What do the books of Luke and Acts teach us about God, Jesus, and the early church? How do these two books relate to each other? And what do they mean for us today?In this accessible and compelling introduction, Michael Bird draws us into the wide-ranging narrative of Luke-Acts to discover how Luke frames the life of Jesus and of the first disciples who set out from Jerusalem to "the ends of the earth" proclaiming the Good News. Bird shows us how these two books, w...

Tales of tyrannical landlords, obsessive descents into madness and haunting comings of age.Embark on a chilling journey through nightmarish tales that will captivate the ghoulish modern reader. Encounter landlords with sinister requests, ethereal housemates, and a glass-encased jungle built by an eccentric father. These gothic stories blur the lines between dreams and reality, weaving a tapestry of macabre encounters and festering secrets.

From Trumpocalypse to Brexit Britain, brick by brick the walls are closing in. But don’t despair. Bulldoze the borders. Conquer freedom not fear. EXIT EARTH explores all life – past, present, or future – on, or off – this beautiful, yet fragile, world of ours. Final embraces beneath a sky of flames. Tears of joy aboard a sinking ship. Laughter in a lonely land. Dystopian or utopian, realist or fantasy, horror or sci-fi, EXIT EARTH is yours to conquer.EXIT EARTH includes the short f...

In Whispers of Revolution, renowned biblical scholar Michael Bird forges a path through the tangle of conspiracy theories, older hypotheses, and scholarly debates to propose a compelling idea: The historical Jesus was driven by the conviction that through his words and work, his mission and message, God was unveiling his kingship in a way that would rescue Israel and eventually restore the whole world.This careful and concise scholarly work covers a wide range of topics re...

Many Christians who know and love the Bible think they know the apostle Paul. He's a theological master, a pastoral mentor, a spiritual adviser and a missionary hero. Yet just when we think we have him in our grasp, he slips through our fingers. At the point where we suppose we have finally understood him, Paul again confounds us. But he also beckons us to explore God's ways more deeply.Michael Bird suggests that if the Paul we claim to know looks and sounds a lot like us, it's probably a ...

The gospel is often presented as little more than a "get out of hell free" pass. But is that all there is to it? What made it so compelling that the Apostle Paul would give up everything, enduring hardships and deprivation to preach good news? David deSilva argues that some Christians have unintentionally reduced the gospel to a message Paul would hardly recognize. The "gift of righteousness" is far richer than many of us have dared to imagine!In Transformation: The Heart of Pa...

In The Reconciling Wisdom of God: Reframing the Doctrine of the Atonement, Adam Johnson, already a leading scholar of the atonement, considers God's redemptive work in Christ through the atonement as an act of God's infinite wisdom.In making this crucial turn, Johnson is able to speak to proponents of the various atonement theories and move the discussion forward in a new direction, grounded in the truth of God's infinite wisdom. Genuinely reframing the debate around the a...

Paul and Jewish identity after ChristPaul believed Israel's Messiah had come. But what does this mean for Israel? Debate rages over Paul and supersessionism: the question of whether--and if so, to what extent--the new covenant in Christ replaces God's "old" covenant with Israel. Discussion of supersessionism carries much historical, theological, and political baggage, complicating attempts at dialogue.God's Israel and the Israel of God: Paul and Superse...

What does it really mean for the church to have unity?When Jesus prayed for his followers to be one, he prayed that this unity would demonstrate the truth of his claims to an unbelieving world. Sadly, the world often sees a church that is divided. Some of our divisions are based on legitimate theological concerns, yet many others are simply matters of opinion. To the world, it's all another reason to doubt God.What are the differences worth dividing over? H...

Did Jesus claim to be the long-awaited "messiah"? Going against much contemporary scholarship, Australian scholar Michael Bird argues that he did. He begins by exploring the messianic expectations in the Old Testament and Second Temple Jewish literature. Next, Bird points out weaknesses in current arguments that "Messiah," or "Christ," was a title given to Jesus by the early church but not used by Jesus himself. Bird then examines the Gospels and related literature, finding in Jesus's word...

Before the New Testament or the creeds of the church were written, the devotional practices of the earliest Christians indicate that they worshipped Jesus alongside the Father.Larry W. Hurtado has been one of the leading scholars on early Christology for decades. In Honoring the Son: Jesus in Earliest Christian Devotional Practice, Hurtado helps readers understand early Christology by examining not just what early Christians believed or wrote about Jesus, ...

How did the Apostle Paul view the Church? And where does Israel fit in? How are the promises to Israel fulfilled? In Heirs of Promise, P. Chase Sears discusses this relationship between the Church and Israel, and he explains how that affects our understanding of the Old Testament.Using a biblical-theological approach to the book of Romans, Sears argues that Paul understood the church not as a replacement of Israel, but as the new Israel--the continuation of Israel reconsti...