Seeing Through The Eyes Of Jesus

Rather than looking at Jesus -- the popular conception of the "historical Jesus" -- John Baggett contends that we should instead look with Jesus at the realities of God and neighbor as he perceived them. Baggett incorporates the witness of the key human relationships of Jesus, looking at why those earliest believers and friends considered him divine. Baggett then asks how Christ's transcendence can ultimately translate to significance for life and faith in today's story.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From one of the world’s most influential spiritual thinkers, a long-awaited book exploring what it means that Jesus was called “Christ,” and how this forgotten truth can restore hope and meaning to our lives. “Anyone who strives to put their faith into action will find encouragement and inspiration in the pages of this book.”—Melinda Gates In his decades as a globally recognized teacher, Richard Rohr has helped millions realize what is at stake in matters of faith and spirituality. Yet Rohr has never written on the most perennially talked about topic in Christianity: Jesus. Most know who Jesus was, but who was Christ? Is the word simply Jesus’s last name? Too often, Rohr writes, our understandings have been limited by culture, religious debate, and the human tendency to put ourselves at the center. Drawing on scripture, history, and spiritual practice, Rohr articulates a transformative view of Jesus Christ as a portrait of God’s constant, unfolding work in the world. “God loves things by becoming them,” he writes, and Jesus’s life was meant to declare that humanity has never been separate from God—except by its own negative choice. When we recover this fundamental truth, faith becomes less about proving Jesus was God, and more about learning to recognize the Creator’s presence all around us, and in everyone we meet. Thought-provoking, practical, and full of deep hope and vision, The Universal Christ is a landmark book from one of our most beloved spiritual writers, and an invitation to contemplate how God liberates and loves all that is.

Following World War II, the United States enjoyed unprecedented propsperity as the post war economy exploded. While Americans pondered affluence, U.S. Franciscans focused on the forgotten members of U.S. society, those who had been left out or left behind. Seeing Jesus in the Eyes of the Oppressed tells the story of eight Franciscans and their communities who struggled to create a more just and equitable society. Through eight mini-biographies, Paul T. Murray, emeritus professor at Siena College, explores Franciscan efforts to establish racial and economic justice and to promote peace and nonviolence: Father Nathaniel Machesky led the battle for civil rights in Greenwood, MS; Sister Antona Ebo was the lone African American Sister at the Selma march; Brother Booker Ashe worked for interracial justice and Black pride in Milwaukee; Sister Thea Bowman celebrated Black gifts to the U.S. Church and worked toward an expression of the faith that was ""authentically Black and truly Catholic;"" Father Alan McCoy pushed his community and the Church in the United States to greater engagement with Social Justice; Sister Pat Drydyk worked with Cesar Chavez for justice for the farmworkers; Father Joseph Nangle brought solidarity with Latin America to the fore in the U.S. Church, and Father Louis Vitale used civil disobedience to oppose nuclear proliferation, while serving the poor and homeless. In all, the book emphasizes the passion and struggle of Franciscans in the United States to create a more just world within society and within the Church.

This beautifully written half-memoir, half-essay, explores the realities of Papa God’s love for you, your identity as His beloved child and heirs, and the transformation of your vision of yourself, others, and world events that this revelation of your place in the divine family brings. Poignant personal reflections are woven artfully with metaphors, personal stories, and an eclectic smattering of quotes and movie references. You, too, are invited to reflect and discover your own divine encounter. You will learn how to see through Heaven’s eyes—through the Father’s eyes—and that look of love will transform everything, including: God. Yourself. Other people. Your family. Your enemies. The end times. Seeing Through Heaven’s Eyes is powerfully presented and will bless and free you to experience a deeper relationship with Father God.

Beginning with Jesus' birth, Ken Bailey leads you on a kaleidoscopic study of Jesus throughout the four Gospels. Bailey examines the life and ministry of Jesus with attention to the Lord's Prayer, the Beatitudes, Jesus' relationships with women, and especially Jesus' parables. Through it all, Bailey employs his trademark expertise as a master of Middle Eastern culture to lead you into a deeper understanding of the person and significance of Jesus within his own cultural context. With a sure but gentle hand, Bailey lifts away the obscuring layers of modern Western interpretation to reveal Jesus in the light of his actual historical and cultural setting. This entirely new material from the pen of Ken Bailey is a must-have for any student of the New Testament. If you have benefited from Bailey's work over the years, this book will be a welcome and indispensable addition to your library. If you are unfamiliar with Bailey's work, this book will introduce you to a very old yet entirely new way of understanding Jesus.

Who is Jesus Christ? You've never met Him in person, and you don't know anyone who has. But there is a way to know who he is. How? Jesus Christ - the divine Person revealed in the Bible - has a unique excellence and a spiritual beauty that speaks directly to our souls and says, "Yes, this is truth." It's like seeing the sun and knowing that it is light, or tasting honey and knowing that it is sweet. The depth and complexity of Jesus shatter our simple mental frameworks. He baffled proud scribes with his wisdom but was understood and loved by children. He calmed a raging storm with a word but would not get himself down from the cross. Look at the Jesus of the Bible. Keep your eyes open, and fill them with the portrait of Jesus in God's Word. Jesus said, "If anyone's will is to do God's will, He will know whether the teaching is from God or whether I am speaking on my own authority." Ask God for the grace to do His will, and you will see the truth of His Son. John Piper has written this book in the hope that all will see Jesus for who he really is and will come to enjoy him above all else.

Jesus ascended to heaven. End of story. But then how do we explain the many Christians, in nearly every century since, who claimed to have seen, heard, met, and touched Jesus in the flesh? In Seeing Jesus, Robert Hudson explores the larger-than-life characters throughout Christian history who have encountered the actual face or form of the resurrected Christ--from the apostles Thomas and Paul in the first century to Charles Finney in the nineteenth and Sundar Singh in the twentieth. Hudson combines history, biography, spiritual reflection, skepticism, and humor to unpack awe-inspiring and sometimes seemingly absurd stories, from a surprise sighting of Jesus in a cup of coffee, to Christ appearing to Julian of Norwich during a life-threatening illness to assure her that "all manner of thing shall be well." Along the way, he uncovers deeper meaning for us today. Through Hudson's quirky and lyrical prose we get to know people of unflinching faith, like Francis of Assisi, Teresa of Avila, Silouan the Athonite, and Sojourner Truth--those who claim radical encounters with Jesus. The result is a fascinating journey through Christian history that is at once thoroughly analytical and deeply devotional.