You Belong to Christ explores the way that the Apostle Paul sought to form the social identity of one of his most important Christ-following communities. It sheds light on the way various social identities function within the Pauline community and provides guidance concerning the social implications of the gospel. Drawing from contemporary social identity theories as well as ancient source material, J. Brian Tucker describes the way 1 Corinthians 1-4 forms social identity in its readers, so that what results is an alternative community with a distinct ethos, in contrast to the Roman Empire and its imperial ideology. This book contends that previous identities are not obliterated "in Christ," but maintain their fundamental significance and serve to further the Pauline mission by means of social integration. Providing a comprehensive survey of Christian identity in Pauline studies as well as an interesting look into the material remains of Roman Corinth, this volume provides a social-scientific reading of 1 Corinthians 1-4, and argues that Paul's strategy was to form salient "in Christ" social identity in those to whom he wrote.

Tens of thousands of Christians have gotten up and gone to bed with Charles Spurgeon's devotional Morning and Evening. Seven hundred and thirty two devotions. One for each morning and each evening. These devotions will guide you in a closer walk with God, helping you find a focus for each day.

Jesus explains in His parable of the talents that your Heavenly Father God has endowed you with at least one special gift. Often He has blessed you with many more. His gift of love to you, however, is the most precious of them all. If godly love is your one talent, it is yours to continually refine throughout your life. In order to continually grow in godly love, God's Word must be your road map. God Loves You: Notes of His Love unearths truths about your Heavenly Father's love from Paul's description of godly love in his first letter to the Corinthians. In his letter he reveals its seven qualities. You will find in God Loves You: Notes of His Love that each chapter is dedicated to studying a quality of love. As you study each chapter you become a student of God's love. You investigate for yourself how to live an entire life of continual growth in ever-abounding love for your Heavenly Father God, your dear ones, and all humanity. After you devote your entire life to successfully studying and living godly love, you will appear before your Heavenly Father God. When He sees your soul beaming the seven qualities of godly love, He will tell you "Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your Master's happiness!"

One, and the chief, design of this volume is to exhibit and illustrate the practical character of our Lord's emotional nature thus linking Him in closer and more personal actuality with our circumstances. Every endeavor to bring into more proximate communion the personality of Christ, and the individuality of the Christian, cannot fail, however imperfect the execution, to promote the holiest interests of experimental Christianity. Much that passes for sympathy, and is really so, as commonly understood, is deficient in this one essential element, and needs to be remodeled. There is poetry and there is beauty in real sympathy; but there is more there is action. True sympathy may exist impotent to aid, we concede, and its silent expression may not, in some instances, be the less grateful and soothing; but the noblest and most powerful form of sympathy is not merely the responsive tear, the echoed sigh, the answering look it is the embodiment of the sentiment in actual help. It identifies itself with the object of its commiseration so personally and so closely as to realize the apostle's beautiful idea of true sympathy "Remember those who are in bonds, as bound with them; and those who suffer adversity, as being yourselves also in the body." This was preeminently the character of Christ's compassion when on earth. He was willing Himself to wear the chain He came to loose, to share the sorrow He came to soothe; and the remembrance that He was likewise "in the body" constantly forced itself upon His mind, imparting to His deep sensibility and tender compassion the power and the luster of an actual and personal participation in the calamities He repaired, the needs He met, and the griefs He assuaged. Thus, from His practical sympathy, who is the Great Teacher of the Church, and the "Consolation of Israel," may we derive lessons of holy instruction, and streams of the richest comfort. To aid this object, the present volume is, with diffidence, offered to the Christian Church. Composed under the pressure of important ministerial, extended pastoral, and continuous public labor, it necessarily partakes of the imperfections of a work thus written, and often at a season when the jaded powers, both of mind and body, demanded the restorative of sleep. But if the "lame take the prey," the author may humbly hope that this lowly attempt to present the Savior more vividly to the personal realization of the reader, and thus render Him more loved and precious, and His example more closely studied and imitated, will not be without acceptance and blessing to the one Church of God, the sorrowing, suffering Body of a Divine and sympathizing Head. The Triune Jehovah bless the work, and to the Sacred Three in One shall be the glory! Amen.

Baur's Paul, the Apostle of Jesus Christ was the major study of Paul published in the nineteenth century, and it is one of the greatest works of all time on Paul. It lays the basis for modern Pauline scholarship. The first part, "The Life and Activity of the Apostle Paul," consists of a thoroughgoing deconstruction of the account of Paul found in the Acts of the Apostles. While the author of Acts passed on historical traditions about Paul, he greatly embellished them with stories about the miraculous feats of the apostles, and constructed the entire account to show fictitious parallels between the apostles Peter and Paul. The second part, "The Epistles of the Apostle Paul," is divided into three main sections: the authentic epistles of Paul (Galatians, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Romans), the deutero-Pauline epistles (Ephesians, Colossians, Philippians, Thessalonians, Philemon), and the Pastoral Epistles (1 and 2 Timothy, Titus). In the first two parts Baur's historical-critical skills are at their finest. The third part, "The Apostle's Theological Framework," draws the elements of Pauline theology into a magnificent synthesis, where the influence of Hegel and Schleiermacher is evident. The earlier English translation is no longer adequate. Our new translation presents a very readable text with critical annotations and translations of all the scriptural passages quoted in Greek. Baur on Paul truly becomes available in English for the first time.

Most things we discover in life are of the nature of SERENDIPITY. This book, which is a coherent collection of Seventeen of my Sermons across the years speaks to our need to know God and to reflect Him in our lives. You will really enjoy reading these messages if you find a quiet place to read them aloud to yourself. You will be spiritually and richly blessed.