Leitourgia

The Christian Church has a rich history of prayer. From the days of the earliest believers, Christians have devoted time to communicate with their God. Now, in Jeanie and David Gushee's A Morning and Evening Prayerbook  (Thomas Nelson, 2018), there is a rich source from which to join in the prayers of the ages. The Gushees have searched the prayers of saints—from the early Church Fathers to modern theologians—and compiled them into an attractive prayerbook. Each day contains a morning and evening prayer. The prayers are aligned to the Christian calendar. This is a fantastic resource. Families, individuals, pastors, and believers from all walks of life would benefit from the rich spirituality mined by the Gushees. The prayers are probing, insightful, and succinct. The book itself is portable, attractive, and durable. Apart from a short introduction, there are no commentaries—just raw prayers. The collection spans time and tradition. Rather than letting these replace spontaneous...

Worship and theology are inextricably linked; some even say that worship is “lived theology.” The ancient formula lex orandi, lex credendi insists that the goal of theology is to make better worshippers. Yet for many years, there has been a gap in introducing worship as a way of doing theology. To be sure, there is an abundance of works on systematic, historical, and constructive theology, and many on worship theory and practice; however, their intersection is given little attention in current literature. Dennis Okholm observed this problem and offers his Learning Theology through the Church’s Worship: An Introduction to Christian Belief (Baker Academic, 2018) to fill this gap, providing a systematic theology textbook arranged as an order of worship. The book is structured as a worship service, designed to bring readers through the typical movements of a service, stopping along the way to uncover the theology behind the Church’s worship. He opens with an impassioned argument for w...

The biblical drama was situated among a highly complex sociological, political, and geographic backdrop. In particular, the world of the Old Testament was a critical time for human civilization—yet most readers of the Bible tend to imagine that Israel alone was the sole nation on the scene. While most OT surveys identify cultural issues within particular sections of the text, or provide a cursory introduction to the ancient Near East in an opening chapter, Behind the Scenes of the Old Testament: Cultural, Social, and Historical Contexts (Baker Academic, 2018) provides a comprehensive entry point into the ancient world in the time of the OT. This authoritative tome brings together contributions from the world’s leading biblical and archaeological scholars to offer a variety of articles on OT background issues. It is divided into three parts. The first, “Elements of the Drama,” includes the stage (historical geography), the set and props (archaeology), the scripts (extra-biblical li...

It is no surprise that the locus of the Christian Church is moving outward, from the West to beyond. The missional impulse of recent movements has expanded the meaning of the Church and made John the Seer’s vision increasingly clearer, “a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb” (Revelation 7:9). In light of the coming of global Christianity, the Western church has become more pressed to establish a global theology. Langham Global Library’s growing Majority World Theology series has provided exposure to Christian thinkers in the majority world on various doctrines. In its most recent addition, The Church from Every Tribe and Tongue: Ecclesiology in the Majority World (2018), a variety of global voices investigate the doctrine of the Church, offering insights into how non-Western lenses on the Church can shape Western theology and practice.  Nine respected theologians and biblical sc...

A revised version of the previously published NIV Zondervan Study Bible,  the NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible  (Zondervan, 2018) represents the best of biblical scholarship in a compact study Bible. It introduces Biblical Theology (BT), a discipline that is intended for readers to weave individual books and stories into a larger metanarrative that reveals God's redemptive plan through the entire Bible. To that end, this study Bible includes articles introducing BT and articles on theological matters. While the emphasis of this Bible may appeal to a more Reformed/covenantal audience, the contributors span a variety of theological traditions and are respected authorities within their discipline. The verse-by-verse notes—over 20,000—are insightful and suitable for determining the historical, literary, and cultural background of the text with a view to responsible interpretation of Scripture. There are in-text cross references, a concordance, maps, and useful charts. Each bo...

Our Bibles may contain words, but its message evokes grand imagery that can often be lost through an all-text document. Graphic designer Karen Sawrey's Infographic Bible  (Zondervan, 2018) is an attempt to bring the text of the Bible to life through the visual arts. In a large collection of infographics that cover key biblical characters, events, themes, topics, and other events in church history relating to the Bible, Sawrey has created a captivating book that allows readers to visually engage with the story of the Bible. The 84 infographics are divided according to the "big picture" themes of Scripture's grand story—from creation to re-creation—and are varied in their purpose and layout. Some are type-driven; others are illustration-driven. Topics range from biblical names and attributes for God to the profiles of the kings of Israel and Judah. Scripture references are provided throughout. Overall, this is a superb book. To be sure, calling it a "Bible...

Paul Scott Wilson's celebrated preaching text, The Four Pages of the Sermon  (Abingdon, 2018) is now available in a revised and updated edition, with additions that reflect advancements in homiletical scholarship and cultural dynamics. First published in 1999, Wilson challenged the New Homiletic movement to emphasize God's gracious activity within the text and to let it saturate the entirety of the sermon—not to use the Gospel as a tantalizing treat at the end of a well-crafted plot. Today, this text stands as one of the most respected and accessible works for preachers at all stages in their ministry. Wilson argues that there are four main moves, or "pages," in a sermon: the problem in the text, the problem in the world, the grace in the text, and the grace in the world. Like Eugene Lowry's "homiletical plot," Wilson's sermon upsets the listener by exposing a human need and then moves toward resolution through the power of the Gospel. These page...