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Created for the next generation of believers, the dynamic new Holy Spirit Essentials series introduces foundations of faith for living a Spirit-empowered life. Taken from the trusted teachings of leading Christian voices, these updated, concise, accessible overviews include real-world applications, related Scriptures, and prayers.

How can God choose to save some and eternally punish others? What about my loved ones who are not believers? For many, contemplating predestination brings about fear, trepidation, controversy, and emotional exhaustion, making it a difficult topic to study―let alone view as a blessing. This addition to the Short Studies in Systematic Theology series carefully examines God’s word to answer 15 commonly asked questions regarding the doctrines of election and reprobation.

Priest and fisherman Pete Nunnally loves to teach people how to fish for fish and, through that, how to fish for what their soul is yearning for: to come alive. In Catching Hope, he takes his listeners fishing with him. Each chapter explores a different aspect of the fishing process—from preparing your tackle, to reading the landscape, to finally catching something (or not). But this isn't a book about how to fish. It's a book about the bigger and more profound truths about our lives that the act of fishing reveals.

While most of us have the desire to share the gospel, we don’t know how to bring it up. Let’s face it… it’s not easy to go from “How is the weather?” to “Jesus died for you,” and no one is walking up to us on the street asking, “What must I do to be saved?” So what’s a well-intentioned Christian to do?

When life throws us non-stop challenges and curveballs, how can we have any hope of building a fulfilling and intimate marriage? How do we move from stressed and stretched to energized and inspired, finding the strength to transform both our lives and relationship? Robert Paul and Tara Lalonde equip husbands and wives with practical, biblically based tools to transform their personal lives and grow their marriage into something they’ll both love

The Christian culture that has underpinned Western society for centuries has been eroded. We're now at the point where to disagree with people on issues such as marriage and sexuality is seen as hateful. Christians are no longer seen as honorable, but as bigots. But history testifies that the more people try to destroy Christianity, the more it grows. So we are entering an exciting period of time because we're back in the place where Christ's church can thrive - at the margins of society. In this stirring, passionate book, Matt Chandler tells us we need Christian courage like never before.

As the world navigates the rapid and disruptive effects of AI, climate change, and geopolitical conflicts, the world of work, too, needs to change. Jobs are giving way to skills as the currency of work to ensure a more agile, resilient, and flexible enterprise that cannot just respond but must thrive in the face of these challenges. This pivot from jobs to skills will require us to rethink everything we know about work. 

Reconciling the existence of God and evil has been a long-standing conundrum in Christian theology, yet a philosophical approach—rather than a theological one—dominates the discussion. Turning to the Bible's grand storyline, Scott Christensen examines how sin, evil, corruption, and death fit into the broad outlines of redemptive history. He argues that God's ultimate end in creation is to magnify his glory to his image-bearers, most notably by defeating evil through the atoning work of Christ.

Over the first two-thirds of the twentieth century, as many as eight million whites left the economically depressed southern countryside and migrated to the booming factory towns and cities of the industrial Midwest in search of work. The "hillbilly highway" was one of the largest internal relocations of poor and working people in American history, yet it has largely escaped close study by historians. 

There is a power so great it can help you not only survive but thrive in this crazy world, a power that can give you joy and peace, result in miracles, and make you victorious no matter what. It’s a power that comes from the third member of the Godhead, the Holy Spirit. Spirit-Led Living in an Upside-Down World takes you on a journey to help you understand how you can experience this power and know the Holy Spirit intimately.

Why do we buy what we buy, vote the way we vote, eat what we eat, and say what we say? Why do we have the friends we have, and work and play as we do? It's our choice? Yes, but there are forces, often unseen, that shape every decision we make and every action we take. These hidden, life-shaping values and ideas are not promoted through organized religions or rival philosophies but fostered by cultural habits, lifestyles and the institutional structures of society. 

From Genesis to Revelation, the theme of the royal priesthood runs through the biblical story from the garden of Eden through the priesthood of Israel to Jesus Christ―the true and better high priest. It culminates with the creation of God’s new covenant people, called out of the nations to be his priests to the nations. In this concise treatment, David Schrock traces this theme of priesthood throughout the Bible and displays to readers how Jesus, the great high priest, informs the worship, discipleship, and evangelism of the church.

Nestled in a few verses in Luke's Gospel is a Jesus who would not have been tolerated today: He was not politically correct and He certainly did not try to save people's feelings. Steven Lawson unpacks these few verses, looking at the unashamed honesty, passion, and urgency with which Jesus explains the life-long cost involved in choosing to follow Him. True Christianity is the biggest sacrifice any person ever makes...but it is in pursuit of the most precious prize ever glimpsed.

As both a pastor and a parent, Cameron S. Shaffer is alarmed by the mass exodus of young people from the church over the past couple decades. The rise of the Nones and exvangelicals is clear evidence that our current children's and youth ministry practices are ineffective and must change if we want to stem the tide of dechurching. Whatever we're doing now is not creating lifelong disciples.

This volume of six linked stories and the novella from which the book derives its title is set in Port William from 1908 to the Second World War. Here Wendell Berry introduces two of his more indelible and poignant characters, Ptolemy Proudfoot and his wife Miss Minnie, remarkable for the comic and affectionate range that—with the mastery of this consummate storyteller working at the height of his powers—here approaches the Shakespearean.

What will it take to accomplish Christ's mission in our lifetime? That's the question evangelicals have been asking for over a century, but our efforts to reach the unreached and finish the task have often sacrificed the important for the immediate. The greatest challenge in evangelical missions isn't a lack of urgency, but a lack of discernment. As we've prioritized movements that are simple and reproducible, the gospel and faithful churches are now threatened. In Mission Affirmed, Elliot Clark seeks to reshape our motivation by considering the example of Paul the missionary.

Johnnie Moore, like many American Christians, didn't fully appreciate the extent of Christian persecution in other parts of the world - until he witnessed the graduation of theology students in India. Unlike graduation ceremonies in America - where feel-good speeches made by visiting celebrities are common - this one featured a remarkable oath. It wasn't an oath to excel or succeed. It was an oath to be willing to die, if necessary, for the cause of Christ. This was no empty promise. This was a choice, choosing the eternal over the temporal.

For more than one hundred years, E. Stanley Jones has led the way in evangelism by contextualizing Christ in the existing culture, wherever that may be. In The Christ of the Indian Road, he recounts his experiences in India, where he arrived as a young and presumptuous missionary who later matured into a veteran who attempted to contextualize Jesus Christ within the Indian culture. Jones names the mistakes many Christians make in trying to impose their culture on the existing culture.

Money issues are a frequent source of conflict in any marriage. But blended families are a monetary minefield. Debts, bills, and child support payments from previous relationships often influence the finances of a blended family. And planning for college expenses, retirement, and inheritance gets even more complicated in stepfamilies. 

Jonathan Edwards was just an ordinary American boy but he was different too. The country he lived in wasn't the America of today - but a new world full of adventure and opportunity. Battles and Tomahawks were just some of the thrilling adventures that his family lived through. But Jonathan also loved the small things in life too. In an age of scientific discovery, Edwards saw God's beauty displayed most perfectly through nature. His journals are filled with drawings of plants, animals, and spiders because he knew that each one of them reflected the creativity of its creator.