Dave Simpson knew a lot of answers, but he didn't know The Answer. A four-time Jeopardy! champion and six-figure winner on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, Dave was a smart guy. For much of his adult life, he considered himself too smart for religion. Too smart for church. He was too smart for God. Fast forward a few years and Dave is a Lutheran pastor. And no one was more surprised that he became a minister - or even a Christian - than he was. In Too Smart for God, Dave invites us on his journey through disbelief to the pulpit. This funny and often touching story will not only inspire your own walk, but will help foster understanding between people on all sides of faith.
"Ehrlich’s insightful self-help guide will resonate with Christians wishing to streamline an overstuffed life."—Publishers Weekly Logically, we all know our purpose in life is not wrapped up in accumulating possessions, wealth, power, and prestige—Jesus is very clear about that—but society tells us otherwise. Christian Minimalism attempts to cut through our assumptions and society’s lies about what life should look like and invites readers into a life that Jesus calls us to live: one lived intentionally, free of physical, spiritual, and emotional clutter. Written by a woman who simplified her own life and practices these principles daily, this book gives readers a fresh perspective on how to live out God’s grace for us in new and exciting ways and live out our faith in a way that is deeply satisfying.
An Objective Look at Some of the Bible's Strangest Stories Genesis offers helpful answers to the biggest questions in life—Why are we here? What is God like? Why so much evil and pain? But today's readers often get tripped up by the ancient writing style and wonder... Did Moses really write Genesis? Many of the reports seem so odd—are they scientifically accurate? Does that matter? How does Genesis relate to other ancient accounts of creation, the origin of evil, and the great flood? Stephen M. Miller—a seminary-educated news journalist—presents viewpoints from a wide range of Christian Bible experts, along with gorgeous graphics and a touch of dry humor. Whether you're a Bible newbie or a longtime reader, this visual stroll through the first book of the Bible will help you bridge the gap between then and now.
What you believe about God sets the foundation of the person you will become. In God Has a Name, pastor and New York Times bestselling author John Mark Comer invites you to rethink many of the prevalent myths and misconceptions about God and weigh them against what God actually tells us about himself. After all, what you believe about God will ultimately shape the type of person you become. We all live at the mercy of our ideas, and nowhere is this more true than our ideas about God. The problem is many of our ideas about God are wrong. Not all wrong, but wrong enough to form our souls in detrimental and disheartening ways. God Has a Name is a simple yet profound guide to understanding God in a new light--focusing on what God says about himself in the Bible. This one shift has the potential to radically alter how you relate to God, not as a doctrine, but as a relational being who responds to you in an elastic, back-and-forth way. John Mark Comer takes you line by line through Exodus 34:6-8--Yahweh's self-revelation on Mount Sinai, one of the most quoted passages in the Bible. Along the way, Comer addresses some of the most profound questions he came across as he studied these noted lines in Exodus, including: Why do we feel this gap between us and God? Could it be that a lot of what we think about God is wrong? Not all wrong, but wrong enough to mess up how we relate to him? What if our "God" is really a projection of our own identity, ideas, and desires? What if the real God is different, but far better than we could ever imagine? No matter where you are in your spiritual journey, God Has a Name invites you to step into a fresh and biblically rooted vision of who God is that has the potential to alter your life with God and shape who you become.
Intelligent design has found its way into the headlines, has been spruiked in the Parliament and is now trying to slink into our schools. So where did this wilfully ignorant sibling of creationism and its anti-scientific arguments spring from? And why is it refusing to go away? Using all the richness of the scientific and natural worlds, Robyn Williams takes on the stalking monster in a short, wicked and witty debunk of ID. Why make the earth, the solar system, our galaxy and all the rest, he asks, when the Garden of Eden was all that was needed? And then there's lifespan. During long periods of human history, the life expectancy of men was a mere 22 years and children were lucky to toddle, let alone grow up. Why the waste? And shouldn't we sue God for sinus blockages, hernias, appendix flare-ups and piles, not to mention bad backs? This is a book to infuriate the forces of darkness, and anger and amuse the rest of us.
The Smart Girl’s Guide melds spiritual and practical advice with humor, equipping you to stand up for your faith and really live the Christian walk every day.
It is an all too familiar path. A young person leaves home for college. He still believes in God and likely believes in the particular faith of his family. Then the deconversion begins. By the time he earns an undergraduate degree not only has he discarded the faith of his family, he has abandoned belief in God altogether. In fact, he looks back at his family and those who continue to believe in wonder. How can they still believe?It is a fact that the more education a person receives the more likely she is to become an atheist. A recent study also found that average intelligence is an excellent predictor of rates of atheism. That is, the higher the intelligence, the higher the rate of non-belief.It is natural to assume that intelligence and education give us a firmer grip on truth. Doesn't it make sense then that the individual who replaces faith with skepticism and disbelief is headed in the right direction? Shouldn't we conclude that this person is drawing closer to truth?Absolutely not!Having abandoned faith himself by the end of graduate school, author IW Brown then spent years examining the very best arguments for and against God's existence. In The God Conclusion: Why Smart People Still Believe, Brown makes a powerful case that the most educated and intellectual among us are often the furthest from the truth about God. They most certainly don't enjoy any advantage over the less educated when striving to understand existence and the transcendent. Vocal advocates of atheism regularly boast that the brainiest among us are non-believers. Contrary to what they would suggest, however, there is no reason to defer to the experts in science, philosophy, or academia when it comes to the God Question.The God Conclusion dispels the notion that intelligence and learning should lead to disbelief. It describes how and why rational, well-informed people still have reason to believe in God. If you or someone you know struggles to maintain faith in God in the face of the wisdom of the world, The God Conclusion is for you!
Explains how self-delusion is part of a person's psychological defense system, identifying common misconceptions people have on topics such as caffeine withdrawal, hindsight, and brand loyalty.
The most celebrated story collection from “one of the true American masters” (The New York Review of Books)—a haunting meditation on love, loss, and companionship, and finding one’s way through the dark that includes the iconic and much-referenced title story featured in the Academy Award-winning film Birdman. "Raymond Carver's America is ... clouded by pain and the loss of dreams, but it is not as fragile as it looks. It is a place of survivors and a place of stories.... [Carver] has done what many of the most gifted writers fail to do: He has invented a country of his own, like no other except that very world, as Wordsworth said, which is the world to all of us." —The New York Times Book Review
A different kind of dating book, She's Got the Wrong Guy not only details why these are the wrong guys, but also helps single Christian women better understand why they "settle" for less than God intends. Instead, they will be encouraged to put their hope and happiness in Jesus, not marriage
