A bold and creative synthesis of historical method, literary criticism, and philosophical and psychological insight. Includes a new Preface from the author.

Sixty-six books written by forty people over nearly 2,000 years, in two languages and several different genres. The Bible is clearly no ordinary book. How can you begin to read and understand it as a whole? This excellent overview gives you the big picture, providing both the encouragement and the tools you need to read the Bible with confidence and understanding.

FROM THE INTRODUCTION BY TRANSLATOR GEOFFREY W. BROMILEY: Helmut Thielicke "has a vivid awareness of the actual needs of actual people living in this age of supreme storm and stress. He sees how the biblical message, how Jesus Christ Himself as the living message, answers powerfully and sufficiently to these needs. He appreciates that faith in Him is not an easy thing, and yet that true faith carries us to victory even in doubt, anxiety, distress and the terrors of conflict and destruction. He attains almost an apocalyptic stature in his depiction of our shattered world and in his proclamation of the message of God's salvation and judgements within it. Here are sermons to put into the hands of contemporaries who suffer from the fears and anxieties which Thielicke so graphically describes but who do not yet perceive the true meaning and relevance of what God did for man in the giving of His only Son. Here are sermons from which to learn how the old Gospel, first given in a very different world, may come with all the living comfort and the regenerative force of truth and reality to our own age too, made relevant by the Holy Spirit on the lips of the sensitive and dedicated preacher."

2019 Catholic Press Association, Third Place: Children's Books and Books for Teens—Children's Books 2019 Independent Press Awards, Distinguished: Children's Religious (Non-Fiction) 2019 International Book Awards, Finalist: Children's Religious 2019 Best Book Awards, Finalist: Children's Religious Shhh…God Is in the Silence reminds us that we are all loved by God and were created with the spark of God’s love in our hearts. Through the gentle repetition of simple yet profound truths, this book will help children realize that silence is itself a form of prayer—the part of the prayer conversation when we quiet our minds to listen to God in our hearts. For families looking for affirming resources to show children that we are all loved by God, for teachers and catechists entrusted with the spiritual formation of young children, and for anyone looking for a meditative reminder of silence as prayer, Shhh…God Is in the Silence will help create the space to listen to the voice of God gently guiding us and speaking to us.

He Speaks in the Silence is about Diane Comer’s search for the kind of intimacy with God every woman longs for. It is a story of trying to be a good girl, of following the rules, of longing for a satisfaction that eludes us. Disappointed with all Diane had been told was supposed to fulfill her, she begged God in desperation to give her more. And He did. But first He took her through a trial so debilitating it almost destroyed what little faith she had. He let her go deaf. Using vivid parallels between her deafness and every woman’s struggle to hear God, this book shows women not only how Diane, as a deaf woman, hears in everyday life, but also how she can learn to listen to God in the midst of her own loud life, finding intimacy with God and the deep soul satisfaction she longs for.

The Silence of God (1897) has become a classic on the subject of why God has not directly intervened in the affairs of men for the past two thousand years. Here's how Anderson puts the question he addresses: "And to not a few this volume may be welcome as affording a clue to pressing difficulties which perplex and distress the thoughtful. Infidelity trades upon the silence of Heaven, the inaction of the Supreme. If there be a God, almighty and all-good, why does He not use His power and give proof of His goodness in the way men choose to expect of Him? The answer usually offered by the Christian apologist fails either to silence the opponent or to satisfy the believer. And rightly so, for it is lacking not only in cogency but in sympathy. The God of the Bible is infinite both in power and in compassion; and in other ages His people had public proof of this. Why, then, is He so silent?"

A provocative meditation on the role of silence in Christian tradition by the New York Times bestselling author of Christianity We live in a world dominated by noise. Religion is, for many, a haven from the clamor of everyday life, allowing us to pause for silent contemplation. But as Diarmaid MacCulloch shows, there are many forms of religious silence, from contemplation and prayer to repression and evasion. In his latest work, MacCulloch considers Jesus’s strategic use of silence in his confrontation with Pontius Pilate and traces the impact of the first mystics in Syria on monastic tradition. He discusses the complicated fate of silence in Protestant and evangelical tradition and confronts the more sinister institutional forms of silence. A groundbreaking book by one of our greatest historians, Silence challenges our fundamental views of spirituality and illuminates the deepest mysteries of faith.

Pete Greig, the acclaimed author of Red Moon Rising, has written his most intensely personal and honest account yet in God on Mute, a book born out of his wife Samie's fight for her life and diagnosis of a debilitating brain tumor. Greig asks the timeless questions of what it means to suffer and to pray and to suffer through the silence because your prayers seem unanswered. This silence, Greig relates, is the hardest thing. The world collapses. Then all goes quiet. Words can't explain, don't fit, won't work. People avoid you and don't know what to say. So you turn to Him and you pray. You need Him more than ever before. But somehow . . . even God Himself seems on mute. In this heart-searching, honest, and deeply profound book, Pete Greig looks at the hard side of prayer, how to respond when there seem to be no answers, and how to cope with those who seek to interpret our experience for us. Here is a story of faith, hope, and love beyond all understanding.