Books published by publisher Wipf and Stock

Reading Revelation Responsibly is for those who are confused by, afraid of, and/or preoccupied with the book of Revelation. In rescuing the Apocalypse from those who either completely misinterpret it or completely ignore it, Michael Gorman has given us both a guide to reading Revelation in a responsible way and a theological engagement with the text itself. He takes interpreting the book as a serious and sacred responsibility, believing how one reads, teaches, and preaches Revelation can have a powerful impact on one's own--and other people's--well-being. Gorman pays careful attention to the book's original historical and literary contexts, its connections to the rest of Scripture, its relationship to Christian doctrine and practice, and its potential to help or harm people in their life of faith. Rather than a script for the end times, Gorman demonstrates how Revelation is a script for Christian worship, witness, and mission that runs counter to culturally embedded civil religion.

The Ethiopic version provides a window into the state of the Greek Bible as it circulated in East Africa at the end of the fourth century. It is, therefore, an extremely important witness to the Bible's early transmission history, yet its testimony has typically been ignored or misunderstood by text critics. This study examines the history of the book of Acts in Ethiopia and reconstructs its earliest attainable text, which then is assessed using the latest text-critical methods. It therefore provides a solid base for interpreting the data of this key witness and lays the groundwork for future text-critical work in Ethiopic and other early versions. ""There are not many scholars who deeply and effectively engage in Ethiopic studies. Curt Niccum is one of them. His carefully prepared edition of the book of Acts will not only enormously enrich our knowledge of the Ethiopic New Testament, but also demonstrate the Ethiopic Bible is of more than secondary importance for the textual criticism of the Greek New Testament."" --K. Martin Heide, Privatdozent, Philipps Universitat Marburg, Germany ""Curt Niccum, an acknowledged expert in the area of the Ethiopic New Testament, here shares with his readers the fruit of his investigations into the Ethiopic text of the book of Acts. In view of the relatively early (probably late fourth-century) date of the translation, the Ethiopic represents an important witness to the much-debated text of this document. . . . Niccum's careful work offers a valuable and needed corrective to previous views. Textual critics and historians of Christianity in East Africa will find here much of interest."" --Michael W. Holmes, Professor of Biblical Studies and Early Christianity, Bethel University Curt Niccum is Professor of New Testament at Abilene Christian University. He is also co-director of the Textual History of the Ethiopic Old Testament (THEOT) Project.

"God's got a plan for your life" is an aphorism frequently heard by Christians. But how do you discover that plan? The Spirit Said Go is designed to help believers find God's will. Using Paul's journeys in Acts as examples, Wilson discusses twenty lessons on guidance drawn from these journeys. Using his firsthand experience traveling along these routes in the Eastern Mediterranean, he reads between the lines offering additional insights into Luke's account. He also provides important geographical and archaeological information to illustrate Paul's world among the Jews, Greeks, and Romans. Wilson then illustrates each lesson with autobiographical vignettes drawn from his own spiritual pilgrimage of over forty years as a follower of Jesus. Friends and colleagues also share stories of similar experiences of guidance. Each chapter ends with reflection questions that help the reader integrate the lesson into Christian living. The volume offers an inductive Bible study combined with practical, spiritual insights regarding how God guides his people then and now.

In Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz: Feminist Reconstruction of Biography and Text, Yugar invites you to accompany Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, a seventeenth-century protofeminist and ecofeminist, on her lifelong journey within three communities of women in the Americas. Sor Juana's goal was to reconcile inequalities between men and women in central Mexico and between the Spaniards and the indigenous Nahua population of New Spain. Yugar reconstructs a her-story narrative through analysis of two primary texts Sor Juana wrote en sus propias palabras (in her own words), El Sueño (The Dream) and La Respuesta (The Answer). Yugar creates a historically-based narrative in which Sor Juana's sueño of a more just world becomes a living nightmare haunted by misogyny in the form of the church, the Spanish Tribunal, Jesuits, and more-all seeking her destruction. In the process, Sor Juana "hoists [them] with their own petard" In seventeenth-century colonial Mexico, just as her Latina sisters in the Americas are doing today, Sor Juana used her pluma (pen) to create counternarratives in which the wisdom of women and the Nahua inform her sueño of a more just world for all.

Is the Christian message of Jesus Christ and his resurrection true? Using ten lines of historical evidence, Dr. Craig defends the probability that Jesus was resurrected following his crucifixion. He examines the origin of the Christian movement, and more provocative subjects, such as the Shroud of Turin, parapsychological phenomena and hallucinations.

Everlasting hell and divine judgment, a lake of fire and brimstone--these mainstays of evangelical tradition have come under fire once again in recent decades. Would the God of love revealed by Jesus really consign the vast majority of humankind to a destiny of eternal, conscious torment? Is divine mercy bound by the demands of justice? How can anyone presume to know who is saved from the flames and who is not? Reacting to presumptions in like manner, others write off the fiery images of final judgment altogether. If there is a God who loves us, then surely all are welcome into the heavenly kingdom, regardless of their beliefs or behaviors in this life. Yet, given the sheer volume of threat rhetoric in the Scriptures and the wickedness manifest in human history, the pop-universalism of our day sounds more like denial than hope. Mercy triumphs over judgment; it does not skirt it. Her Gates Will Never Be Shut endeavors to reconsider what the Bible and the Church have actually said about hell and hope, noting a breadth of real possibilities that undermines every presumption. The polyphony of perspectives on hell and hope offered by the prophets, apostles, and Jesus humble our obsessive need to harmonize every text into a neat theological system. But they open the door to the eternal hope found in Revelation 21-22: the City whose gates will never be shut; where the Spirit and Bride perpetually invite the thirsty who are outside the city to "Come, drink of the waters of life."

Reading Revelation Responsibly is for those who are confused by, afraid of, and/or preoccupied with the book of Revelation. In rescuing the Apocalypse from those who either completely misinterpret it or completely ignore it, Michael Gorman has given us both a guide to reading Revelation in a responsible way and a theological engagement with the text itself. He takes interpreting the book as a serious and sacred responsibility, believing how one reads, teaches, and preaches Revelation can have a powerful impact on one's own--and other people's--well-being. Gorman pays careful attention to the book's original historical and literary contexts, its connections to the rest of Scripture, its relationship to Christian doctrine and practice, and its potential to help or harm people in their life of faith. Rather than a script for the end times, Gorman demonstrates how Revelation is a script for Christian worship, witness, and mission that runs counter to culturally embedded civil religion. ""With an exceptional blend of scholarly insight and confessional grounding, this book restores Revelation to relevance for the mission of the church. Gorman joins John of Patmos to inspire us with a risky and lofty vision of following the Lamb in radical and nonviolent witness in the world. This accessible volume is a theological wellspring for preachers, teachers, and any disciples seeking a reliable alternative to the scare-mongering eschatology that clogs airwaves and bookstores."" --J. Nelson Kraybill author of Apocalypse and Allegiance: Worship, Politics, and Devotion in the Book of Revelation ""Sometimes I think there are only two kinds of Christians in America: those who've never read Revelation and those who read almost nothing else. This book can help either kind. With careful use of scholarship and an evident love for the Lamb who was slain, Michael Gorman demystifies a book that's meant to clarify what's at stake when we say, 'Jesus is Lord.'"" --Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove author of The Wisdom of Stability: Rooting Faith in a Mobile Culture Michael J. Gorman is Professor of Sacred Scripture and Dean of the Ecumenical Institute of Theology at St. Mary's Seminary & University in Baltimore, Maryland. His recent books include Reading Paul (Cascade 2008) and Inhabiting the Cruciform God (2009).

While the task of exegesis after Auschwitz has been to expose the anti-Judaism inherent in the Christian tradition, the founding of the Jewish state has also helped show the continuation of the covenant between God and Israel. For Lloyd Gaston the living reality of Judaism makes possible a better understanding of Paul's prophetic call as Apostle to the Gentiles. In Paul and the Torah, Gaston argues that the terms of Paul's mission must be taken seriously and that it is totally inappropriate to regard his conversion as a transition from one religion to another. Paul's congregations were not made up of Christian Jews: they were exclusively Gentile. He therefore focused on God's promises to Abraham concerning Gentiles which were fulfilled in the faithfulness of Jesus Christ. The inclusion of Gentiles in the elect people of God through their incorporation into Christ thus does not mean a displacement of Israel. Nowhere does Paul speak of the rejection of Israel as God's chosen people, of the Sinai covenant as no longer in effect for Israel, or of the church as the new and true Israel. He also says nothing against the Jewish understanding of Torah as it applies to Israel when he speaks of law in reference to Gentiles. But for those outside the covenant God made with Israel, the law acted in an oppressive and condemning way, and Gentiles needed liberation from it. Paradoxically, Paul finds the gospel of this liberation to be proclaimed already in Torah in the sense of Scripture.

Does it really matter? Does it matter if we have free will? Does it matter if Calvinism is true? And does what you think about it matter? No and yes. No, it doesn't matter because God is who he is and does what he does regardless of what we think of him, just as the solar system keeps spinning around the sun even if we're convinced it spins around the earth. Our opinions about God will not change God, but they can change us. And so yes, it does matter because the conversations about free will and Calvinism confront us with perhaps the only question that really matters: who is God? This is a book about that question--a book about the Bible, black holes, love, sovereignty, hell, Romans 9, Jonathan Edwards, John Piper, C. S. Lewis, Karl Barth, and a little girl in a red coat. You've heard arguments, but here's a story--Austin Fischer's story, and his journey in and out of Calvinism on a trip to the center of the universe. ""Young, Restless, No Longer Reformed fills a gap in contemporary literature about Calvinism. Here is a young, dynamic, evangelical pastor, well-educated theologically, who discovered the fatal flaws in Calvinism and reluctantly shook it off. This is his story, including his well-articulated reasons for that transformation. I cannot recommend this book highly enough, especially to people interested in the 'new Calvinism' and why a biblically committed young Christian might bid it adieu."" --Roger E. Olson, George W. Truett Theological Seminary, Baylor University ""By sharing his own journey in and out of Calvinism, Fischer provides readers with an honest, interesting, insightful, and very compelling critique of the self-absorbed 'black-hole God' of Calvinism. With a disarmingly laid-back style, Fischer crafts a series of clear and astute arguments that demonstrate the unbiblical and irrational nature of each of the central claims of Calvinism. Just as importantly, however, Fischer helps readers discover the humble, other-oriented, self-sacrificial God revealed in Jesus Christ . . ."" --Greg Boyd, Princeton Theological Seminary ""This book tells Austin Fischer's story, and I hope you read it, and I hope you get a bunch of friends to read it together. Talk about it and ask [the] question, . . . ""Is the Calvinist God the God we discover when we look into the face of Jesus, the incarnation of God?"" Austin tells his answers to [this question] at the age many need to begin answering [that] question."" --Scot McKnight, Northern Seminary ""With this book, Austin Fischer brings fresh insights to a very old conversation with a perspective that is at times piercing, at times deeply personal, and always thoughtful and rooted in scripture. He invites readers to wrestle along with him with some tough questions--questions that, no matter where your theological journey takes you, are worth asking with this kind of humility and care."" --Rachel Held-Evans, Author of Evolving in Monkey Town Austin Fischer is Teaching Pastor at Vista Community Church. He and his wife, Allison, live in Temple, Texas. He speaks and writes and you can follow him on Twitter @austintfischer or online at purpletheology.com.

Guided Meditations for Children shares a simple process that teaches children how to pray through meditation on the Scriptures. This process leads children into the Scripture scene, where they meet Jesus personally and are encouraged to talk and listen to him - which is prayer. Children will love to listen to these meditations because they love stories and because they are personally invited by Jesus to come, sit beside him, and listen to his story. Teaching children how to come to the Lord will not only affect you and your class now, but will lead children into a lifelong habit of affective prayer - the heart of religious education.

This reissue of Emil Brunner's 'Nature and Grace' with Karl Barth's response 'No!' places back into the hands of theological students one of the most important, and well publicized, theological arguments of the 20th century. Here we see the climax of Barth and Brunner's disagreement over the point of contact for the gospel in the consciousness of natural man. Also at stake is the nature of the theological task. Brunner claims that the task of that generation was to find a way back to a legitimate natural theology. Barth responds strongly, arguing that there is no way to knowledge of God by way of human reason. Barth's radical Christocentric redevelopment of Reformation theology left no room for any source of authority aside from the Word of God.

This cutting-edge volume has been brought together in honor of Thomas Boomershine, author, scholar, storyteller, innovator. The particular occasion inviting this recognition of his work is the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Society of Biblical Literature's section on The Bible in Ancient and Modern Media (BAMM), which Tom was instrumental in founding. For two and half decades this program unit has provided scholars with opportunities to explore and experience biblical material in media other than silent print, including both oral and multimedia electronic performances. This book explores many, though by no means all, of the issues lifted up in those sessions over the years. Contributors A. K. M. Adam Adam Gilbert Bartholomew Arthur J. Dewey Dennis Dewey Joanna Dewey Robert M. Fowler Holly E. Hearon David Rhoads Philip Ruge-Jones Whitney T. Shiner Marti J. Steussy Richard W. Swanson Holly E. Hearon is Associate Professor of New Testament at Christian Theological Seminary in Indianapolis. She is the author of The Mary Magdalene Tradition: Witness and Counter-Witness in Early Christian Communities. Philip Ruge-Jones is Associate Professor of Theology at Texas Lutheran University in Seguin, Texas. He is the author of The Word of the Cross in a World of Glory, and Cross in Tensions: Luther's Theology of the Cross as Theologico-Social Critique.