A unique look at Christian biblical interpretation and theology from the perspective of Native American tradition. This book focuses on four specific experiences of Jesus as portrayed in the synoptic gospels. It examines each story as a “vision quest,” a universal spiritual phenomenon, but one of particular importance within North American indigenous communities. Jesus’ experience in the wilderness is the first quest. It speaks to a foundational Native American value: the need to enter into the “we” rather than the “I.” The Transfiguration is the second quest, describing the Native theology of transcendent spirituality that impacts reality and shapes mission. Gethsemane is the third quest. It embodies the Native tradition of the holy men or women, who find their freedom through discipline and concerns for justice, compassion, and human dignity. Golgotha is the final quest. It represents the Native sacrament of sacrifice (e.g., the Sun Dance). The chapter on Golgotha is a discussion of kinship, balance, and harmony: all primary to Native tradition and integral to Christian thought.

How can I know God if he is incomprehensible? Is it possible to know God in a way that takes seriously the fact that he is beyond knowledge? Steven Boyer and Christopher Hall argue that the "mystery of God" has a rightful place in theological discourse. They contend that considering divine incomprehensibility invites reverence and humility in our thinking and living as Christians and clarifies a variety of theological topics. The authors begin by investigating the biblical, historical, and practical foundations for understanding the mystery of God. They then spell out its implications for theological issues and practices such as the incarnation, salvation, and prayer, rooting knowledge of God in a concrete life of faith. Evangelical yet ecumenical, this book will appeal to theology students, pastors, church leaders, and all who want intellectual and practical guidance for knowing the unknowable God.

New York Times Best Seller! 1500 5-Star Reviews! From the author that brought you NEW YORK TIMES best selling books The Harbinger, The Mystery of the Shemitah, and The Paradigm selling over 3 MILLION copies Imagine if you discovered a treasure chest in which were hidden ancient mysteries, revelations from heaven, secrets of the ages, the answers to man’s most enduring, age-old questions, and the hidden keys that can transform your life to joy, success, and blessing…This is The Book of Mysteries.

In God, Mystery, and Mystification, Denys Turner presents eight essays covering the major issues of philosophical and practical theology that he has focused on over the fifty years of his academic career. While a somewhat heterogeneous collection, the chapters are loosely linked by a focus on the mystery of God and on distinguishing that mystery from merely idolatrous mystifications. The book covers three main fields: theological epistemology, medieval and early modern mystical theologies, and the relation of Christian belief to natural science and politics. Turner develops the implications of a moderate realist account of theological knowledge as distinct from a fashionable, postmodernist epistemology. This modern realist epistemology is embodied in connections between theoretical, speculative theologies and the practice of the Christian faith in a number of different ways, but mainly as bearing upon the practical, lived connections between faith and reason, between reason and the mystical, between faith and science, and among faith, prayer, and politics. Scholars and advanced students of theology, religious studies, the history of ideas, and medieval thought will be interested in this book.

"I don't think I've ever met anyone who hasn't struggled with the desire to know God's will. The problem is, this struggle often involved a great deal of confusion and worry." ?Chuck Swindoll Many people have the idea that if they could just somehow find that single planned direction, they would be effortlessly swept through life. But life is not like that. Probably the most misunderstood factor of discovering God's will is the thought that, If I do this, the struggles will end, the questions are over, the answers come, and I live hapily ever after. But that's not reality. Does that mean that God's will must remain opaque to us?that we must muddle and grope blindly through life with no clue to what He wants for us? "Not at all," says Charles Swindoll. In this groundbreaking book, Swindoll invites us to join him on a spiritual quest. "I believe God's will for us in this life is not some black-and-white objective designed to take us to an appointed destination here on earth as much as it is about the journey itself . . . and what matters to Him in our lives." The Mystery of God's Will overflows with practical insights, humor, and unforgettable stories that will de-mystify, clarify, and put your mind at ease.

In this wide-ranging book that moves from Greek drama to modern poetry, David Brown explores the ways in which the poetry and drama of the past were rooted in religious questions. He posits that their creative potential needs to be rediscovered to bring present-day worship and experience of God alive.

Humans have long searched for an adequate answer to an age-old question: If God is good, why do we suffer? An entire book of the Bible, Job, is dedicated to the problem of God and human suffering. Theologians across continents and centuries have debated the intricacies, inconsistencies, and assumptions the question elicits. And of course, many have turned to Jesus's own suffering, and his horrible death at the cross, in search of understanding. All too often, the resulting approaches to the mystery of suffering, though linked to the Jewish and Christian Scriptures and traditions, fail to satisfy contemporary hearts and minds. The Mystery of God and Suffering draws guidance from the Gospel of John and the letters to the Colossians and the Ephesians, and focuses on God's overflowing love in creation as a foundation for understanding Jesus's death and its implications for those who follow him. This work offers an alternative vision, one emphasizing incarnation over atonement, for all those who find themselves uneasy or even oppressed by the notion of a vindictive God who demands the suffering and death of his son. The Mystery of God and Suffering also speaks to a larger audience, comprised of all those who suffer and search for meaning in their suffering. With a focus on the eternal concepts of life and love that are not simply integral to but inseparable from a God who is good, as well as on insights of believers through the ages, The Mystery of God and Suffering offers wise guidance for our journey into the abyss of suffering.

In this frank and stimulating book, senior theologian Kaufman lays out in brief compass his historicist approach to Christian theology and central Christian mysteries, especially as they impinge on today's radically pluralistic religious and cultural scene and the moral challenges presented globally by it.

A thoroughgoing examination of Maximus Confessor’s singular theological vision through the prism of Christ’s cosmic and historical Incarnation. Jordan Daniel Wood changes the trajectory of patristic scholarship with this comprehensive historical and systematic study of one of the most creative and profound thinkers of the patristic era: Maximus Confessor (560–662 CE). Wood's panoramic vantage on Maximus’s thought emulates the theological depth of Hans Urs von Balthasar’s Cosmic Liturgy while also serving as a corrective to that classic text. Maximus's theological vision may be summed up in his enigmatic assertion that “the Word of God, very God, wills always and in all things to actualize the mystery of his Incarnation.” The Whole Mystery of Christ sets out to explicate this claim. Attentive to the various contexts in which Maximus thought and wrote—including the wisdom of earlier church fathers, conciliar developments in Christological and Trinitarian doctrine, monastic and ascetic ways of life, and prominent contemporary philosophical traditions—the book explores the relations between God’s act of creation and the Word’s historical Incarnation, between the analogy of being and Christology, and between history and the Fall, in addition to treating such topics as grace, deification, theological predication, and the ontology of nature versus personhood. Perhaps uniquely among Christian thinkers, Wood argues, Maximus envisions creatio ex nihilo as creatio ex Deo in the event of the Word’s kenosis: the mystery of Christ is the revealed identity of the Word’s historical and cosmic Incarnation. This book will be of interest to scholars and students of patristics, historical theology, systematic theology, and Byzantine studies.

"The Mystery of Christ is well-written, displays ample knowledge of issues discussed concerning covenant theology by Baptists and paedobaptists, grounds its arguments in scriptural exegesis and theology, recovers old arguments for a new day, presents a cohesive map of the covenants of Scripture, and exalts our Lord Jesus Christ, the last Adam, throughout." -- from cover review by Richard C. Barcellos