Designed for laypeople, this commentary deals seriously with the biblical text without being overly technical. Introductory information, doctrinal themes, problem passages, and practical applications are examined.

Perspectives on Church Government presents in counterpoint form the basic models of church government which have developed over the course of church history with a view toward determining which is most faithful to Scripture. Each chapter will be written by a prominent person from within each tradition—with specific guidelines dealing with the biblical, historical, and theological issues within each governance tradition. In addition, each writer will have the opportunity to give a brief response to the other traditions.

Originally presented as the author's thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, 1998.

Presents selections of literary criticism devoted to the Bible.

This package includes the complete two-volume set of Jensen's Survey of the Testaments: Jensen's Survey of the Old Testament and Jensen's Survey of the New Testament. In Jensen's Survey of the Old Testament, the author provides a useful survey of the Old Testament that will aid in understanding difficult passages. This one volume contains all of Irving Jensen's Bible self-study guides to the Old Testament. In Jensen's Survey of the New Testament, Jensen leads the reader to study and personal reflection, considering the practical implications of Scripture. This one volume contains all of Irving Jensen's Bible self-study guides to the New Testament.

Paul's understanding of holiness stems from the holiness of God as revealed in the Old Testament. Using varied terminology, Paul describes the holiness that should characterize the believers as the people of God. God expects moral integrity of his people, because he has provided believers with his Holy Spirit to enable them to live exemplary, Christlike lives in this present world, though polluted, as they prepare for the world to come. Believers, who, like Paul, anticipate the Parousia, must not only desire but also pray that holiness becomes a reality in their lives, cognizant of the fact that holiness is a matter of practice, not merely a status that one attains upon justification. Thus, holiness is an imperative for the people of God.

The result of over thirty years of research and lecturing, Paul Through Mediterranean Eyes is a ground-breaking study of Paul's first epistle to the Corinthians. Bailey examines this canonical letter through the lenses of Paul's Jewish socio-cultural and rhetorical background and the Mediterranean context of the Corinthian recipients. In a set of connected essays, he draws the reader's attention to the letter's rootedness in the Hebrew prophetic tradition, the intentional theological structure of Paul's epistolary organization and the Near Eastern cultural practices that inflect Paul's rhetorical performance. All of this is brought to bear in teasing out the nature of Paul's response to the critical situations facing the Corinthian community: racial, ethnic and theological divisions, sexual misconduct, intimate interaction with pagan practices and disputes about church practices.

This book innovatively explores the notion of koinonia for understanding the nature and function of the Church. Since the Scriptures assert that the Church is the Church of God, God's communal mode of existence is looked at namely, God who is a communion of three hypostases relating to one another in an interpenetrating koinonia of infinite love as a way of understanding the very being of the church as communion. Such a notion of koinonia, far from having anything to do with socio-political understandings, suggests that it is a foundational gift bestowed from above to the world as the solution par excellence to the impasse of isolationism. More often than not, however, such an ecclesiology of communion has not taken seriously the historical reality of the Church living within the fallen world along with its ceaseless temptations, divisions and even sins in history. In this way, it becomes apparent that a dialectic needs to be acknowledged in the notion of communion as both foundational gift from God, and yet one still to be fully realised. Accordingly, this work shows that the Church is not only as the gift of God's miraculous presence here on earth. The Church is also constantly striving to exist epicletically until such time as it will fully experience the final consummation in Gods eschatological kingdom. An examination of this double dimensionality of the Church is undertaken in order to assess if this is in line with the Scriptural witness of the ekklesia. Having established the gift-goal dialectic in the notion of koinonia in the New Testament Church, the study then traces the trajectory of this dynamic approach to koinonia in the Churchs worship and authoritative structures. This promises to cast both a deeper light on, and a more realistic solution to ecclesiological problems within the life of the Church today, allowing for the Churchs constant renewal.