What has led to the church's vibrant growth throughout the Global South? Brian Stiller identifies five key factors that have shaped the church, from a renewed openness to the move of the Holy Spirit to the empowerment of indigenous leadership. Discover the surprising story of the global advance of the gospel. And be encouraged that Jesus' witness continues to the ends of the earth.

While spending thirty years overseas in the US Foreign Service, and living in eleven countries and working in many more, Ambassador Lucke accumulated many stories that would never have happened "at home." His work took him to Timbuktu (twice), to places in West Africa where kids ran away in fear at their first glimpse of a person with white skin, to the scary run up to Gulf War I in North Africa, to the jungles of Bolivia and Lake Titicaca in the Andes, the fall of Communism in the old Czechoslovakia, biblical sites of Jerusalem, the passing of King Hussein in Jordan, to interaction with a few US Presidents and many members of Congress. He was thrust into the aftermath of the Haiti earthquake, deployed into the war zone of Iraq, and finally served as US Ambassador to the last absolute monarchy in Africa. His take on a thirty-year career abroad: "It was never boring."

**New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice** To save ancient Arabic texts from Al Qaeda, a band of librarians pulls off a brazen heist worthy of Ocean’s Eleven in this “fast-paced narrative that is…part intellectual history, part geopolitical tract, and part out-and-out thriller” (The Washington Post) from the author of The Falcon Thief. In the 1980s, a young adventurer and collector for a government library, Abdel Kader Haidara, journeyed across the Sahara Desert and along the Niger River, tracking down and salvaging tens of thousands of ancient Islamic and secular manuscripts that were crumbling in the trunks of desert shepherds. His goal: preserve this crucial part of the world’s patrimony in a gorgeous library. But then Al Qaeda showed up at the door. “Part history, part scholarly adventure story, and part journalist survey…Joshua Hammer writes with verve and expertise” (The New York Times Book Review) about how Haidara, a mild-mannered archivist from the legendary city of Timbuktu, became one of the world’s greatest smugglers by saving the texts from sure destruction. With bravery and patience, Haidara organized a dangerous operation to sneak all 350,000 volumes out of the city to the safety of southern Mali. His heroic heist “has all the elements of a classic adventure novel” (The Seattle Times), and is a reminder that ordinary citizens often do the most to protect the beauty of their culture. His the story is one of a man who, through extreme circumstances, discovered his higher calling and was changed forever by it.

Themelios is an international, evangelical, peer-reviewed theological journal that expounds and defends the historic Christian faith. Themelios is published three times a year online at The Gospel Coalition (http://thegospelcoalition.org/themelios/) and in print by Wipf and Stock. Its primary audience is theological students and pastors, though scholars read it as well. Themelios began in 1975 and was operated by RTSF/UCCF in the UK, and it became a digital journal operated by The Gospel Coalition in 2008. The editorial team draws participants from across the globe as editors, essayists, and reviewers. General Editor: D. A. Carson, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School Managing Editor: Brian Tabb, Bethlehem College and Seminary Consulting Editor: Michael J. Ovey, Oak Hill Theological College Administrator: Andrew David Naselli, Bethlehem College and Seminary Book Review Editors: Jerry Hwang, Singapore Bible College; Alan Thompson, Sydney Missionary & Bible College; Nathan A. Finn, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary; Hans Madueme, Covenant College; Dane Ortlund, Crossway; Jason Sexton, Golden Gate Baptist Seminary Editorial Board: Gerald Bray, Beeson Divinity School Lee Gatiss, Wales Evangelical School of Theology Paul Helseth, University of Northwestern, St. Paul Paul House, Beeson Divinity School Ken Magnuson, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary Jonathan Pennington, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary James Robson, Wycliffe Hall Mark D. Thompson, Moore Theological College Paul Williamson, Moore Theological College Stephen Witmer, Pepperell Christian Fellowship Robert Yarbrough, Covenant Seminary

The Sahara: a dream-like, far away landscape of Lawrence of Arabia and Wilfred Thesiger, The English Patient and Star Wars, and home to nomadic communities whose ways of life stretch back millennia. Today it's a teeth-janglingly dangerous destination, where the threat of jihadists lurks just over the horizon. Following in the footsteps of 16th century traveller Leo Africanus, Nicholas Jubber went on a turbulent adventure to the forgotten places of North Africa and the legendary Timbuktu. Once the seat of African civilization and home to the richest man who ever lived, this mythic city is now scarred by terrorist occupation and is so remote its own inhabitants hail you with the greeting, 'Welcome to the middle of nowhere'. From the cattle markets of the Atlas, across the Western Sahara and up the Niger river, Nicholas joins the camps of the Tuareg, Fulani, Berbers, and other communities, to learn about their craft, their values and their place in the world. The Timbuktu School for Nomads is a unique look at a resilient city and how the nomads pit ancient ways of life against the challenges of the 21st century.

The land is an important theme in the Bible. It is a theme through which the whole biblical history found in the Old and New Testaments can be studied and analyzed. Looking at the land in the Bible from its beginnings in the garden of Eden this publication approaches the theme from three distinct perspectives – holiness, the covenant, and the kingdom. Through careful analysis the author recognises that the land has been universalized in Christ, as anticipated in the Old Testament, and as a result promotes a missional theology of the land that underlines the social and territorial dimensions of redemption.

Special Envoy of Figaro, Felix Dubois, left Dakar in 1896 and traveled into Mali by train to the end of the line (just after Kayes), and then on foot and horseback to Bamako and in pinnace from Koulikoro to Timbuktu. He describes Bamako, Segou but extremely long Djenne and Timbuktu, focusing on economic and cultural activities, collecting manuscripts and bringing a unique iconography (including photos of Fort Segou, a plan and reconstruction of the old mosque Jenne already been lost and not rebuilt); fundamental evidence on Mali in the early hours of colonization. Dubois resumed (from North) this journey of 15 years later and thus engaged in an assessment of changes. The merit of Felix Jones is to have transcribed the path to that goal, in a masterly text drawn from the sources of the bush, heat and space. His style made great reporter of the late nineteenth century, teeming with anecdotes. With the text researched and documented, it earned him then to be crowned by the French Academy.

A historical tour de force, The Invention of the Jewish People offers a groundbreaking account of Jewish and Israeli history. Exploding the myth that there was a forced Jewish exile in the first century at the hands of the Romans, Israeli historian Shlomo Sand argues that most modern Jews descend from converts, whose native lands were scattered across the Middle East and Eastern Europe. In this iconoclastic work, which spent nineteen weeks on the Israeli bestseller list and won the coveted Aujourd'hui Award in France, Sand provides the intellectual foundations for a new vision of Israel's future.