The Wisdom Literature of the Bible (Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Songs) is filled with practical principles for everyday life. While some Christians are deterred by the pragmatic character of these matter-of-fact guidelines, they are as integral to God's purposes for His people as the explicitly theological material that dominates other parts of Scripture. The Wisdom books tie these two streams of God's revelation together in a way that enriches and strengthens the church.

It is a thorough resource for pastors and teachers to help them navigate the sometimes bewildering waters of the Wisdom Literature.

To Christians worldwide, the man Jesus of Nazareth is the centerpiece of history, the object of faith, hope, and worship. Even those who do not follow him admit the vast influence of his life. For anyone interested in knowing more about Jesus, study of the four biblical Gospels is essential.

An abridged edition of the bestselling textbook Four Portraits, One Jesus by Mark Strauss, this simple, easy-to-understand guide introduces the four biblical Gospels and their subject, the life and person of Jesus.

Like different artists rendering the same subject using different styles and points of view, the Gospels paint four distinctive portraits of the same remarkable Jesus. With clarity and insight, Mark Strauss addresses questions that surround the study of Jesus and the Gospels. What are the Gospels - are they history, theology, biography? Where did they come from? What do we know about their context? What does each Gospel uniquely teach us about Jesus? Finally, he pulls it all together illuminating what the Gospels together teach about Jesus' ministry, message, death, and resurrection, and how do we know we can trust their witness.

Including questions at the end of each chapter for group discussion or personal reflection, Introducing Jesus makes the words, history, and context of the Gospels come alive for readers.

The pathway to understanding the New Testament leads through the vibrant landscape of the first-century Greco-Roman world. The New Testament is rooted in the concrete historical events of that world. In Jesus the Rise of Early Christianity Paul Barnett not only places the New Testament within that world of caesars and Herods, proconsuls and Pharisees, Sadducees and revolutionaries, but argues that the mainspring and driving force of early Christian history is the historical Jesus. We cannot understand the rise of Christianity apart from this Jesus, the messiah of Israel and the spiritual and intellectual impact he had on his immediate followers and those who succeeded them. From his intimate acquaintance with the sources, the evidence and the problems of New Testament history, Barnett offers fresh insights. His telling of the story skillfully avoids the encumbrance of extraneous details and side journeys. From the brith of Jesus to the founding of the messianic community, from the rise of Paul's mission to the Gentiles to the writing of the Gospels, Barnett offers a comprehensive account of the movement that would change the face of world history. Jesus the Rise of Early Christianity is a comprehensive survey of New Testament history that will meet the needs of students and teachers of the New Testament. In its engagment with contemporary scholarship and its emphasis on the propelling role of the historical and risen Jesus in the rise of Christianity, it provides a timely rejoinder to current revisionist exploration of Christian origins.

The current scholarly fascination with Q has led to some general assumptions that are not always grounded in the evidence. Or so argues Edward P. Meadors.

Meadors suggests that the notion that the Q material reflects a variety of theological biases that run counter to the Gospels needs to be reexamined. He challenges the argument that the Q source reflects a "second sphere of Christianity" and instead asserts that characteristic themes of Q (wisdom, prophecy, the Son of Man) are similarly present in the Gospel of Mark. He further argues that many of Q's themes find their origins in Daniel, which almost certainly influenced Jesus.

If we accept Meadors's suggestion that the Q material ultimately goes back to Jesus, then any hypothetical reconstruction of Q and its layers is unnecessary.