several times and each time I learn something new. It will definately increase your knowlege of the true nature and character of God. You will not only learn more about God but you will truely know God better..Tell me what you think of my Christain fiction novel The Palace Theatre..The Palace Theatre

Essential Theology 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

I have bought more than fifty copies of Knowing God for use in teaching the subject. Packer does an excellent job of helping us to have a relationship with the God of the universe rather than just knowing something about Him. I have never found another book that does as good a job of teaching meaningful theology to people who really want to know God.

Editorial Review:

SPANISH EDITION. "Knowing God" is one of the most important and popular Christian books of our time.

Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist

John Piper

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 111 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Love the Lord Your God With All Your Heart and All Your Soul 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

~Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist~ is the book that started it all. Christian minister John Piper offers a profoundly controversial teaching of 'Christian Hedonism' popular in some evangelical circles, particularly amongst Reformed Protestants. The teaching of Christian Hedonism was first advanced in this book.

What might you ask is a 'Christian Hedonist'? 'Christian Hedonism' at its core sounds contradictory. Piper has stated that such a provocative appellation is "appropriate for a philosophy that has a life changing effect on its adherents." Piper notes: "Christian Hedonism is a liberating and devastating doctrine. It teaches that the value of God shines more brightly in the soul that finds deepest satisfaction in him. Therefore it is liberating because it endorses our inborn desire for joy. And it is devastating because it reveals that no one desires God with the passion he demands. Paradoxically, many people experience both of these truths. That certainly is my own experience (p. 13)."

Piper underscored the message of his works with a theme that the Puritan minister Jonathan Edwards was adamant about: "God is most satisfied in us, when we are most satisfied in Him." Piper elucidates, "This is the essence of what it means to love God -- to be satisfied in him. In him! Loving God may include obeying all his commands; it may include believing all his Word; it may include thanking him for all his gifts; but the essence of loving God is enjoying all he is" (p. 24).

For the philosophically minded, it is worthy of notation that this book was born out of a subliminal opposition to philosopher Immanuel Kant's deontology. Kant suggested: "An action is moral only if one has no desire to perform it, but performs it out of a sense of duty and derives no benefit from it of any sort." Piper is adamant that Scriptures contradict this assertion. Actions can indeed be moral when a Christian pursues them for spiritual gain. It's a heartfelt expression of faith to covet spiritual treasures in Heaven, and seek them as a humble servant. And through faith, walking in the footsteps of God, men can and should strive for spiritual treasures, and Crowns of Righteousness in light of the promises of God. How can we accrue eternal rewards? By obeying God, being ambassadors for Christ, striving to labor for His kingdom, taking pleasure in that work, and being diligent in our appointed station in life as servants of God. In doing so, we are laying hold of 'Future Grace,' which is a subject of another Piper book that later capstoned his 'Desiring God' trilogy.

Editorial Review:

Scripture reveals that the great business of life is to glorify God by enjoying Him forever. In this paradigm-shattering classic, newly revised and expanded, John Piper reveals that the debate between duty and delight doesn't truly exist: Delight is our duty. Readers will embark on a dramatically different and joyful experience of their faith

Don't Waste Your Life Study Guide

John Piper

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 60 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

A stunning indictment of self-serving, self-loving American christians. 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

I just finished reading this book for the second time. Honestly, the first time it just rolled off me and I failed to grasp its message. This time was different. This time the Holy Spirit reached down and graciously opened my eyes to see what God is trying to tell His people through this magnificent little book.

Thank God for John Piper, or more accurately, thank God for John's passion for the glory of Christ. I have read several of Piper's books, including Desiring God and Let the Nations Be Glad. At the bottom of all of it, though, is our view of who we are in relation to God. Do we see Him as the almighty, transcendent, holy, eternal, loving, just, merciful, righteous Creator who is worthy of every iota of our attention and admiration? Or do we see Him as something less? Is God there merely to make our lives easy and prosperous and happy? Is He there just to prop up our self-esteem and assist our efforts at self-actualization? The way each person sees God determines how each person will live, and more importantly, for whom he or she will live.

There's a huge movement in Christianity today that seeks to convince believers, sadly with a distressing degree of success, that this life is all about us. God is our celestial ATM and the Affirmer of our own self-worth and self-image. Joel Osteen is perhaps the most highly visible example of this right now. It's a "me first" theology, a man-centered pseudo-Christianity which ignores the example and message of Christ to serve, to suffer, to spend and be spent, to die daily, for the good of others and the glory of God. Although I don't follow Osteen, I have found myself living far too much as if I did. That's our default setting as sinful humans -- to love self and the stuff of this life more than we love Christ.

Piper sounds a desperately needed wake-up call to the church of Jesus Christ to cast aside our self-serving, self-deceiving, and ultimately self-destructive perspective in favor of a Christ-focused, Christ-treasuring frame of mind and way of life. By default we seek to live for ourselves and make much of ourselves and treasure the things that advance those goals. Piper reminds us that all of this is passing away, and only Christ is eternal. Only Christ is worth treasuring. Only Christ should be the all-consuming focus of our passion. God, through Piper, calls on us to display His worth before a fallen, dying, rebellious world. And He only gives us one life in which to do it. But instead we show the world the worth of our homes, our careers, our hobbies and our retirement portfolios. In this way we waste our lives.

To every Christian who has fallen into the trap of treasuring this life as if this was all there is, to every Christian who has gotten caught up in believing that God is here to serve us, to every Christian who has been deceived into thinking that the goal of this life is to be happy with what the temporal world has to offer... READ THIS BOOK. Read it openly, prayerfully, repentently, and humbly. May Piper's message, which is nothing less than God's own message, pierce your heart and call you back to a singular passion to glorify Jesus Christ in every aspect of your life, and in that way avoid the irremediable tragedy of a wasted life. The church desperately needs to hear this, to internalize it, and to act upon it. I cannot recommend this excellent book highly enough.

Editorial Review:

This study guide is designed to be used in a ten-session, guided group study that examines each chapter of Don’t Waste Your Life by John Piper. Working through Don’t Waste Your Life in a group setting with the help of this study guide will ensure you get the most out of the book. It is also a way for group members to encourage each other and keep each other accountable, with the aim that in the end none will say, “I’ve wasted it!”

Study Guide Features:

• Clearly defined objectives for each lesson
• Questions for reflection and group discussion
• Leader’s Guide and other supplemental resources
• Blank pages for note-taking

People of the Lie: The Hope for Healing Human Evil

M. Scott Peck

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 146 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

DANGER - This is a life-changing book 5 out of 5 stars.
5 of 5 people found this review helpful.

Twenty-five years ago Dr. M. Scott Peck (author of "The Road Less Traveled" series of books) threw down the gauntlet, challenging the psychological and scientific communities to subject human evil to the same rigorous study as other human behaviors. Only within the last very few years has anyone had sufficient courage to take up that challenge.

Ever been relentlessly lied to - or about - by someone? Ever been stunned to realize that someone in your life somehow behaves as though he's the center of the universe and everything and everyone else is somehow LESS? Ever come face to face with virulent narcissism? This book will help you understand. But beware: such knowledge comes at a cost. Gone forever will be any vestage of naivete.

a helpful primer on thinking about evil 5 out of 5 stars.
5 of 6 people found this review helpful.

After reading, enjoying, and becoming inspired by The Road Less Travelled I had to take Dr. Peck's writing seriously. People of the Lie was a wrenching departure from his first book, a "nice book", as he says. Even tho I am no longer a Christian and in spite of the Christian overtones of POTL, I found it to be not just fascinating but helpful. It is a thought-provoking book, to say the least, and even "over the top" in parts. Still, to this day, perhaps 15 years after reading it, I think about evil in terms of Dr. Peck's principles. Whenever I encounter chronic confusion and pervasive lies I begin to think about the possibility of an evil personality. There are people I have known whose influences and actions struck me as evil, but their destructiveness was not evident at the time, when they seemed completely normal in every way. And that's one of his main points: we tend to think of evil as "back then and over there", not in the mother of three next door or the church deacon across the street, but that's exactly where it can be. And so often that destruction is visited upon children, so that the results are only apparent after years of awfulness, of crushed and crippled spirits, of destroyed souls. And he cautions us: it's all too easy to hate the evil person, but all of us are capable of evil. I believe he's right. This book is indeed an excellent beginning of a more scientific examination of the nature of evil.

Editorial Review:

A description of the author's experience of psychiatric therapy with patients who appear manifestly evil which attempts to show that a spiritual or even religious dimension is required to aid in the understanding of human nature.

The Gnostic Gospels

Elaine Pagels

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 184 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

History of the Early Church 3 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

The Gnostic Gospels is a scholastic look at some of the forces that threatened to split the early Christian Church. The battle, as portrayed by Pagels, was between Orthodoxy and Gnosticism. Her argument is based on ancient texts discovered in 1945 in Egypt. She talks about the battle between the Orthodox "winners" and the Gnostic "loser" on issues such as the nature of God, the meaning of the resurrection, and the role of the episcopacy. Since the Orthodox won the battle, our understanding of Christianity is descended from Orthodox beliefs.

Although Pagels puts forth her case strongly, I am left feeling unconvinced by her argument. Although Gnosticism did not win the battle, much of their beliefs have remained vital. Their understanding of approaching God through knowledge has many similarities to mysticism. Process Theologians share Gnosticism's view of God as part of Creation, as opposed to the ultimate source of Creation. In addition, Pagels paints Gnostics as a unified group. In fact, there were many sects that make up those who Pagel calls Gnostics.

For those who are new to Christianity in the early years following the death of Jesus, this book holds much valuable information. However, I feel that Pagel overstates her case and, as a result, comes off as a bit shallow and uncertain.

Editorial Review:

A provocative study of the gnostic gospels and the world of early Christianity as revealed through the Nag Hammadi texts.


From the Trade Paperback edition.

The Apostles' Creed

J. I. Packer

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 122 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

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

I loved this book! Working at a crisis pregnancy center as well as knowing girls who have gone through this situation themselves, I thought the book was acurate. As a Christian I thought the struggles between, her and God were very accurate too. Being a Christian doesn't mean happy all the time, but through struggles we question God, we doubt, we hurt, yet we trust in God to answer those prayers and trust Him enough to go to him when we are hurting the most. I thought the book was greatly written and the characters portrayed great. Ethan is a real guy...I see all the time. Her roommate thinks she knows the best for her but doesn't. Her parents want the "best" for their daughter yet they forget to deal with their own feelings and past. It was very real and I loved the book!

Editorial Review:

Centering around a brutal rape and an unwanted pregnancy, The Atonement Child brings a new perspective to the most controversial topic of our times as Dynah's faith is pushed to the limits as she faces the most momentous decision of her life.

Catechism of the Catholic Church

Pope John Paul II

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Total reviews: 140 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

All the Answers 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 1 people found this review helpful.

As a very minimum, this book should be in every Catholic home, next to the Holy Bible. No more questions concerning the Catholic Faith, it's foundation and beliefs. Excellent teaching tool, and great reference for non-Catholics interested in researching Catholic beliefs, and the Church's foundation.

Must Have! 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

This book is a must have in any Catholics home library. It is definitely reader friendly!

Profound yet readable view of the Faith 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

I teach theology. In my experience, the large, green, second edition is worth buying even if you have another edition. It alone contains a glossary of terms that richly pulls together many pages of text into 20 words to give a deep, complete understanding at a quick glance. If you intend to use the book more than two or three times a month, I strongly recommend the hard cover edition because the paperback binding begins to fail under frequent usage.

Peace be with you!
A Sinner

Editorial Review:

Four centuries in the making, a monumental undertaking and a magnificent achievement, the first definitive Catholic Catechism since the Council of Trent in 1566 details the doctrine, dogma, and the basic tenets of the Church.