Time often slows and even stops in the small town of Cottage Park, Iowa. In fact, time is best measured not by the hands of a clock but by the innings of a baseball game. Praying and playing baseball are two of the town's primary activities. Actually, they are one in the same in a town where baseball is a religion. Still, time does eventually flow on. Much like the Des Moines River just outside Cottage Park, time leads to the site of the 1974 Iowa high school baseball tournament. Cottage Park's Holy Trinity High School has never won the Finals. The team's three elderly coaches vow to at last anoint themselves champions before they retire. For the players, the road to the Finals is a confirmation by fire--a rite of passage before they must face adulthood. Fathers, sons, and the holy ghosts of baseball join together in the quest for the Finals. Along this journey, young and old alike ultimately learn you must sacrifice before you can gain and sometimes you must lose before you can win.
Bruce Ware provides an approachable examination of the doctrine of the Trinity. He discusses the relationship and roles of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and the practical implications of the Trinity for our lives.
"What do Mormons believe? For the first time a comprehensive reference work attempts to answer [this] question in an accessible and authoritative manner. Almost nine hundred doctrines and principles of the Church have been uniquely set forth in this one volume work. We Believe presents single-sentence summaries of Mormon doctrine that crystallize Mormon beliefs in a convenient, user-friendly format (much like the Articles of Faith, but instead of 13 there are 898). Arranged under 94 topics ranging from Adversity to Zion, and cross-referenced, these single-sentence doctrinal statements make it possible to grasp specific Mormon beliefs in relation to one another and to the whole of Mormon doctrine. Passages taken from official Church sources that establish Church doctrines accompany each single-sentence doctrinal statement, making We Believe as reliable as it is handy. We Believe quotes only prophets and apostles. One need not rely on one author's viewpoint alone, or upon second-hand sources. We Believe provides the actual words of the ancient prophets of scripture, and of the modern prophets and apostles that authoritatively establish each doctrine of the Church."--Jacket.
This volume offers partristic commentary edited by Gerald L. Bray on the first article of the Nicene Creed. Readers will gain insight into the history and substance of what the early church believed about God the Father.
Communion with God, or in full, "Of communion with God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost each person distinctly, in love, grace, and consolation; or, the saints' fellowship with the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost unfolded," is John Owen's finest devotional treatise. This work expounds "the most glorious truth that believers may have distinct communion with the three persons Father, Son, and Spirit," and being addressed to the "Christian reader" is simpler than much of Owen's theology. (Unabridged. Includes all footnotes.)
When you consider the aspects of Christianity that differentiate it from other religions, one of its most distinguishing characteristics is certainly the notion of a "triune God." This concept has been the bedrock of Christian orthodoxy for almost two millennia, and even today remains the standard by which everything claiming to be Christian is measured. Indeed, in many respects the Trinity has actually become Christianity’s defining doctrine. In addition to its singular importance, though, the Trinity is also one of the most enigmatic doctrines of the Christian faith. For even though most believers are aware of the Trinity, they would probably be hard-pressed to explain it without slipping into heresy themselves. They know it has something to do with "Father, Son, and Holy Spirit," and that the three are somehow one, but that’s about the extent of it. That being said, perhaps the most perplexing thing about this doctrine is that neither the word "Trinity" nor its central premise of "one God in three persons" can be found in Scripture! This comes as a shock to most Christians, who tacitly assume that something as essential as the Trinity must be on virtually every page of the Bible. In reality, though, the Trinity gradually took shape during the 300+ years after the close of the New Testament, a synthesis of Christian doctrine and concepts borrowed from Greek philosophical and religious systems. If you’ve ever had to wrestle with the ideas of Plato and Aristotle, you can start to appreciate why the Trinity is so hard to grasp. So in light of all this, why are we still talking about this doctrine after almost 2,000 years? It’s not in the Bible, most Christians can’t comprehend it, and yet it is deemed to be the litmus test of orthodoxy! Granted, the Trinity has been used many times over the years to vanquish some of the most serious threats that the church has faced; still, when you look at the history of this doctrine it sure feels like the early church fell into the very trap that Paul had warned them about. In his letter to the Colossians, he admonished the church to steer clear of "empty philosophies and high-sounding nonsense," yet here we are. Fortunately, there is a better answer to the riddle of "Father, Son, and Holy Spirit." We simply need to allow Scripture to speak for itself, rather than listening to it through its would-be interpreter, the Trinity. This is not an easy task, to be sure, since we have been so indoctrinated with the Trinity that it is hard to see anything else when we open the pages of the Bible. Nevertheless, when we set God’s tri-partite designation in the context of the Kingdom of God and the Bible’s overarching story of redemption, the truth of this phrase starts to emerge. The trick, of course, is doing that without also slipping into heresy…which is exactly what "Testing the Trinity" strives to accomplish.
