Have you ever wondered what your dreams mean? Have you experienced repeated dreams and wondered what you should do about them? This easy-to-browse book will help you explore the topic of Bible-based prophetic dream symbolism and interpretation. In it, you'll find an alphabetical listing of various symbols--everything from birds and bugs to trees and vehicles--with explanations about their prophetic meanings. The encyclopedic format will help you research particular subjects and save you time and energy when consulting multiple references at once. This book also contains a great deal of supplementary material, such as a detailed description of the candlestick, including its relation to Jesus, its formation, its relation to the teaching of the Seven Spirits of God, and its relation to the symbolism represented by various colors. Extra information of this type has been included to help demonstrate how everything is tied together. Scripture is used as much as possible to show how the subjects relate to one another.

This monograph studies the parable as a literary construct. It addresses the question why the ancients understood parables as mysterious speech. The study disputes the binary opposition of (clear) parables and (obscure) allegories. Defining allegory as an extended metaphor in narratory form, it argues that many parables are allegories. The parable is defined as narrative in form; tropical in mode of meaning; religious or ethical in genre; and rhetorical in purpose, intended to persuade. Requiring (sometimes challenging) interpretation, the parable can rightly be considered "mysterious." The monograph then discusses the parable in the context of Mark's theme of mystery.

The second edition of The Teaching Ministry of the Church makes a major overhaul of its predecessor, increasing the content from eighteen to twentythree chapters and contributors from six to thirteen. These writers assert the need for such an expanded update is due to our everchanging world. For example, the rise of Islamic fundamentalism, proliferation of religious sects, and secularization of our culture greatly increase the importance of ensuring the church produces fully developed, biblically informed followers of Jesus. To that end, The Teaching Ministry of the Church presents a full overview of Christian education in four major sections: Theological Foundations, Biblical Foundations, Preparation for Teaching, and Structuring the Teaching Ministry of the Church. Within this framework, a step-by-step plan for establishing and maintaining an effective teaching ministry among preschoolers, children, youth, and adults takes shape. Key chapters: “The Bible as Curriculum,” “The Church’s Role in Teaching,” “Creating an Unforgettable Learning Experience,” and “Equipping Teachers.”

Against a background of the strife-torn land of Judea two thousand years ago, Mika Waltari has written what is certainly his most important novel. Seeking the meaning to his life in the study of philosophy, the young Roman. Marcus Manilianus, discovers in an Alexandrian library a vast number of predictions, all tending to confirm his own feeling that the world is about to enter upon a new era. Two chance encounters with Jews who proclaim the coming of a world leader whom they call the Messiah or King, cause Marcus to resolve to make a visit to the Holy City of the Jews. He arrives outside Jerusalem in time to see crowds—some curious, some shocked—staring up at three crosses on a nearby mound. Above the center cross, an inscription had been fixed: JESUS OF NAZARETH, KING OF THE JEWS. The quest that ensues leads Marcus through all parts of Jerusalem and into contact with men and women of all stations of life who had known this remarkable man. And by degrees, wonderful if strange things are revealed to him of Jesus’ teaching, and he experiences the odd sensation of almost believing in the destiny of this crucified Roman among the alien Jews, Stands alone on the borderline of two worlds, feelings he belongs to neither, and it becomes vital to him to find “the way, “the Kingdom,” to again knowledge and certainty, not merely belief. What follows, as Marcus pursues his search for the promised secret of the Kingdom, bring to a climax as exciting and deeply moving a novel as Mika Waltari, certainly one of the world’s outstanding historical novelists, has ever written. It is a story of a time long past, yet it deals with a theme as modern as today: the dilemma of modern man and his culture in gaining and retaining a faith. And always present throughout the novel is the splendor, the irony and humor which have so delighted millions of readers of other Waltari novels from The Egyptian to The Etruscan.

In this second installment of The Mystery of the Will of God, book series, we continue our search, from Book 1, for the full and deeper understanding of the Mystery of the Will of God, through the scriptural Mystery of Godliness. (1Ti 3:16) Beginning with Chapter 6 the work briefly discusses the problem and root of gender discrimination, also known as having respect of persons based on one's gender. Chapter 7 then points us to a deeper walk in Christ by teaching us how to walk in the Spirit and what it means to be perfect as commanded in Matthew 5:48. Chapter 8 then reveals God's plan to assist us in our striving for perfection, through the operation of the spiritual gifts. And finally, in Chapter 9 we deal with the dreaded carnal Christian-Christians who believe in Jesus but openly reject him and his Word, by their works and lifestyle.

Hear Then the Parable is an innovative literary-social reading of all the parables of Jesus.

The author of Secular Truthfulness, Hannah Orion, has written another stunning work of revelation concerning the mysteries, mythology, symbolism, and similes of the most read and beloved book ever published, The Bible.

Revised thesis (doctoral) - Universitèat, Tèubingen, 2010.

Did Jesus see himself as divine? Since the beginning of the quest for the historical Jesus, scholars have dismissed the idea that Jesus could have identified himself as God. Such high Christology is frequently depicted as an invention of the councils of Nicaea and Chalcedon, centuries later. Yet recent research has shown that the earliest Jewish followers of Jesus already regarded him as divine. Brant Pitre tackles this paradox in his bold new monograph. Pitre challenges this widespread assumption and makes a robust case that Jesus did consider himself divine. Carefully explicating the Gospels in the context of Second Temple Judaism, Pitre shows how Jesus used riddles, questions, and scriptural allusions to reveal the apocalyptic secret of his divinity. Moreover, Pitre explains how Jesus acts as if he is divine in both the Synoptics and the Gospel of John. Carefully weighing the historical evidence, Pitre argues that the origins of early high Christology can be traced to the historical Jesus’s words and actions. Jesus and Divine Christology sheds light on long-neglected yet key evidence that the historical Jesus saw himself as divine. Scholars and students of the New Testament—and anyone curious about the Jewish context of early Christianity—will find Pitre’s argument a necessary and provocative corrective to a critically underexamined topic.