Pastor, it’s time to turn down the noise and focus on what matters. Today’s pastoral world is packed with books, conferences, and seminars teaching you different techniques for being an all-star pastor, growing your church quickly, and changing the world. But the key to true success is much harder and much simpler. Pastors are called to be faithful, to have exemplary character, and to love Jesus. Without faithfulness, their ministry ends up harming others rather than helping them. Churches need pastors with sound doctrine and a sound life. Character Matters was written to help you slow down, cut through the noise and distractions, and focus on what matters—the fruit of the Spirit. Each chapter is a guided, biblical meditation on one aspect of each piece of the fruit of the Spirit. As you reflect and focus on the simple things that matter, you’ll see your heart change and your ministry follow, slowly, surely, and by the power of the Spirit.

God made you for friendship. Friendship is one of the deepest pleasures of life. But in our busy, fast-paced, mobile world, we've lost this rich view of friendship and instead settled for shallow acquaintances based on little more than similar tastes or shared interests. Helping us recapture a vision of true friendship, pastor Drew Hunter explores God's design for friendship and what it really looks like in practice—giving us practical advice to cultivate the kinds of true friendships that lead to true and life-giving joy.

Augustine's interpretation is spiritual--his were not scholarly or academic concerns--and John Leinenweber's translation is fresh and accessible, capturing the clarity, brilliance, and inspired passion of the original. "John has said many things," stated Augustine, "and almost all of them concern love." The first six of the ten homilies were delivered on the days of the Easter octave. This period proved too short for Augustine to cover the whole of the letter, and he preached four additional homilies later in the spring. In his Confessions, Augustine spoke of his great longing as a youth "to love and be loved"--a topic that appealed greatly to his listeners. During the course of delivering these homilies, he was interrupted time and again by applause and shouts of enthusiasm. The ten homilies are broken up into twenty-four short chapters, for example: The Commandment of Love, Two Loves (of God and of the World), Christ and Antichrists, Unanswered Prayer, God is Love, God Has Loved Us First, Love Casts Out Fear. His are in large part moral teachings, dealing with such topics as prayer, our enemies, fear of God, the church, the world (so important in Saint John's writings). What does one actually do to love God and others? What are the pitfalls of loving? How can one learn to love more? Throughout the homilies, Augustine's great desire "to love and be loved" and to live eternally with God are eloquently expressed. Believing himself ignorant of Scripture, he had initially considered himself ill-prepared for the priesthood. Augustine's subsequent tireless studies unleashed a stream of biblical commentaries that led him to be ranked with Thomas Aquinas as one of the greatest teachers the Western Church has ever produced, and one of its greatest Fathers. His towering intellect molded the thought of Western Christianity, and his ideas dominated the thinking of the Western world for a thousand years after his death. Augustine wrote profusely, explaining and defending the faith. Called Doctor of Grace, his best known works are his Confessions, one of the greatest spiritual classics of all time, and City of God, an exposition of a Christian philosophy of history.

Analyzes the feelings and problems involved in different types of human love, including familial affection, friendship, passion, and charity.

"A Michael Glazier book." Includes bibliographical references and indexes.

No other book of the New Testament has attracted as much attention from commentators as the Fourth Gospel. It has stirred minds, hearts, and imaginations from Christianity's earliest days. In The Gospel of John, Francis Moloney unfolds the identifiable "point of view" of this unique Gospel narrative and offers readers, heirs to its rich and widely varied interpretative traditions, relevance for their lives today. The Gospel of John's significance for Christianity has been obvious from the time of Irenaeus. It was also fundamental in the emergence of Christian theology, especially in the trinitarian and christological debates that produced the great ecumenical Councils, from Nicaea to Chalcedon. What sets this commentary on the Fourth Gospel apart from others is Moloney's particular attention to the narrative design of the Gospel story. He traces the impact the Johannine form of the Jesus story has made on readers and explicates the way in which the author has told the story of Jesus. Through this he demonstrates how the Gospel story articulates a coherent theology, christology, and ecclesiology.

As the nation's most popular annual Bible commentary for more than two decades, the Standard Lesson Commentary provides 52 weeks of study in a single volume and combines thorough Bible study with relevant examples and questions. The KJV SLC is perfect as the primary resource for an adult Sunday school class and personal study or as a supplemental resource for any curriculum that follows the ISSL/Uniform Series. Nearly two dozen ministers, teachers, and Christian education specialists provide the Bible commentary, lesson plans, discussion questions, and other features that make the Standard Lesson Commentary the most popular annual Bible commentary available. The Standard Lesson Commentary is based on the popular Uniform Series, also called the International Sunday School Lessons. This series, developed by scholars from several church fellowships, provides an orderly study of the Bible in a 6-year period.

This study guide is a collection of 33 bible lessons that includes the message of peace and nonviolence,with questions for group discussion and sections of activity that make it delightful. The book also reflects the messages of Mahatma Gandhi, WCC, Pope John Paul 11, Martin Luther King (Jr.) and Archbishop Desmond Tutu.Ideal book for all age groups.