Showing titles in Commentaries

Forgiving anyone in a meaningful way is one of the hardest things a person has to do. If you do not, resentment and vengeance begin to consume you. It is nearly impossible to move past transgression without forgiveness, but few people have the resources and the tools to forgive others fully and move on with their lives.

Beginning with Jesus' birth, Ken Bailey leads you on a kaleidoscopic study of Jesus throughout the four Gospels. Bailey examines the life and ministry of Jesus with attention to the Lord's Prayer, the Beatitudes, Jesus' relationship to women, and especially Jesus' parables. Through it all, Bailey employs his trademark expertise as a master of Middle Eastern culture to lead you into a deeper understanding of the person and significance of Jesus within his own cultural context.

Marriage in the Bible: What Do the Texts Say? is an honest engagement with the relevant passages in the two primary Testaments of the Christian Bible. Rather than making the Bible confirm a specific stance on marriage, the author invites her readers to be honest about what these biblical stories, laws, commands, and sayings meant in their original contexts.

Matthew's gospel focuses on the Kingship of Christ—that Jesus is Lord of Lords, the Messiah, the One promised by the prophets of old. But a king is not born in a manger, to a virgin peasant, and a king is definitely not executed on a Roman cross, is he? Actually, that's exactly the type of King God sent to the world.

Lament is how we bring our sorrow to God - but it is a neglected dimension of the Christian life for many Christians today. We need to recover the practice of honest spiritual struggle that gives us permission to vocalize our pain and wrestle with our sorrow. Lament avoids trite answers and quick solutions, progressively moving us toward deeper worship and trust.

When Jesus spoke, people listened. When Jesus traveled, people followed. When Jesus arrived, hearts and lives were transformed. No other Gospel gives such extensive explanation to Jesus' ministry as the Gospel of John. The first three Gospels describe events, but the fourth Gospel describes the significance behind those events. Through miracles, parables, and relationships, Jesus shows how He is the fulfillment of God's promises of old.

The book of Revelation stands out as one of the most intriguing, yet least understood books of the Bible. From the sobering letters to the seven churches to the amazing visions and epic battles, millions of Christians have toiled to understand the meaning of this mysterious book. Trust Dr. Warren Wiersbe, pastor and Bible teacher for over forty years, to take you chapter-by-chapter through the various topics in this important book, all the while, keeping a steady eye on the main message of the book: Christ is the victor, and in Christ, we are also victorious.

The Psalms are like a marked trail through life, showing that others have walked ahead and faced many of the challenges, temptations, heartaches, and perplexities that men will encounter on their journeys. Farrar shows that when a man begins to understand that the strong and caring hand of God is sovereign over everything in his life - including his trials and heartaches - his confidence, hope, and joy will increase dramatically in the God who created him and desires to use him.

N. T. Wright—widely regarded as the most influential commentator and interpreter of Paul—deftly unpacks this dense and sometimes elusive letter, detailing Paul's arguments and showing how it illuminates the Gospel from the promises to Abraham through the visions of Revelation. Wright takes a deep dive into Romans 8, showing how it illuminates so much else that God reveals in Scripture: God the Father, Christology, and the Spirit; Jesus' Messiahship, cross, resurrection, and ascension; salvation, redemption, and adoption; suffering and glory; holiness and hope.

Escaping from Eden will take you on a journey around the world and into the mythologies of ancient Sumeria, Mesoamerica, India, Africa, and Greece, to reveal a profound secret, hidden in plain sight in the text of the Bible.

Biblical scholars Brandon O'Brien and Randy Richards shed light on the ways that Western readers often misunderstand the cultural dynamics of the Bible. They identify nine key areas where modern Westerners have significantly different assumptions about what might be going on in a text. Drawing on their own cross-cultural experience in global mission, O'Brien and Richards show how better self-awareness and understanding of cultural differences in language, time, and social mores allow us to see the Bible in fresh and unexpected ways.

Much needed today, the singularly potent Christology of Colossians and the application of key doctrines in Philemon put the sufficiency of Christ for salvation and transformed living on full display.

The road of spiritual growth can get bumpy. From the new believer to the seasoned disciple, we all experience frustrations and setbacks in our pursuit of God. And perhaps no one understands spiritual struggles better than the apostle Paul. In the book of 2 Corinthians, Paul shares a revealing look at his own challenges, and offers a profound message of encouragement for every believer.

Romans is more than a collection of proof texts for Reformed theology. It is an exposition of God's plan to take back the world. In this new commentary, Douglas Wilson tackles Paul's meaty letter passage by passage, explaining Paul's central message: Jesus’s death and resurrection have transformed the world. God has brought an end to the old covenant and ushered in a new covenant, joining Jews and Gentiles in one new people.

Part of Dr. Warren W. Wiersbe’s best-selling “BE” commentary series, BE Compassionate has now been updated with study questions and a new introduction by Ken Baugh. A respected pastor and Bible teacher, Dr. Wiersbe explores the compassionate life of Jesus. Filled with moving examples of Christ’s ministry to people of all backgrounds, cultures, and beliefs, this study will inspire you to share His love with the world around you.

Walton and Walton offer in The Lost World of the Torah a restorative vision of the ancient genre of instruction for wisdom that makes up a significant portion of the Old Testament. In the ancient Near East, order was achieved through the wisdom of those who governed society. The objective of torah was to teach the Israelites to be wise about the kind of order needed to receive the blessings of God's favor and presence within the context of the covenant. Here listeners will find fresh insight on this fundamental genre of the Old Testament canon.

The early church in Corinth was falling apart. Sin was rampant, divisions were growing, and the congregation was living no differently than the world around them. What had corrupted this once vibrant church? The apostle Paul immediately understood the symptoms: The people had traded God's perfect wisdom for faulty human knowledge. Be Wise guides us through Paul's first letter to the Corinthians, where he encourages his fellow believers to embrace a life of wisdom and truth.

One does not have to read too far into the Bible to find that it says the following about Him: God hardened people’s hearts. God put lying spirits in the mouth of false prophets. God personally deceived prophets. God Blinded people to the truth. God inflicted sickness. God sent natural disasters. God moved people to sin. God tempted men. God intentionally gave men unrighteous laws. God created evil. And even more…. Such statements have presented insurmountable difficulties to Bible readers. Failure to understand them properly have led to doctrines that paint God in less than a ...

Do "In God We Trust", the Declaration of Independence, and other historical "evidence" prove that America was founded on Judeo-Christian principles? Are the Ten Commandments the basis for American law? A constitutional attorney dives into the debate about religion's role in America's founding.

Romans is the definitive statement of Christian doctrine - the most comprehensive book in the New Testament. Its impact on history is unequaled. This is the first in a trilogy (Galatians, Hebrews) on Habakkuk 2:4 - "the just shall live by faith" - which later became the mantra of the reformation. It has an international outlook: As a Roman citizen, and with both Hebrew and Greek culture of history, religion, philosophy, poetry, science, music, etc., Paul's Epistle to the Romans is the most profound writing that exists anywhere.