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This Week on Seminary Dropout…

Marlena Graves is a writer and adjunct professor. Marlena holds an MDiv from Northeastern Seminary in Rochester, New York, and is a graduate of the Renovaré Institute. She has been a bylined writer for Christianity Today, (in)courage, womenleaders.com, and Our Daily Bread, and she is also the author of A Beautiful Disaster. She lives with her husband and three daughters in Toledo, Ohio.

Follow Marlena at marlenagraves.com

“Now, with God’s help, I shall become myself.” These words from Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard resonate deeply with Marlena Graves, a Puerto Rican writer, professor, and activist. In these pages she describes the process of emptying herself that allows her to move upward toward God and become the true self that God calls her to. Drawing on the rich traditions of Eastern and Western Christian saints, she shares stories and insights that have enlivened her transformation. For Marlena, formation and justice always intertwine on the path to a balanced life of both action and contemplation. If you long for more of God, this book offers a time-honored path to deeper life. -From the Publisher

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This Week on Seminary Dropout…

Ronald J. Sider, whose book Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger has been called one of the top 100 books in religion in the twentieth century, is a well-known evangelical speaker, writer, and editor. Holding a PhD in history from Yale University, Ron Sider is president of Evangelicals for Social Action, director of the Sider Center on Ministry and Public Policy, and a professor at Palmer Theological Seminary. He is also a contributing editor of Christianity Today and an ordained minister in the Mennonite and Brethren in Christ churches. Sider has written more than thirty books, including Christ and Violence, Living Like Jesus, Just Politics, Just Generosity, The Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience, and I Am Not a Social Activist. Ron Sider lives with his wife Arbutus in Lansdale, Pennsylvania.

Follow Ron on his blog ronsiderblog.substack.com.

” What does Jesus have to say about violence, just war, and killing? Does Jesus ever want his disciples to kill in order to resist evil and promote peace and justice? This book by noted theologian and bestselling author Ronald J. Sider provides a career capstone statement on biblical peacemaking. Sider makes a strong case for the view that Jesus calls his disciples to love, and never kill, their enemies. He explains that there are never only two options: to kill or to do nothing in the face of tyranny and brutality. There is always a third possibility: vigorous, nonviolent resistance. If we believe that Jesus is Lord, then we disobey him when we set aside what he taught about killing and ignore his command to love our enemies. This thorough, comprehensive treatment of a topic of perennial concern vigorously engages with the just war tradition and issues a challenge to all Christians, especially evangelicals, to engage in biblical peacemaking. The book includes a foreword by Stanley Hauerwas.” -From the Publisher

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This Week on Seminary Dropout…

Matthew W. Bates (PhD, University of Notre Dame) is associate professor of theology at Quincy University in Quincy, Illinois. He is the author of Salvation by Allegiance Alone, named the Jesus Creed 2017 Book of the Year and one of the Best Books of 2017 by Englewood Review of Books. He has also written The Birth of the Trinity and The Hermeneutics of the Apostolic Proclamation. Bates is cofounder and cohost of the popular OnScript podcast.

Is faith in Jesus enough for salvation? Perhaps, says Matthew Bates, but we’re missing pieces of the gospel. The biblical gospel can never change. Yet our understanding of the gospel must change. The church needs an allegiance shift. Popular pastoral resources on the gospel are causing widespread confusion. Bates shows that the biblical gospel is different, fuller, and more beautiful than we have been led to believe. He explains that saving faith doesn’t come through trust in Jesus’s death on the cross alone but through allegiance to Christ the king. There is only one true gospel and one required response: allegiance. Bates ignited conversation with his successful and influential book Salvation by Allegiance Alone. Here he goes deeper while making his acclaimed teaching on salvation more accessible and experiential for believers who want to better understand and share the gospel. Gospel Allegiance includes a guide for further conversation, making it ideal for church groups, pastors, leaders, and students. -From the Publisher

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This Week on Seminary Dropout…

N. T. Wright is the Chair of New Testament and Early Christianity at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. He is the award-winning author of many books, including After You Believe, Surprised by Hope, Simply Christian, The Challenge of Jesus, and The Meaning of Jesus (coauthored with Marcus Borg), as well as the series Christian Origins and the Question of God.

Finally: an introduction that captures the excitement of the early Christians, helping today’s readers to think like a first-century believer while reading the text responsibly for today.The New Testament in Its World is your passageway from the twenty-first century to the era of Jesus and the first Christians. A highly-readable, one-volume introduction placing the entire New Testament and early Christianity in its original context, it is the only such work by distinguished scholar and author N. T. (Tom) Wright. An ideal guide for students, The New Testament in Its World addresses the many difficult questions faced by those studying early Christianity. Both large and small, these questions include:

• What is the purpose of the New Testament?
• What was the first-century understanding of the kingdom?
• What is the real meaning of the resurrection in its original context?
• What really were the Gospels?
• Who was Paul and why are his letters so controversial?
• As twenty-first-century people, how do we recover the excitement of what it was like to live as Christians in the first or second centuries?

In short, The New Testament in Its World brings together decades of ground-breaking research, writing, and teaching into one volume that will open readers’ eyes to the larger world of the New Testament. It presents the New Testament books as historical, literary, and social phenomena located in the world of Second Temple Judaism, amidst Greco-Roman politics and culture, and within early Christianity. Written for both classroom and personal use, the benefits of The New Testament in Its World include:

• A distillation of the life work of N. T. Wright on the New Testament with input from Michael Bird
• Historical context that situates Jesus and the early church within the history, culture, and religion of Second Temple Judaism and the Greco-Roman world
• Major sections on the historical Jesus, the resurrection of Jesus, and Paul’s chronology and theology
• Surveys of each New Testament book that discuss their significance, critical topics like authorship and date, and that provide commentary on contents along with implications for the Christian life
• Up-to-date discussions of textual criticism and the canonization of the New Testament
• A concluding chapter dedicated to living the story of the New Testament
• Available Video and Workbook companion resources to enhance learning and experience the world of the New Testament
• Illustrated with visually rich pictures, maps, charts, diagrams, and artwork; plentiful sidebars provide additional explanations and insights

-From the Publisher

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