Journeys that begin in brokenness rarely follow a straight road to healing. There are twists and turns—and setbacks—on the path of repentance.Night Driving tells the story of a pastor and seminary professor whose moral failures destroyed his marriage and career, left his life in ruins, and sent him spiraling into a decade-long struggle against God. Forced to fight the demons of his past in the cab of the semi-truck he drove at night through the Texas oil fields, Chad Bird s...

Unveiling Mercy will do just that-unveil how the mercy of God in the Messiah is spoken of from the very opening Hebrew word of the Bible, all the way to the closing chapter of Malachi. By the end of the year, you will have entered the Old Testament through 365 new doorways, looked with fresh eyes at old verses, and traced a web of connections all over the Scriptures that you've never spotted before. You'll begin to see what one person meant when he described Hebrew words as "hyphens betwee...

The Bible is not some dusty textbook, but a veritable circus of humanity, with high-soaring saints, back-talking donkeys, left-handed kingslayers, and all the glory and gore you can fit inside the big top of this biblical tent.And everywhere in this story is God who, in his wild and passionate love for humanity, is shepherding history toward the birth and ministry of Jesus the Messiah.Do you already have a good grasp of the Old Testament? Wonderful. This book will be an enjoy...

In our age when the church can too often seem like a poor copy of the world, Chad Bird challenges us to reclaim the astounding originality of our ancient, backward faith. Where the world stresses the importance of success, Bird invites readers to embrace nine specific failures in the areas of our personal lives, our relationships, and the church. Why? Because what human wisdom deems indispensable is so often an impediment to our spiritual growth, and what it deems insignificant is so often...

Most of us are regular people who have good days and bad days. Our lives are radically ordinary and unexciting. That means they're the kind of lives God gets excited about. While the world worships beauty and power and wealth, God hides his glory in the simple, the mundane, the foolish, working in unawesome people, things, and places.In our day of celebrity worship and online posturing, this is a refreshing, even transformative way of understanding God and our place in his creation...

The God of heaven and earth is no tightfisted, miserly deity who leaves us starving for mercy and begging for crumbs of grace. He is lavish. He gives and gives, then just when we think he can't possibly have more for us, he heaps on still more. He formed all creation for us, his sons and daughters. He fills us with forgiveness and life in his Son, Jesus, who is love in the flesh. All we are and all we have is from him. What's more, using us as his hands and feet, the Spirit cares for those...

Unveiling Mercy will do just that—unveil how the mercy of God in the Messiah is spoken of from the very opening Hebrew word of the Bible, all the way to the closing chapter of Malachi. By the end of the year, you will have entered the Old Testament through 365 new doorways, looked with fresh eyes at old verses, and traced a web of connections all over the Scriptures that you've never spotted before. You'll begin to see what one person meant when he described Hebrew words as "hyphens betwee...

Reading the Old Testament can seem like exploring an old, mysterious mansion, packed with of all sorts of strange rooms.The creation room, vast and sublime.The exodus room, with hardhearted pharaohs and dried-up seas.The war room, with bloody swords and crumbling walls.The tabernacle room, with smoking altars and dark inner sanctums.What does this odd and ancient world have to do with us, who are modern followers o...

The Theology of the Cross is one of the core elements of Martin Luther's theology.The development of this doctrine through the Heidelberg Disputation has been considered an essential element of Luther's breakthrough on justification, and crucial to his theological reforms and future split with the Roman Catholic Church.These statements by Luther, originally penned to be defended in debate, are counter-intuitive, contrary, offensive, and thrilling par...

When we look to the Bible for role models in our daily discipleship, we tend to think of Noah's obedience and David's bravery. Limping With God: Jacob and the Old Testament Guide to Messy Discipleship posits that we can also look to Jacob.Jacob seems to be anything but a model disciple, though we can learn a lot from his journey.He's a trickster, liar, and selfishly ambitious man who fathers children with four women and leads a dysfu...

Untamed Prayers by Chad Bird is a book that will take you out of your spiritual comfort zone. As you read, you'll learn to leave behind the boring, predictable prayers and dive into ones full of praise, despair, joy, and lament. The Psalms cover all parts of life—the good times and the tough ones—and what better way to find the right words to say to God than the very prayers he gave us to pray?But there's something special about this book: Chad Bird shows ...

Suffering engulfs our lives in an unavoidable darkness, leaving answers and explanations obscured like a sorrowful fog. The gospel of Christ, however, gives us something infinitely more valuable than answers or explanations. Finding God in the Darkness: Hopeful Reflections from the Pits of Depression, Despair, and Disappointment is not an attempt to decode or decipher every nook and cranny of sorrow and suffering. It is a journey wherein faith, hope, and love are unexpectedly found along t...