Showing titles in Systematic

In The Attributes of God, renowned theologian Gerald Bray leads us on an exploration of God’s being, his essential attributes, his relational attributes, and the relevance of his attributes to our thinking, lives, and worship. As we better understand God’s attributes, we will learn to delight in who God is and how he has made himself known to us in Scripture.

Athanasius of Alexandria was a bishop in fourth-century Egypt. Thanks in part to Athanasius’ arguments, his position of Trinitarianism (that the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost were all One God) became the official position of Christendom, and remains so to this day. This work, On the Incarnation (or sometimes On the Incarnation of the Word of God), was his first book. It tackles the central point of the divine saga, God’s embodiment on Earth as Christ, and seeks to understand, in detail, the “why” and “how” of it all.

Understanding Islam's sacred text is integral to understanding your Muslim neighbor. Cross-cultural missionary and scholar Matthew Aaron Bennett blends the insights of Islamic believers, secular Qur'an scholars, and missionaries to Muslims, making The Qur'an and the Christian like no other resource for Christian ministry to Muslims. Combining these perspectives in one guide better equips Christians to communicate the biblical gospel to friends and neighbors who are adherents to Islam—both in and out of majority-Muslim cultures.

The disciplines of theology and biblical studies should serve each other, and they should serve both the church and the academy together. But the relationship between them is often marked by misunderstandings, methodological differences, and cross-discipline tension. Theologian Hans Boersma here highlights five things he wishes biblical scholars knew about theology. In a companion volume, biblical scholar Scot McKnight reflects on five things he wishes theologians knew about biblical studies.

Whether you’re wrestling with doubt, seeking to rebuild your faith, or longing to experience God’s love anew, this book will help you discover a Gospel that is profoundly hopeful, deeply personal, and unmistakably real. Rediscover the God who has been pursuing you all along.

What do Christians actually believe about God the Father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit? Does God know what I'm thinking? Has God already decided the future for me? Did Jesus' body do all the things that our bodies do? Does he still have a body now? Is the Holy Spirit a person? Can I stop sinning? What does a real church look like? What's the right way to baptize or have communion? How does God want me to live? This book gives 100 core answers that Christians throughout the centuries have given to basic questions about God. It not only includes answers that Christians have pretty much agreed ...

In The Baptist Foundation: Foundations for Faith and Practice, Marvin McKenzie presents a clear and concise study of the core beliefs that shape Baptist Christianity. This comprehensive resource delves into foundational doctrines, distinctives, and difficult theological topics central to the Baptist tradition. With clarity and biblical accuracy, the author equips readers with a deeper understanding of Baptist faith, making it an invaluable resource for pastors, students, and believers. The first section explores the central doctrines of Baptist faith, beginning with the authority of ...

Confused by the overtly philosophical, wordy, and Biblically lacking treatises on the Trinity? Then this is for you. In The Image Of God by Samuel Garcia attempts to tackle one of the core doctrines of Christianity by paying attention to the ignored singular analogy of the Trinity in the Bible text itself: the trinity of man, and how it fits nicely with the traditional and current perception of the Trinity with little contradiction, yet confident in its assertion of the importance of rightly dividing the word of God and make solid statements about the Trinity that few dare make. The ...

There are so many misconceptions about Calvinism that it is safe to say that even most Christians do not truly know what it teaches. You may have grown up in a Reformed church, or you may have heard about Calvinism mostly in arguments. Either way, it may surprise you to know that this belief has huge, and very positive, implications for a believer's daily life!

How could a conservative Christian - an ordained minister with a beard, no less - be against not only Christianity, but theology, sacraments, and ethics as well? Yet that is the stance Peter Leithart takes in this provocative "theological bricolage." Seeking to rethink evangelical notions of culture, church, and state, Leithart offers a series of short essays, aphorisms, and parables that challenge the current dichotomies that govern both Christian and non-Christian thinking about church and state, the secular and the religious.

Many of us believe that in order to please God, we have to be perfect. It’s an easy lie to buy into. In a culture that emphasizes accomplishment and ever-higher goals, we feel driven to do more, achieve more, be more. And we get caught up in the unforgiving treadmill of self-imposed rules, believing that we should, we need to, we must. The result? Anger, frustration, and anxiety that keep us far away from the life of peace that Jesus promised.

Quite simply, three of the most important and well-known confessions of the Reformed faith. The Augsburg Confession is the earliest of the three and is the primary confession of the Lutheran Church. The Heidelberg Catechism was a response written by Zacharias Ursinus and consists of 129 questions and answers. The Westminster Confession is the best known and begins with "What is the chief end of man? Man's chief end is to glorify God, and enjoy Him forever."

The Trinity is the central mystery of the Christian faith. What can we say about the divine nature, and what does it mean to say that God is Father, Son, Holy Spirit, three persons who are one in being? In this book, bestselling author Thomas Joseph White, OP, examines the development of early Christian reflection on the Trinity, arguing that essential contributions of Patristic theology are preserved and expanded in the thought of Thomas Aquinas.

In this book, Jeffrey T. Riddle takes us on a wonderful little journey into the depths of God's grace and love. He introduces the doctrines of God's free grace, showing how they are clearly presented in the Bible and have been staunchly defended throughout the 2,000 year history of the church. He shows the listener how they impact the Christian life, he deals with common questions about and challenges to them, and throughout, he points us to our glorious, gracious, merciful, faithful and unbeatable Triune God who sent his only-begotten Son to die for us while we were still sinners (Rom. 5:8).

This book by Douglas Wilson shows that many who call themselves Reformed have in fact lost the older Calvinistic teaching about the objectivity of the covenant and the promises made to Christians at baptism. Multitudes of faithless, corrupt Christians show that they do not believe what God said at their baptism.

“What we believe is so important… and defending our beliefs is critical […] Rev. Montoya has gone to great lengths to provide clarity and biblical support to the things we treasure dearly, our fundamental doctrines.” — DR. DOUG CLAY – AG General Superintendent The 16 Fundamental Doctrines Explained takes the reader through a powerful doctrinal journey. The book highlights the details of Pentecostal doctrine and lays it out in a combination of simplicity and unusually high level of scholarship. This textbook of The 16 Fundamental Doctrines Explained will help your local church in...

"Can anything orthodox come from Pentecostalism?" This recasting of Nathaniel's familiar question from the Gospel is a fair summary of many modern Christians' assessment of the Pentecostal tradition. Yet in recent years, a growing number of Pentecostals have been turning afresh to the ancient, creedal Christian faith.

Believer's Bible Doctrine Handbook provides brief summaries of eighty Christian truths, arranged in ten categories: Scripture, God, Christ, the Holy Spirit, Man, Sin, Salvation, Sanctification, the Church, and Future Events. Based squarely on the foundation of biblical authority, Believer's Bible Doctrine Handbook offers a Trinitarian theology and a balanced evangelical doctrine of salvation. It adopts credo-baptist, de-facto cessationist, and complementarian positions, in addition to advocating a non-legalistic doctrine of sanctification, elements of congregational, presbyterian, and ...

The Gospel is primarily about God. Part of the glory of the New Testament is that it explains the Gospel to us in terms of the glorious work of the three persons of the Trinity. Yet many can miss the rich Trinitarian backdrop of the New Testament because they are not looking for it. Knowing the Trinity shows that knowing God is knowing him as Triune and that to know him is to love him. Each section leads listeners to meditate on God’s work and how they relate to him in light of passages of Scripture that appeal to all three divine persons.

If we want to know the truth about God, we need a sound approach to incorporating what the whole Bible teaches. In this concise introduction to systematic theology, theologian Graham A. Cole explores how we move from Scripture to doctrine in order to shape what we believe, what we value, and how we live. He shows us the importance of having the right method: rooted in the word of God, consistent with church history, in the context of a broken world, dependent on divine wisdom, and ultimately aiming at pure worship.