Humility Illuminated

Author(s): Dennis R. Edwards
Publisher: IVP
Price: $4.99       (Apr 1 – 30)

The modern church is immersed in a competitive, polarized, and status-driven society. It’s hard to have conversations about important issues when so many are defensive and unwilling to learn. Too often, Christians fall into these same traps. The health and witness of the church urgently depend on recovering an essential biblical virtue: humility.

New Testament scholar Dennis R. Edwards illuminates humility as a, if not the, distinctive identity marker of followers of Jesus. Tracing the theme throughout Scripture, he demonstrates how true humility is grounded in submission to God and becomes manifest in all areas of life. Edwards defuses common misconceptions about humility and explores its role in Christian community, conflict, leadership, suffering, worship, and stewardship.

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Seven Snares of the Enemy: Breaking Free From the Devil’s Grip

Author(s): Erwin W. Lutzer
Publisher: Moody
Price: $1.99       (Apr 1 – 30)

There are many ‘modern’ sins ensnaring more and more people everyday. Some are blatant, but many are secret, quickly seducing the participant into behavior that separates them from God. Popular pastor and author Erwin Lutzer exposes Satan’s seven most common ‘traps,’ warning readers and giving them hope for liberation from these forms of bondage. Addressing greed, gambling, alcoholism, pornography, sexual freedom, pleasure, and occultism, Lutzer takes on tough and sensitive issues with great compassion and clarity.

Life in the Presence of God: Practices for Living in Light of Eternity

Author(s): Kenneth Boa
Publisher: IVP
Price: $4.99       (Apr 1 – 30)

2018 IVP Readers’ Choice Award
God is everywhere and always with us. So why don’t we experience his presence more?Life is full of distractions, and our 24/7 news cycles and social media drown out the voice of God. It’s hard to discern God’s presence amid the hubbub. But experiencing God is not just for the super-spiritual or ultra-mature. Every Christian can learn to cultivate a greater awareness of God in the everyday.Ken Boa offers a contemporary guide to practicing the presence of God. Using biblical foundations, living and historical examples, and evidence from neuroscience, Ken reveals how we can walk with God and abide in his presence. We need to rethink how we use our time and technology to make room for God, to train ourselves with new habits that deepen our awareness of God. This book offers not a magical technique but dozens of practical exercises and disciplines that help us draw close to God even in the midst of our cacophonous modern culture.Practicing God’s presence is not just for the professionals. It’s for ordinary people like us. And the more we live in God’s presence, the greater our abiding peace and joy.

Christian Canon Law E-Books: Apr 19/25

Creating the Canon
Author(s): Benjamin P. Laird
Publisher: IVP Academic
Price: $5.99       (Ends Apr 30)

Unraveling the Origins of the New Testament Canon

Despite the profound influence of the New Testament, a variety of questions related to its background and history remain common. Contemporary readers often find the subject of the canon’s origin and formation to be complicated and confusing, while scholars continue to struggle to find agreement about basic elements of the canon’s development. In this engaging study, Benjamin P. Laird explores several misunderstood, disputed, and overlooked topics in order to provide fresh insight and clarity about the canon’s creation and modern relevance. The volume addresses questions such as:

Was there a single “original autograph” of each New Testament writing?
Who exactly were the “original readers” of the New Testament writings?
Did theological controversies play a decisive role in prompting the canon’s formation?
How did such a diverse body of writings come together to form a single canonical collection?
Is there a basis for the canon’s ongoing authority?
Wide-ranging yet accessible, Creating the Canon offers an illuminating treatment of the composition, formation, and authority of the New Testament and serves as a valuable guide to those with limited prior study. Creating the Canon is perfect for anyone seeking to further understand how the church got the New Testament, and it is an ideal supplemental text for courses including biblical studies, church history, theology, or any class exploring the development and authority of the New Testament canon.

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Light of the Word
Author(s): Susan C. Lim
Publisher: IVP
Price: $3.99       (Ends Apr 30)

While Christians generally acknowledge that the Bible is God’s Word, many of us lack robust confidence in the reality of its trustworthiness. We may not be sure if we really believe what we read. But the more we understand how Scripture came to be, the more we discover its power and truth.

Historian Susan Lim unpacks how the history of the Bible bolsters our faith and anchors us through the changing tides of time. The story of Scripture, while messy and complicated at times, is also the story of how God shepherded his people throughout the centuries in and through these writings. Lim explains how Christians came to accept certain documents as inspired and not others, and how the books we now call the Bible came to be assembled and canonized as authoritative. The same Spirit of God who oversaw the writing of Scripture continues to be at work actively in us in our receiving and reading of it, to grow us in faith and maturity.

Those of us who confess that Jesus is Lord can also confess with confidence that Scripture is God’s Word. As the church through the ages has received and passed down the sacred Scriptures, so too can we receive for ourselves the living Word that God still speaks through today.

Facing Intellectual Giants

SPONSORED LISTING

Author(s): Dan Chimere-Dan
Publisher: Procross Media
Price: $2.99      

This book prepares new Christian students to handle dominant beliefs, theories and worldviews that challenge their personal faith in the modern university.

The Tinker’s Progress: The Life and Times of John Bunyan

This e-book was chosen by our readers to be placed on sale.

Author(s): Jacob Tanner
Publisher: Christian Focus Publications
Price: $2.99       (Apr 25-26)

Known primarily for his allegorical work, The Pilgrim’s Progress, John Bunyan was also a preacher, a gifted theologian and interpreter of Scripture. Academically, he was not a learned man, but when it came to practical and experiential mastery of the Scriptures and their theology, he was as gifted as anyone. His writings have a beauty and practicality not often found. He teaches that the greater the Christian’s understanding of truth, the stronger their own passion for Jesus will be, and the greater their worship and doxology will become.

Jacob Tanner’s enlightening biography traces Bunyan’s life from his humble beginnings to his calling home to the Celestial City. From his debaucherous youth to glimpses of grace and eventual calling to ministry.

There are lessons here for any twenty–first century Christian. He can teach men to be mature, fathers to be loving, husbands to be faithful, pastors to be tender, saints to suffer well, Christians to be steadfast. One of his greatest lessons to modern Christians is how to live faithfully for Christ in a world that is antagonistic to God.

 

Something Worth Doing

Author(s): Jane Kirkpatrick
Publisher: Revell
Price: $2.99       (May 1 – June 1)

In 1853, Abigail Scott was a 19-year-old school teacher in Oregon Territory when she married Ben Duniway. Marriage meant giving up on teaching, but Abigail always believed she was meant to be more than a good wife and mother. When financial mistakes and an injury force Ben to stop working, Abigail becomes the primary breadwinner for her growing family. What she sees as a working woman appalls her, and she devotes her life to fighting for the rights of women, including their right to vote.

Following Abigail as she bears six children, runs a millinery and a private school, helps on the farm, writes novels, gives speeches, and eventually runs a newspaper supporting women’s suffrage, Something Worth Doing explores issues that will resonate strongly with modern women: the pull between career and family, finding one’s place in the public sphere, and dealing with frustrations and prejudices women encounter when they compete in male-dominated spaces. Based on a true story of a pioneer for women’s rights from award-winning author Jane Kirkpatrick will inspire you to believe that some things are worth doing–even when the cost is great.