Sacred Refuge

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

Author(s): Lynne Rienstra
Publisher: Kregel Publications
Price: $2.99       Mar 10-11

What if the soul-safe space you long for turned out to be what God most longs to give you?
What if your crisis is the portal that takes you there?

The world is broken. Wars shake the earth, natural disasters upend communities, crises hit our marriages and families, churches crumble under moral failure, sickness wracks our bodies. More than ever, we feel the effects of living in a fallen world.
When crisis hits, our instinct says retreat. But have we considered where we’ve been hiding? Is it in a flimsy shelter of our own making? What if you could find a place where you feel “soul-safe,” where even the worst that life dishes out cannot shake your faith or steal your peace, but “steels” your peace? A place so deeply rooted in the presence and love of God that nothing can move you.
In the pages of Sacred Refuge, meet ten modern and ten biblical women who stare in the face of homelessness and hunger, life-threatening illness, the loss of a child, debilitating sin, life-altering rejection, and untimely death. Across space and time, author Lynne Rienstra invites you to join this sisterhood and learn from their fears, mistakes, and triumphs. To enhance your journey, she adds biblical teaching, ten Transforming Truths, application questions, encounters with Jesus, and a study guide.
Step out of your isolation—as these women did—and into Christ’s sheltering embrace. Learn how to live there as your permanent dwelling place. Invite others to share this sacred refuge. And begin to change the world.

 

Plans for Holy War

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

Author(s): John Arrowsmith
Publisher: Reformation Heritage
Price: $2.99       (Apr 1-2)

“Arrowsmith’s exploration of spiritual warfare in the life of the Christian is noteworthy: equal parts creative, daunting, intellectual, inspirational, challenging, and comforting. The publication of Arrowsmith’s magnum opus in English should interest pastors, scholars, and serious Christians who desire to engage in the holy war that really matters.”
—Kevin DeYoung, senior pastor, Christ Covenant Church, Matthews, North Carolina; associate professor of systematic theology, Reformed Theological Seminary (Charlotte)

New in the Writings of the Westminster Divines series: Plans for Holy War by John Arrowsmith

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NIV, Foundation Study Bible

Publisher: Zondervan
Price: $5.99       (Apr 3 – 5)

The key features of a study Bible in a convenient, compact, and concise form

The NIV Foundation Study Bible in the world’s most popular modern-English Bible translation—the New International Version—features an approachable and easy-to-use layout, with straightforward and broad study notes that help you discover the beauty and truth of God’s Word. Concise study notes provide helpful comments on passages of Scripture, while theological notes draw attention to important doctrinal content in the Bible and are indexed in the back of the Bible. Translators’ footnotes offer clarification and information about the original-language texts.

Intended for both beginning and experienced students of Scripture who want a Bible that contains the key features of a study Bible in a convenient, compact, and concise form, the NIV Foundation Study Bible is perfect for students, church leaders, and homeschool use.

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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.