Sojourners and Strangers
Sojourners and Strangers

Author: Gregg R. Allison

Publisher: Crossway

Published: 2012-11-30

Total Pages: 498

ISBN-13: 143353603X

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What is a church? This can be a difficult question to answer and Christians have offered a variety of perspectives. Gregg Allison thus explores and synthesizes all that Scripture affirms about the new covenant people of God, capturing a full picture of the biblical church. He covers the topics of the church's identity and characteristics; its growth through purity, unity, and discipline; its offices and leadership structures; its ordinances of baptism and the Lord's Supper; and its ministries. Here is a rich approach to ecclesiology consisting of sustained doctrinal reflection and wise, practical application. Part of the Foundations of Evangelical Theology series.

The Invisible Church
The Invisible Church

Author: Steve Aisthorpe

Publisher: Saint Andrew Press

Published: 2016-04-27

Total Pages: 224

ISBN-13: 0861539168

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For anyone who is concerned about Church decline, the contents of this book offer an essential blueprint for building God’s whole community in the coming years. This unique set of resources offers practical help and insight for all who want to grow, enrich and develop their congregational life. The Church of Scotland has drawn on the findings of extensive new research that it has commissioned in order to put together this set of carefully crafted and informed resources aimed at helping every congregation to understand why people leave the Church, how to avoid unnecessary departures and, above all, to develop an enriching, vital Christian fellowship with the large numbers of Churchless Christians in every community across the country. This ground-breaking book, illustrated by Dave Walker, offers information, hope, insight, prayerful reflection and practical ideas for bringing together in fellowship all Christians, whether they are members of an institutional Church or not.

Paul's Idea of Community
Paul's Idea of Community

Author: Robert J. Banks

Publisher: Baker Academic

Published: 2020-01-21

Total Pages: 238

ISBN-13: 1493421581

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This highly readable investigation of the early church explores the revolutionary nature, dynamics, and effects of the earliest Christian communities. It introduces readers to the cultural setting of the house churches of biblical times, examines the apostle Paul's vision of life in the Christian church, and explores how the New Testament model of community applies to Christian practice today. Updated and revised throughout, this 40th-anniversary edition incorporates recent research, updates the bibliography, and adds a new fictional narrative that depicts the life and times of the early church.

Visible Saints
Visible Saints

Author: Edmund Sears Morgan

Publisher: Ithaca, N. Y., Cornell University Press [1965

Published: 1963

Total Pages: 182

ISBN-13:

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Through a detailed account of the genesis, flowering, and decline of the Puritan ideal of a church of the elect in England and America, Morgan offers an important reinterpretation of a pivotal era in New England history. Historians have generally supposed that the main outlines of the Puritan church were determined in England and Holland and transplanted to the new world. Morgan convincingly suggests that the distinguishing characteristic of the New England churches, the ideal of a church composed exclusively of true and tested saints, developed fully only in the 1630's and 1640's, some time after the first settlers arrived in New England. He also examines the influence of the Separatist colony at Plymouth on the later settlers of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and follows the difficulties created by a definition of the religious community so selective that the New England churches nearly expired for lack of saints to fill them--From publisher description.

Models of the Church
Models of the Church

Author: Avery Dulles

Publisher: Image

Published: 2002-05-14

Total Pages: 290

ISBN-13: 0385505450

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There is today a dramatic reexamination of structure, authority, dogma -- indeed, every aspect of the life of the Church is held up to scrutiny. Welcoming this as a sign of vitality, Avery Dulles has carefully studied the writings of contemporary Protestant and Catholic ecclesiologists and sifted out six major approaches, or "models," through which the Church's character can be understood: as Institution, Mystical Communion, Sacrament, Herald, Servant, and, in a recent addition to the book, as Community of Disciples. A balanced theology, he concludes, must incorporate the major affirmations of each. "The method of models or types," observes Cardinal Dulles, "can have great value in helping people to get beyond the limitations of their own particular outlook and to enter into fruitful conversation with others... Such conversation is obviously essential if ecumenism is to get beyond its present impasses." This new edition includes a new Appendix and Preface by the author.

Truths We Confess
Truths We Confess

Author: Robert Charles Sproul

Publisher: Reformation Trust Publishing

Published: 2019

Total Pages: 720

ISBN-13: 9781642891621

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The Westminster Confession of Faith is one of the most precise and comprehensive statements of biblical Christianity, and it is treasured by believers around the world. Dr. R.C. Sproul has called it one of the most important confessions of faith ever penned, and it has helped generations of Christians understand and defend what they believe. In Truths We Confess, Dr. Sproul introduces readers to this remarkable confession, explaining its insights and applying them to modern life. In his signature easy-to-understand style and with his conviction that everyone's a theologian, he provides valuable commentary that will serve churches and individual Christians as they strive to better understand the eternal truths of Scripture. As he walks through the confession line by line, Dr. Sproul shows how the doctrines of the Bible--from creation to covenant, sin to salvation--fit together to the glory of God. This accessible volume is designed to help you deepen your knowledge of God's Word and answer the question, What do you believe?