Finally, an understanding of spiritual reality for the non-religious….. The Covenant Book is sure to change the lives of multitudes around the world through a unique and fresh approach to spiritual understanding. Bruce Taylor, one of today’s astute spiritual teachers issues a timely and sobering call back to the understanding of humanity’s fallen spiritual state, and the Redemption provided to correct it. In The Covenant Book, Taylor skillfully blends gifted teaching, popular culture, science, and spiritual tutoring 101 into a message revealing the necessity of profound introspection regarding one’s world view and man’s eternal destiny. It is a blueprint for life through practical understanding of spiritual reality. It delivers, and it does so through exploring the revolutionary way God reveals His Love for Man via a Redemption plan of Grace. Taylor compellingly argues for getting to know God through approaching Him in the way God provides via Covenant and not the usual potpourri of man made religions. He clearly reveals how the average person who knows nothing about God or religion can grasp the reality of where God is, what He is doing, and how each of us can experience Him in our lives today. Masterfully capturing the nature of God and His dealings with man through a unique behind-the–scenes approach, he provides a fresh view of how God sees man today through love and redemption. It’s a message of great hope for humanity.

The focus of this volume is a history of covenantal theology in the Dead Sea Scrolls. At the heart of the work the author provides new insight into the origins of the "new covenant in the land of Damascus" ("Damascus covenant") and of the Qumran community ("covenant of the community"). The "Damascus covenant" arose as a national restoration movement in 3rd century BC Palestine among Jews who traced their history back to the returnees from exile. The Qumran community emerged out of the Damascus covenant in the 2nd century BC as a refuge for the faithful when the Damascus covenant and the Teacher of Righteousness suffered the betrayal of some of their adherents. Other chapters explore the topics of dualism, the righteousness of God in the thanksgiving hymns, and covenant renewal.

The Covenant in Judaism and Paul deals with biblical and intertestamental uses of covenant and related rituals, challenging the view that baptism replaces circumcision, since baptism is entry into the new covenant, and showing that ritual boundaries are replaced or redefined since identity has changed. The investigation uses social categories, “identity” as a term that offers an explanation for a group's selfunderstanding and “boundary” as a term for entry rite of affirmation marker. Part A looks at the Old Testament background to aspects of the covenant. Part B examines covenant identity and rituals in Palestinian Judaism as featured in Jubilees, the Temple Scroll, the Damascus Document, and the Community Rule. It includes a brief analysis of the baptism administered by John the Baptist. Part C analyses Paul's views on covenant, circumcision, and baptism against this background.

The Covenant Retreat affirms that each of us is called into a covenant with God. Through this retreat experience, high school seniors begin to identify their unique relationship with God, as an individual and as part of the larger Church. The leader's guide includes material to help teachers and leaders bring the experience into the classroom for weeks before and after the retreat. Leaders will find detailed directions for implementing the retreat; lesson plans, prayers, and handouts; material to help use the student component, Answering God's Call to Covenant, after the retreat; and suggested models for liturgical celebrations to bring the retreat to a close. It also includes suggestions on how to celebrate the retreat with the entire school through graduation and other activities. Answering God's Call to Covenant helps older adolescents consider where they want to go in life before they encounter the crossroads of young adulthood. Students address seven key questions and write their own covenant statements, which will help guide them through life's many challenges. The student text also helps seniors reflect, pray, and discern on their own after graduation.

An exploration of how contemporary Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity preserves and protects sacred ideas and relationships “Ethiopia stretches her hand upon God,” the narrative of Sheba and Solomon, the material presence of the Ark of the Covenant in Axum. For Ethiopian Orthodox Christians, these classic understandings of the covenant are prized narratives. For historical and scriptural scholarship, a central focus is to explain the characteristics of Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity as retaining key “Old Testament” qualities to demonstrate a wide chasm with post-Enlightenment, secular societies. By widening the lens of analysis to include a body of knowledge best accessed through Orthodox Christian devotional culture, The Covenant’s Veil offers an interpretation that challenges the reader to adopt a novel understanding of these well-established ideas. The multiple, complex ways that the covenant idea appears as ideas, idioms, customs, symbols, and articulations in the lifeworld of Ethiopian Orthodox are the starting point for The Covenant’s Veil. Ethiopia’s story of the covenant is a domain of nested reference points that inspires celebrants, through their devotional activities, to expand and elaborate upon a network of meanings. Covenant refractions within Ethiopian Orthodox devotional culture not only demonstrate the established pattern of magnifying spiritual importance through symbolic similes and analogic pairings, but perform a vital function for keeping traditional knowledge alive and current. Detailed ethnographic material arranges devotional activities such as mahaber rituals of communing and processions of tabots on feast days. It describes habits of making vows, presenting oneself at church, and telling stories of saints and their covenants. Thinking about the covenant concept as refracting—the bending motion of points encountering a common surface—is a way to conceive how these reference points reveal a connective thread, what is theorized as an Ethiopian Orthodox method of elaboration. Identifying when and where elaboration of tradition is happening provides an opportunity to demonstrate how Orthodox Christianity is integral to the lives and actions of its faithful. By reframing covenant as expanding beyond Ethiopian religious and political exceptionalism, The Covenant’s Veil provides us with a timely reappraisal of this concept in light of increased social fragmentation and the urgency for negotiating harmony in a country with many forms of diversity.

Religion is a hard topic to discuss, especially with family members who do not have the same religious beliefs. This book began as a paper given to family members and friends in an attempt to show them what the scriptures teach about the Sabbath. Though a number of Sabbath-keeping church members and leaders refused to discuss the paper, other ministers and church friends thought it should be published. Years of studying and writing have culminated into The Sabbath, the Law, and the New Covenant. This book takes the central theme of the Bible, Gods redemptive plan for mankind, and walks the reader through the scriptures. It begins with the plans inception and then explains how the plan was introduced to man, how it began to unfold, and finally how the plan was fulfilled. This book highlights many of the scriptures that teach about the Sabbath, the Old Testament Laws, including the Ten Commandments, and the New Testament covenant of Jesus Christ, while comparing some widely held beliefs with the word of God. For all who truly love the word of God and worship on the seventh-day Sabbath, this book is a must-read. Those who wish to learn about the subject matter will also find the information insightful, coming from one who formerly worshiped on the seventh-day Sabbath.

Preliminary Material -- The Theology of conquest -- The kingdom of god -- The land of the conquest -- Life under the covenant -- Covenantal asceticism -- Covenantal provisions for forgiveness and Reconciliation -- Covenantal sectarianism -- Covenantal practices -- Appendix I The pronunciation of the tetragrammaton -- Appendix II The millennium after the fall -- Bibliography -- Author Index -- General Index.