In a pluralistic world of competing truth claims, how can one discern what is truly representative of God? How can we live and communicate what is authentically “spiritual?” How do we bridge the religious impasse between believers and a post-Christendom and pluralistic context where individuals may consider themselves to be spiritual, yet are offended by the person of Jesus? Can relativism be an effective means of evaluating truth from falsehood? What role should race, gender, and socioeconomic background play in society and the church? These are just a few of the questions this study addresses in presenting a more balanced, dialogical, and biblical criterion for authentic spirituality. The insights on how to discern, live, and communicate what is authentically spiritual are significant for interreligious and ecumenical dialogue across denominations. These insights contribute a way to more effectively communicate divine truths to all, for it is conversant with various sources of knowledge about God and is accountable to feedback from these sources of truth. For example, tacit knowledge such as that derived from faith, and spiritual gifts, as well as rational, or philosophical claims to truth, along with Western, Eastern, and Southern modes of thinking, are all incorporated.

In this collection of papers John N. Collins closes his account on 40 years of involvement in linguistic research and argumentation concerning the nature and functioning of Christian ministry (diakonia). Using original philosophical and lexicographical research, Diakonia Studies offers an engaging conclusion to Collins's groundbreaking 1990 book Diakonia.

Books in the Westminster Bible Companion series assist leaders and students in their study of the Bible as a guide to Christian faith and practice. Each volume presents the text under discussion, explains the biblical book in its original historical context, and explores the text's significance for faithful living today. These books are ideal resources for preparing text-based sermons and a worthy addition to seminary courses and advanced Bible study groups. In this volume, John Proctor provides an accessible study on First and Second Corinthians. Paul's first letter to the Corinthians addresses the basic components of human life, such as leadership, marriage, hospitality, and bereavement. The second letter mostly revolves around the pains and joys of a pastoral relationship. Proctor's volume provides insightful commentary that examines how the letters spoke to the people of Corinth and how they are received today.

This short quip referred to in conversation and seen often in descriptive writing as well as various and sundry speeches is in reality on shaky ground when taken apart. The truth has been the object of the search of man since he became serious with his ontology from earliest recorded history and finds its way in most academic institutions with each Latin phrase in its logo. Matter has always been taken for granted but until recently (1939) with the declaration of the Physicists community in Copenhagen, Denmark has acknowledged that indeed there is no final field theory for locating reality. In this book I will attempt to speak to this lack of reality by delving into the state of being, or lack thereof, I will refer to as spirituality and the Native American priority given to the Great Spirit and the answer they give to one's ontology (why one is here) known as their vision quest. We will investigate spirituality as that encounter we all must deal with in our religious medium for finding some sense of meaning and its answer to our need for respect. I'll look at the Judeo/Christian offering of the image of God and the spooky-goings-on-at-a-distance stipulated by Albert Einstein as well as the implications of Galileo's insightful declaration in the 17th century that all meaning begins with experience (spirituality) and ends with experience, that spirituality is all that there is and to offer proposals based upon purely logic alone is meaningless as regards reality. Spirituality in the best sense of the word is your taking serious your honor as well as that of others. This could be seen as the First and Greatest Commandment and the Second like unto it Thy neighbor as thyself. This work is the culmination of 15 years of writing and a lifetime of seeking first the kingdom of God and his righteousness having all these things being added unto me. (Matthew 6:33) Now to have all these things added unto you is to be quickened with eyes to see and ears to hear things/matter as they are and not from the might-makes-right syndrome or the what’s-in-it-for-me modus operandi. This quickening power is the mighty-hand-of-God as opposed to the hand-of-God revealing the nature of truth, God's righteousness as being no respecter of persons, time, place or thing and doing so unconditionally. This is indeed the Final Field or the Truth of the Matter.