This book offers a probing, insightful look at the "outsider" motif running through the Bible. The biblical story about God's covenant with "insiders" -- with Israel as the chosen people -- is scandalous in today's cultural climate of inclusivity. But, as Frank Anthony Spina shows, God's exclusive election actually has an inclusive purpose. Looking carefully at the biblical narrative, Spina highlights in bold relief seven remarkable stories that treat nonelect people positively and, even more, as strategically important participants in God's plan of salvation. The stories of Esau, Tamar, Rahab, Naaman, Jonah, Ruth, and the woman at the well come alive in new ways as Spina discusses and examines them from an outsider-insider point of view.

A useful study guide or resource for individuals and bible study groups who want to take a fresh look at familiar material. This book looks again at Luke’s writings from the point of view of reaching “outsiders”.

Faith-based development organizations have become a central part of the lives of the women of rural Rajasthan, and have come to represent an important aspect of both individual and collective identities.And yet, religious teachings continue to be used to exclude women from public decision making forums and render them vulnerable to increasing levels of domestic violence In a unique, multi-disciplinary approach, combining a range of subjects, Tamsin Bradley provides a unique study of the role of development organizations and faith organizations in the lives of women in rural Rajasthan. Faith and religion emerge as being able to afford a space within which women are able to interact with one another and create an identity for themselves. However, faith proves not just to be a positive sphere in which women are able to assert themselves. Its ambiguity becomes clear as the author explains that religious women often find their visions of social justice and equality marginalised by the dominance of male leadership. Nevertheless, Bradley also look at how religious women challenge male dominance drawing on their beliefs and practices in creative and innovative ways. Thus a complex picture emerges, and including insights from gender studies and anthropology, Bradley argues that religion can both empower and disempower local communities, and the women who live within them. By analysing development through the prism of gender studies, Bradley highlights the complex nature of power relationships that are at the very heart of development agendas and organizations, and offers an invaluable contribution to the understanding of the nexus of varied disciplines in the analysis of women and religion in Rajasthan. This book will be of interest to students, reseachers and policy makers involved in various fields, including those of Development Studies, Religion, Gender Studies and Social Anthropology.

Some people cant see the forest for the treesthey get so bogged down in details that they lose sight of what its all about. Others cant see the trees for the forestthey miss the wondrous details all around them. So why not look instead at both the forest and the trees? This commentary on Pauls letter to the Colossians guides you in doing just that. Even though we will be exploring ancient biblical cultures and learning plenty about the Greek language, no prior academic training is needed. Technical terms have been set aside. Instead, with everyday language we will discover the big picture and revel in the fine details of this stunning letter, amazed by how God is still speaking these same words today to contemporary personal and social challenges. We will not then be tourists rapidly zipping through Colossians as if on a monotonous interstate highway. Instead we will be hiking our way through this letter, step by step, phrase by phrase, finding joy in Gods truth and growing in our faith. Come and join the journey.

In this unique work, Paul Hanson traces the concept of "community" from its early biblical origins through the end of the apostolic age. This edition includes a chapter devoted to the contemporary implications of this concept and in his new introduction, the author further explores the importance of this theme.

The first book-length study of the outsider designations that early Christians used and what they reveal about the movement's identity, self-understanding and character.

The Bible, Homer, and the Search for Meaning in Ancient Myths explores and compares the most influential sets of divine myths in Western culture: the Homeric pantheon and Yahweh, the God of the Old Testament. Heath argues that not only does the God of the Old Testament bear a striking resemblance to the Olympians, but also that the Homeric system rejected by the Judeo-Christian tradition offers a better model for the human condition. The universe depicted by Homer and populated by his gods is one that creates a unique and powerful responsibility – almost directly counter to that evoked by the Bible—for humans to discover ethical norms, accept death as a necessary human limit, develop compassion to mitigate a tragic existence, appreciate frankly both the glory and dangers of sex, and embrace and respond courageously to an indifferent universe that was clearly not designed for human dominion. Heath builds on recent work in biblical and classical studies to examine the contemporary value of mythical deities. Judeo-Christian theologians over the millennia have tried to explain away Yahweh’s Olympian nature while dismissing the Homeric deities for the same reason Greek philosophers abandoned them: they don’t live up to preconceptions of what a deity should be. In particular, the Homeric gods are disappointingly plural, anthropomorphic, and amoral (at best). But Heath argues that Homer’s polytheistic apparatus challenges us to live meaningfully without any help from the divine. In other words, to live well in Homer’s tragic world – an insight gleaned by Achilles, the hero of the Iliad – one must live as if there were no gods at all. The Bible, Homer, and the Search for Meaning in Ancient Myths should change the conversation academics in classics, biblical studies, theology and philosophy have – especially between disciplines – about the gods of early Greek epic, while reframing on a more popular level the discussion of the role of ancient myth in shaping a thoughtful life.

Statistics tell us that Christianity has an image problem. But what are the stories behind the stats? This question led Jim Henderson, Todd Hunter, and Craig Spinks to host a national interview tour with young non-Christians and Christians in Kansas City, Phoenix, Denver, and Seattle. They wanted to hear why Christians get such a bad rap and what we can do to improve. Inspired by David Kinnaman's bestselling book unChristian, The Outsider Interviews provides close encounters with what a new generation really thinks of Christianity and helps readers learn to live faithfully in a fast-changing world.

The Oxford Handbook of the Sociology of Religion draws on the expertise of an international team of scholars providing both an entry point into the sociological study and understanding of religion and an in-depth survey into its changing forms and content in the contemporary world. The role and impact of religion and spirituality on the politics, culture, education and health in the modern world is rigorously discussed and debated. The study of the sociology of religion forges interdisciplinary links to explore aspects of continuity and change in the contemporary interface between society and religion. Using a combination of theoretical, methodological and content-led approaches, the fifty-seven contributors collectively emphasise the complex relationships between religion and aspects of life from scientific research to law, ecology to art, music to cognitive science, crime to institutional health care and more. The developing character of religion, irreligion and atheism and the impact of religious diversity on social cohesion are explored. An overview of current scholarship in the field is provided in each themed chapter with an emphasis on encouraging new thinking and reflection on familiar and emergent themes to stimulate further debate and scholarship. The resulting essay collection provides an invaluable resource for research and teaching in this diverse discipline.

What does Christianity have to say about the salvation of the African tribesman who died before the missionaries arrived, and the great sorrow of the Messianic Jew who grieves for family and friends who did not or will not acknowledge his Jesus as their Messiah? C. S. Lewis said these outsiders represent the scandal of exclusivity. Jim Geiger is a Christian insider and fully committed to the exclusivity of Christ's atonement. However, he is suggesting an expanded Christology where: ¥ The constant speed of light in E = mc2 corroborates the constant Christ of Heb 13:8. ¥ Special and general relativity model special and general revelation. ¥ The Christ of general revelation represents the hope of salvation for some of Christianity's outsiders.