There is much to be said for men and women who courageously evangelize on college campuses, in prisons, and near shopping centers. After all, the Bible indicates that disciples are primarily made by going out to meet lost people where they are. But make no mistake about it: if you're a parent, The Great Commission has come to you-in a bassinet, a booster seat, or a bunk-bed. While other parenting philosophies rely on "what seems to work" (i.e. pragmatism), "what we've always done" (i.e. traditionalism), or "what's right for us" (i.e. relativism), a better perspective is founded upon a biblical approach: teaching the full counsel of God and allowing Scripture to do its work in a child's heart. How do we accomplish this? We must examine the Bible's instructions for pastors, and then apply those principles in the home. In other words, just as the preacher must be committed to expository preaching, so too must the parent be committed to expository parenting.

Invoking YHWH in 1 Kings 1-2 argues that invocations of YHWH have a number of functions in 1 Kings 1-2, dependent on the identities of the characters speaking, their relationships, and the narrative contexts in which they participate. This book adopts narrative criticism to undertake a close reading of 1 Kings 1-2 that pays particular attention to how the characters and the narrator use invocations of YHWH and the events in the plot that prompt or result from this language. Invoking YHWH in 1 Kings 1-2 highlights the exegetical importance of invocations of YHWH, which have yet to be engaged thoroughly in the field. Aimed at students and those with an interest in the academic study of the Bible, this book's focus on invocations of YHWH raises new interpretations of 1 Kings 1-2. This study seeks to encourage scholarly attention toward invocations of YHWH that appear outside of these chapters, with the hope that such research will generate new ways of understanding the function of this language in the Bible.

A new commentary for today's world, The Story of God Bible Commentary explains and illuminates each passage of Scripture in light of the Bible's grand story. The first commentary series to do so, SGBC offers a clear and compelling exposition of biblical texts, guiding everyday readers in how to creatively and faithfully live out the Bible in their own contexts. Its story-centric approach is ideal for pastors, students, Sunday school teachers, and laypeople alike. Each volume employs three main, easy-to-use sections designed to help readers live out God's story: LISTEN to the Story: Includes complete NIV text with references to other texts at work in each passage, encouraging the reader to hear it within the Bible's grand story. EXPLAIN the Story: Explores and illuminates each text as embedded in its canonical and historical setting. LIVE the Story: Reflects on how each text can be lived today and includes contemporary stories and illustrations to aid preachers, teachers, and students. —1 & 2 Kings— While the book of Kings is interested in history, it is more concerned with theology. It narrates the story of God's relationship with his people over the course of the monarchy—how he judges his own people, even sending them into exile. Lessons from these narratives continue to challenge today's readers to obedience and exclusive worship of God. Edited by Scot McKnight and Tremper Longman III, and written by a number of top-notch theologians, The Story of God Bible Commentary series will bring relevant, balanced, and clear-minded theological insight to any biblical education or ministry.

Abraham, the father of all believers, plays host to three strangers, one of whom is God, and thus sets an example for others to follow. Jews, Christians, and Muslims often treat each other as strangers. Their Holy Books are not the cause of their conflicts and enmity but rather show the way to solve them. They tell a common story of the lifelong journey of the human being to the promised city, the promised land, and the promised world where justice and righteousness reign.

The Book of Revelation is a work of profound theology. But its literary form makes it impenetrable to many modern readers and open to all kinds of misinterpretations. Richard Bauckham explains how the book's imagery conveyed meaning in its original context and how the book's theology is inseparable from its literary structure and composition. Revelation is seen to offer not an esoteric and encoded forecast of historical events but rather a theocentric vision of the coming of God's universal kingdom, contextualised in the late first-century world dominated by Roman power and ideology. It calls on Christians to confront the political idolatries of the time and to participate in God's purpose of gathering all the nations into his kingdom. Once Revelation is properly grounded in its original context it is seen to transcend that context and speak to the contemporary church. This study concludes by highlighting Revelation's continuing relevance for today.

In The “God of Israel” in History and Tradition, Michael Stahl examines the historical and ideological significances of the formulaic title “god of Israel” (’elohe yisra’el) in the Hebrew Bible using critical theory on social power and identity.

This masterly book is the climax of over twenty-five years of study of the impact of Canaanite religion and mythology on ancient Israel and the Old Testament. It is John Day's magnum opus in which he sets forth all his main arguments and conclusions on the subject. The work considers in detail the relationship between Yahweh and the various gods and goddesses of Canaan, including the leading gods El and Baal, the great goddesses (Asherah, Astarte and Anat), astral deities (Sun, Moon and Lucifer), and underworld deities (Mot, Resheph, Molech and the Rephaim). Day assesses both what Yahwism assimilated from these deities and what it came to reject. More generally he discusses the impact of Canaanite polytheism on ancient Israel and how monotheism was eventually achieved.

This epic, thrilling journey through Bible scholarship and ancient religion shows how much of Scripture is historically false--yet the ancient writings also resound with theologies that crisscrossed the primeval world and that direct us today toward a deep, inner, authentic experience of the truly sacred. From a historical perspective, the Bible is shockingly, provably wrong--a point supported by today's best archaeological and historical scholarship but not well understood by (or communicated to) the public. Yet this emphatically does not mean that the Bible isn't, in some very real measure, true, argues scholar of mysticism Richard Smoley. Smoley reviews the most authoritative historical evidence to demonstrate that figures such as Moses, Abraham, and Jesus are not only unlikely to have existed, but bear strong composite resemblances to other Near Eastern religious icons. Likewise, the geopolitical and military events of Scripture fail to mesh with the largely settled historical time line and social structures. Smoley meticulously shows how our concepts of the Hebrew and Christian God, including Christ himself, are an assemblage of ideas that were altered, argued over, and edited--until their canonization. This process, to a large degree, gave Western civilization its consensus view of God. But these conclusions are not cause for nihilism or disbelief. Rather, beneath the metaphorical figures and mythical historicism of Scripture appears an extraordinary, truly transcendent theology born from the most sacred and fully realized spiritual and human insights of the antique Eastern world. Far from being "untrue," the Bible is remarkably, extraordinarily true as it connects us to the sublime insights of our ancient ancestors and points to a unifying ethic behind many of the world's faiths.

This is the most far-reaching interdisciplinary investigation into the religion of ancient Israel ever attempted. The author draws on textual readings, archaeological and historical data and epigraphy to determine what is known about the Israelite religions during the Iron Age (1200-586 BCE). The evidence is synthesized within the structure of an Israelite worldview and ethos involving kin, tribes, land, traditional ways and places of worship, and a national deity. Professor Zevit has originated this interpretive matrix through insights, ideas, and models developed in the academic study of religion and history within the context of the humanities. He is strikingly original, for instance, in his contention that much of the Psalter was composed in praise of deities other than Yahweh. Through his book, the author has set a precedent which should encourage dialogue and cooperative study between all ancient historians and archaeologists, but particularly between Iron Age archaeologists and biblical scholars. The work challenges many conclusions of previous scholarship about the nature of the Israelites' religion.

What is a question? Kenneth Craig poses this query in the introductory chapter of his innovative study on the function of interrogatives in the Hebrew Bible. He describes a question as “a special literary phenomenon. A question is an opening that seeks to be closed, and its rhetorical play derives from how it disposes its energies: how it invites opening, how it imposes closure” (p. 2). Carefully analyzing texts from Genesis, 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 Kings, Haggai and Zechariah, Craig demonstrates the nuanced and multifaceted ways in which the Hebrew Bible’s interrogatives function to advance the Bible’s literary and ideological goals.