“ Sorrow prepares you for joy. It violently sweeps everything out of your house, so that new joy can find space to enter. It shakes the yellow leaves from the bough of your heart, so that fresh, green leaves can grow in their place. It pulls up the rotten roots, so that new roots hidden beneath have room to grow. Whatever sorrow shakes from your heart, far better things will take their place. ” ― Rumi
Alec Motyer sees the book of Isaiah as a mosaic constructed of a variety of prophecies originating at different points in the prophet's career, with each prophecy shaped by its individual prehistory. These preexilic prophecies were brought into a new lite
R. T. France's new commentary on Matthew focuses on exegesis of Matthew's text as it stands rather than on the prehistory of the material or details of Synoptic comparison. It is concerned throughout with what Matthew himself meant to convey about Jesus a
Like many things in life, the skill of good preaching is 95% perspiration and 5% inspiration. Alec Motyer's guide is based on a multitude of sermons over many years of preaching in many different situations, a recipe to help you know your subject and to p
Though frequently used in times of crisis or pain, the book of Psalms is often misread or misunderstood, seeming like a disorganized jumble of prayer, praise, and lament. To help readers get more out of the Psalms, renowned Old Testament scholar Gordon We
Leviticus used to be the first book that Jewish children studied in the synagogue. In the modern church it tends to be the last part of the Bible that anyone looks at seriously. Because Leviticus is largely concerned with subjects that seem incomprehensib
Recent scholarship has shown a marked preference for a simpler analysis of Genesis, says Dr. Gordon Wenham, and with this trend his commentary identifies.Dr. Wenham has a remarkable gift for clarity of expression in discussing even the most difficult prob
Too often the Christian version of popular culture's sentimental view of love is that, of all things, Christians should be nice. After all, people ask, isn't the Church about forgiveness? Aren't Christians supposed to love others without condition?This bo