Bestselling author and modern-day prophet Tony Campolo believes that one of the best ways to tell the grand story of the gospel is to tell stories of everyday life where God is at work...just as Jesus did during his earthly ministry. This collection of stories from Tony's lifelong friendships and international travels allow readers to "overhear" the gospel at work around the world. Set around Romans 8, the stories center on eight gospel themes: freedom of condemnation, new life in Christ, intimacy with God, the call to rescue creation, living with hope, praying in the Spirit, God's plans for us, and the assurance we need. Whether humorous or poignant, each one is an unforgettable echo of God at work around us and within us.
The publication of the King James version of the Bible, translated between 1603 and 1611, coincided with an extraordinary flowering of English literature and is universally acknowledged as the greatest influence on English-language literature in history. Now, world-class literary writers introduce the book of the King James Bible in a series of beautifully designed, small-format volumes. The introducers' passionate, provocative, and personal engagements with the spirituality and the language of the text make the Bible come alive as a stunning work of literature and remind us of its overwhelming contemporary relevance.
Christ’s Fulfillment of Torah and Temple is a concise introduction to the Christian theology of salvation in light of the contributions of Thomas Aquinas. In this cogent study, Matthew Levering identifies six important aspects of soteriology, each of which corresponds to an individual chapter in the book. Levering focuses on human history understood in light of the divine law and covenants, Jesus the Incarnate Son of God and Messiah of Israel, Jesus’ cross, transformation in the image of God, the Mystical Body of Christ into which all human beings are called, and eternal life. Taking the doctrines of faith as his starting point, Levering’s objective is to answer the questions of both Christians and non-Christians who desire to learn how and for what end Jesus “saves” humankind. Levering’s work also speaks directly to contemporary systematic theologians. In contrast to widespread assumptions that Aquinas’s theology of salvation is overly abstract or juridical, Levering demonstrates that Aquinas’s theology of salvation flows from his reading of Scripture and deserves a central place in contemporary discussions. Thomas Aquinas’s theology of salvation employs and develops the concepts of satisfaction and merit in light of his theology of the Old Testament. For Aquinas, Christ fulfills Israel’s Torah and Temple, law and liturgy. These two aspects of Israel’s religion provide the central categories for understanding salvation. The Torah expresses God’s Wisdom, incarnated in Jesus Christ. Christ’s passion, then, fulfills and transforms the moral, juridical, and ceremonial precepts of the Torah, which correspond to the three “offices” of ancient Israel—prophet, king, and priest. The New Law in Christ Jesus is also the fulfillment of the Temple, Israel’s worship. Christ offers the Father the perfect worship, participated in by all members of his Mystical Body through faith, charity, and the sacraments. Old Law and New Law are fulfilled in the perfect knowing and loving (perfect law and liturgy) of eternal life, the Heavenly Jerusalem. As a Thomistic contribution to contemporary theology, this fruitful study develops a theology of salvation in accord with contemporary canonical readings of Scripture and with the teachings of the Second Vatican Council on the fulfillment and permanence of God’s covenants.
Imagine yourself transported two thousand years back in time to Galilee at the moment of Jesus' Sermon on the Mount. After hearing it, would you abandon your religious beliefs and ideology to follow him, or would you hold on to your own beliefs and walk away? In A Rabbi Talks with Jesus Jacob Neusner considers just such a spiritual journey.
Jesus' relation to the Torah forms a significant motif in Matthew's Gospel. This relation is taken up as an important theme in the Sermon on the Mount with its strong Sinai typology, and disputes about the Torah are repeated throughout the Gospel. Jesus is depicted as the last and greatest expositor of the Torah. When reading this Gospel, the central role of the Torah must be seriously considered. This present study is furthermore relevant in the light of new insights that have developed in recent years on the diversity and dynamics within the Judaism that confronted Matthew. This diversity within Judaism is usually related to Judaist attitudes towards the Torah. To complicate this, oral traditions were strong and lively. Questions arose about the status of the written Scriptures and oral traditions and the authority ascribed to these. The Matthean community developed within this turmoil of developing Judaism.
Many consider the gospel of Matthew to be one of the most "Jewish" texts of the New Testament. Luke-Acts, on the other hand, has traditionally been viewed as a very "Greek" and Gentile-Christian text. Isaac W. Oliver challenges this dichotomy, reading Matthew and Luke-Acts not only against their Jewish "background" but as early Jewish literature. He explores the question of Torah praxis, especially its ritual aspects, in each writing. By assessing their attitude toward three central markers of Jewish identity - Sabbath, kashrut, and circumcision - Oliver argues that both Matthew and Luke affirm the perpetuation of Torah observance within the Jesus movement, albeit by differentiating which Mosaic commandments are incumbent upon Jewish and Gentile followers of Jesus. Luke proves to be just as "Jewish" as his "cousin" Matthew in so far as his affirmation of the Mosaic Torah is concerned.
In this comprehensive exposition, a leading New Testament scholar explores the unfolding theological unity of the entire Bible from the vantage point of the New Testament. G. K. Beale, coeditor of the award-winning Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament, examines how the New Testament storyline relates to and develops the Old Testament storyline. Beale argues that every major concept of the New Testament is a development of a concept from the Old and is to be understood as a facet of the inauguration of the latter-day new creation and kingdom. Offering extensive interaction between the two testaments, this volume helps readers see the unifying conceptual threads of the Old Testament and how those threads are woven together in Christ. This major work will be valued by students of the New Testament and pastors alike.
For centuries the Jewish community in Europe possessed a copy of Matthew in the Hebrew language. The Jews' use of this document during the Middle Ages is imperfectly known. Occasionally excerpts from it appeared in polemical writings against Christianity.
This collection of articles analyzes the formation of antique and early medieval religious identities and ideas in rabbinic Judaism, early Christianity, Islam, and Greco-Roman culture. The authors question the artificial disciplinary and conceptual boundaries between these traditions.
"Explores the relationship between the particular salvation of the Jews and the universal salvation of all people in the gospel of Matthew"--Provided by publisher.
