Gospel 101

This small group study and practical resource on systematic theology invites readers to develop a biblical literacy to share the gospel simply and effectively. Designed for Christians with gospel questions ready to put their faith to action and grow in biblical knowledge, Gospel 101 explains the foundational gospel truth with digestible ...

This small group study and practical resource invites readers to develop the biblical literacy needed to share the gospel simply and effectively and without formulas. Designed for Christians who want to put their faith into action and grow in biblical knowledge, Gospel 101 explains the foundational gospel truth with digestible amounts of Scripture without diluting the gospel message. Christians wondering how to share the gospel effectively will find Scripture-based content on understanding the background of the gospel rather than a one-size-fits-all approach to evangelism. Rather than giving an information overload or too-simplistic view of the gospel, Gospel 101 communicates the good news of Jesus in a clear, understanding, and compelling way, inviting readers to grow in gospel fluency, gospel community, and gospel action. Practical, small group study layout helps readers experience the transforming power of new life in Jesus. This flexible resource serves as an introductory-level course on the big picture message of redemption. It equips church and ministry leaders with the language of the gospel to confidently move past the fear of sharing their faith by living out of gospel community and Scripture knowledge. By defining the gospel and why it matters, readers will learn about God, humanity, Christ, justification, our response, and the implications of the gospel through pointed questions, Scripture reading assignments, and encouraged discussions. Gospel 101 will provide life-changing biblical truths so readers can speak gospel truth into everyday conversations with friends, family, children, coworkers, neighbors, fellow students, and others.

"I can't imagine a college student—skeptic, doubter, Christian, struggler—who wouldn't benefit from this book." —Kevin DeYoung For many young adults, the college years are an exciting period of selfdiscovery full of new relationships, new independence, and new experiences. Yet college can also be a time of personal testing and intense questioning— especially for Christian students confronted with various challenges to Christianity and the Bible for the first time. Drawing on years of experience as a biblical scholar, Michael Kruger addresses common objections to the Christian faith—the exclusivity of Christianity, Christian intolerance, homosexuality, hell, the problem of evil, science, miracles, and the reliability of the Bible. If you're a student dealing with doubt or wrestling with objections to Christianity from fellow students and professors alike, this book will equip you to engage secular challenges with intellectual honesty, compassion, and confidence—and ultimately graduate college with your faith intact.

"This book offers a new material history of the Jesus tradition. Keith shows that the introduction of manuscripts to the transmission of the Jesus tradition played an underappreciated, but crucial, role in the reception history of the tradition that eventuated. He focuses particularly on the competitive textualization of the Jesus tradition, whereby Gospel authors drew attention to the written nature of their tradition, sometimes in attempts to assert superiority to predecessors, and the public reading of the Jesus tradition. Both these processes reveal efforts on the part of early followers of Jesus to place the gospel-as-manuscript on display, whether in the literary tradition or in the assembly. Building upon interdisciplinary work on ancient book cultures, Keith traces an early history of the gospel as artifact from the textualization of Mark in the first century until the eventual usage of liturgical reading as a marker of authoritative status in the second and third centuries, and beyond. Overall, he reveals a vibrant period of the development of the Jesus tradition, wherein the material status of the tradition frequently played as important a role as the ideas about Jesus that it contained"--

Gospel 101 for Teens helps teens deepen their understanding of the gospel, expand their fluency in talking about the gospel, and grow confidence in sharing the gospel with others.

By redefining narrative temporality in light of modern physics, this book advances a unique and innovative approach to the deep-seated temporalities within the Gospel of John—and challenges the implicit assumptions of textual brokenness that run throughout Johannine scholarship.

Based on linguistic and thematic links in the narrative, The Turning Point in the Gospel of Mark argues that the twin pericopae of Peter's confession (8:27-38) and the Transfiguration (9:2-13) together function as the turning point of the Gospel and serve in a Janus-like manner enabling the reader to see the author's main focus: the identity of Jesus and the significance of that reality for his disciples. Peter's confession of Jesus as Messiah faces backward toward the Prologue (1:1-13) and functions as a mid-course conclusion. The declaration by God on the mountain faces forward and foreshadows the end-course conclusion (14:61-62; 15:39; Son of God). Jesus, in response, teaches that the Son of Man must suffer and die before being raised from the dead (8:31). Christologically, the images of Messiah, Son of Man, and Son of God converge and present Jesus, the crucified, as king, ushering in the kingdom of God in power (9:1 acting as the key swivel between the twin pericopae). When one is confronted with this Jesus, though there remains something elusive about him and the kingdom of God in the narrative, the only wise decision (after calculating the costs, 8:34-38) is to follow.

In this volume Stanley Porter tackles a wide variety of important and often highly contentious topics within Johns Gospel as a means of defining and capturing the distinctive Johannine voice. Topics discussed include Johns Gospel in relation to competing Gospels, the public proclamation of Jesus in John, the sources of Johns Gospel, Johns prologue, the I Am sayings, the notion of truth, the Passover theme, and the ending of Johns Gospel. Each chapter, besides surveying representative research, puts forward new and insightful proposals regarding the topics concerned. Porter does not shy away from topics that have often perplexed Johannine scholars, and he confronts some of the viewpoints that have led to confusion in the field. Significantly, each chapter considers the Johannine voice as it represents, presents, and treats Jesus, grounding the book in the wider field of Gospel and New Testament investigation.