Crossroads Of Agony

Author : Troy D. Ehlke
Publisher : Xlibris Corporation
ISBN 13 : 1469102986
Total Pages : 215 pages
Book Rating : 4.86/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Crossroads of Agony written by Troy D. Ehlke and published by Xlibris Corporation. This book was released on 2008-10-16 with total page 215 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Have you ever felt a dissonance between the joy-filled Sunday school messages and the difficult sayings attributed to Jesus in the scriptures? There is a movement in American churches today that separates the Gospel into two parts: attractive and repulsive. It is probably surprising for many to know that there is more in the latter category than in the former. Church leaders know that preaching about suffering and demanding personal sacrifice for the sake of discipleship is not going to win over many converts. In fact, people tend to leave and seek out worship centers that portray Christ in kinder, gentler ways. After all, how many of the most applauded preachers of the present generation focus on Jesus teaching of self-sacrifice? More likely, sermons emerge from a prosperity gospel where God will reward the faithful and give bountifully to those who believe. The problem with this movement is that it makes Christianity one-dimensional and shallow. When hardship becomes an unwelcome visitor in our lives, the gospel of rewards doesnt hold up or provide the slightest degree of comfort. Crossroads of Agony is an anti-thesis to the current trends in American Christianity by revealing the call to suffering that Jesus gives to all who wish to follow him. True discipleship must contend with all sides of the faith, not just the ones that make us smile or feel warm and fuzzy inside. Jesus came not to bring peace, but a sword (Matthew 10:34)! As believers, we need to embrace suffering and see the value that comes with hardship undertaken for the sake of the Gospel. This book launches its readership into an investigation of the early church through a survey of scripture, historical events, and emerging literature. Without studying the foundations of the church, contemporary communities of faith are adrift without a dependable point of reference. As Woodrow Wilson said, Those who do not know their past are doomed to repeat it. Our heritage is rich with tradition and reveals the highs and lows of human achievement. Our past is the key to unlocking a future that is keeping with Gods will. Crossroads of Agony exposes readers to a side of Christianity few opt to know about it, let alone use to guide their faith. Those with an adventurous spirit and a thirst for knowledge will discover that suffering is recast in a different light through Jesus message. What most of us have been trying to run away from is in fact something Christ is calling us towards: a life of suffering for the sake Gods message of salvation. We run because we do not find any value in hardship, but instead see it as something life-draining. Jesus, on the other hand, finds immense value in suffering and even life-producing when undertaken with a spiritual purpose. Jesus puts his life on the line for this truth: Suffering yields lifelife that is everlasting. Crossroads of Agony is a look into the darker side of the faith, one meant for advanced Christians. The deepest truths of the faith are not attractive to the world (1 Corinthians 1:18-19), but are quite repulsive. Only when we find ourselves in the pitch black darkness of our faith heritage are we able to emerge into the light of the Gospel that shatters illusions and unites our souls with the divine. If we run from suffering, the best we can achieve is a superficial relationship with God because it means we still value our life above the Gospel. Jesus demands the opposite: the saving Word of God above all else. This level of faith development requires a new understanding of suffering, one where this world is seen as a testing ground, not the end. Reverend Troy Ehlke writes this text in the hopes that people will read it in small groups, devote time to discuss the questions at each chapters end, and develop a renewed sense of call to labor for the kingdom of God. While we experience distress in this lifetime, it is not without reward. In this world, we have the satisfaction that results from spreading the Wor

Author : Gary Gallant
Publisher : Christian Classics Reproductions
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 268 pages
Book Rating : 4./5 ( download)

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Download or read book Fulfillment of Prophecy written by Gary Gallant and published by Christian Classics Reproductions. This book was released on 2023-08-30 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Many believers neglect to study the Old Testament because they find it confusing or because they assume that it is less important to the Christian faith than the New Testament. We cannot understand Jesus or His gospel without a proper grounding in the Old Testament Scriptures. Thus, we need to read and study the whole counsel of God. Let us not neglect the study of either testament. Unique among all books ever written, the Bible accurately foretells specific events in detail many years, sometimes centuries, before they occur. Approximately 2,500 prophecies appear in the pages of the Bible, about 2,000 of which already have been fulfilled to the letter—no errors. (The remaining 500 or so reach into the future and may be seen unfolding as days go by.) Since the probability of any one of these prophecies having been fulfilled by chance averages less than one in ten (figured very conservatively) and since the prophecies are for the most part independent of one another, the odds for all these prophecies having been fulfilled by chance without error is less than one in 102000 (that is 1 with 2,000 zeros written after it)! God is not the only one, however, who uses forecasts of future events to get people’s attention. Satan does, too. Through clairvoyants (such as Jeanne Dixon and Edgar Cayce), mediums, spiritists, and others come remarkable predictions, though rarely with more than about 60 percent accuracy, never with total accuracy. Messages from Satan, furthermore, fail to match the details of Bible prophecies, nor do they include a call to repentance. The acid test for identifying a prophet of God is recorded by Moses in Deuteronomy 18:21-22. According to this Bible passage (and others), God’s prophets, as distinct from Satan’s spokesmen, are 100 percent accurate in their predictions. There is no room for error. The New Testament indicates that what happened at the cross and on it was what the prophets had predicted would happen long before. Details of Jesus’ life and death were written in divine prophecy hundreds of years before He was born in Bethlehem. Throughout the Gospels, this amazing truth is emphasized. As Jesus and His apostles left the upper room for the Garden of Gethsemane, He said to them, “You will all fall away because it is written, ‘I will strike down the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered’” (Mark 14:27). After Judas’ betrayal, Jesus rebuked Peter for drawing his sword and cutting off the ear of Malchus and said to him, “Put your sword back into its place. . . How then will the Scriptures be fulfilled, which say that it must happen this way?” (Matthew 26:52–54). On the cross Jesus waited until He saw that “all things had already been accomplished” before He uttered His only physical request, “I am thirsty” (John 19:28). Later, the spear was thrust into Jesus’ side, and blood and water came out. We read, “For these things came to pass to fulfill the Scripture, ‘Not a bone of Him shall be broken.’ And again, another Scripture says, ‘They shall look on Him whom they pierced’” (John 19:36, 37). The angel who was at the tomb on the morning of the resurrection said, “. . . Remember how He spoke to you while He was still in Galilee, saying that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rises again” (Luke 24:6, 7). When Jesus met with the apostles and disciples Sunday evening, the same day He arose from the dead, He said to them, These are My words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things which are written about Me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled. . . . Thus, it is written, that the Christ would suffer and rise again from the dead the third day, and that repentance for forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed in His name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem (Luke 24:44–47). In Jesus’ affirmation to those Sunday night witnesses, He referred to all three divisions of the Hebrew Old Testament—the Law of Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms —as He described the prophecies that had been fulfilled in Him. It has been said that if one reads any part of the Bible and does not see Jesus in it, he should go back and reread it, for he has missed something very important! In Peter’s first gospel sermon on the Day of Pentecost, he declared that Jesus had been delivered into the hands of godless men to be put to death “by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God” (Acts 2:23). In his second sermon in Acts, Peter covered in one sweeping sentence the prophecies of the whole Old Testament, saying that Jesus’ sufferings on the cross fulfilled all that had been prophesied: “But the things which God announced beforehand by the mouth of all the prophets, that His Christ would suffer, He has thus fulfilled” (Acts 3:18).

Author : Library of Congress. Copyright Office
Publisher : Copyright Office, Library of Congress
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 1760 pages
Book Rating : 4.28/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Catalog of Copyright Entries. Third Series written by Library of Congress. Copyright Office and published by Copyright Office, Library of Congress. This book was released on 1975 with total page 1760 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Author : Mitchell B. Merback
Publisher : Reaktion Books
ISBN 13 : 1861898258
Total Pages : 354 pages
Book Rating : 4.58/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Thief, the Cross and the Wheel written by Mitchell B. Merback and published by Reaktion Books. This book was released on 2001-03-15 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Christ's Crucifixion is one of the most recognized images in Western culture, and it has come to stand as a universal symbol of both suffering and salvation. But often overlooked is the fact that ultimately the Crucifixion is a scene of capital punishment. Mitchell Merback reconstructs the religious, legal, and historical context of the Crucifixion and of other images of public torture. The result is a fascinating account of a time when criminal justice and religion were entirely interrelated and punishment was a visual spectacle devoured by a popular audience. Merback compares the images of Christ's Crucifixion with those of the two thieves who met their fate beside Jesus. In paintings by well-known Northern European masters and provincial painters alike, Merback finds the two thieves subjected to incredible cruelty, cruelty that artists could not depict in their scenes of Christ's Crucifixion because of theological requirements. Through these representations Merback explores the ways audiences in early modern Europe understood images of physical suffering and execution. The frequently shocking works also provide a perspective from which Merback examines the live spectacle of public torture and execution and how audiences were encouraged by the Church and the State to react to the experience. Throughout, Merback traces the intricate and extraordinary connections among religious art, devotional practice, bodily pain, punishment, and judicial spectatorship. Keenly aware of the difficulties involved in discussing images of atrocious violence but determined to make them historically comprehensible, Merback has written an informed and provocative study that reveals the rituals of medieval criminal justice and the visual experiences they engendered.

Author : Maaret Koskinen
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN 13 : 1501389629
Total Pages : 269 pages
Book Rating : 4.27/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Ingmar Bergman at the Crossroads written by Maaret Koskinen and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2022-11-17 with total page 269 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection offers new and insightful perspectives on Ingmar Bergman's work as a film and theatre director as well as writer of fiction. Ingmar Bergman's rich legacy as a film director and writer of classics such as The Seventh Seal, Scenes From a Marriage, and Fanny and Alexander has attracted scholars not only in film studies but also of literature, theater, gender, philosophy, religion, sociology, musicology, and more. Less known, however, is Bergman from the perspective of production studies, including all the choices, practices, and routines involved in what goes on behind the scenes. For instance, what about Bergman's collaborations and conflicts with film producers? What about his work with musicians at the opera, technicians in the television studio, and actors on the film set? What about Bergman and MeToo? In order to throw light on these issues, art practitioners such as film directors Ang Lee and Margarethe von Trotta, film and opera director Atom Egoyan, and film producer and screenwriter James Schamus are brought together with academics such as philosopher and film scholar Paisley Livingston, musicologist Alexis Luko, and playwright and performance studies scholar Allan Havis to discuss Bergman's work from their unique perspectives. In addition, Ingmar Bergman at the Crossroads provides, for the first time, in-depth interviews with Bergman's longtime collaborators Katinka Faragó and Måns Reuterswärd, who both have first-hand experience of working intimately as producers in film and television with Bergman, covering more than 5 decades. In an open exchange between individual and institutional perspectives, this book bridges the often-rigid boundaries between theoreticians and practitioners, in turn pointing Bergman's studies in new directions.

Author : Martina Young
Publisher : Lulu.com
ISBN 13 : 1300800690
Total Pages : 172 pages
Book Rating : 4.99/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Sit Still My Daughter written by Martina Young and published by Lulu.com. This book was released on 2013-06-01 with total page 172 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a world where the ratio of single eligible women out number men 7 to 1, it is important for women to know how to live a life full of joy and contentment in their singleness. Far too many women sell themselves short, accepting any type of relationship and attention from men just to have someone in their life. It has led some women to seek comfort in all types of strange places. WAKE UP!!! God has better plans for you.

Author : M. Brett Callaway
Publisher : Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN 13 : 1532653824
Total Pages : 156 pages
Book Rating : 4.27/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Crossroads of the Eternal written by M. Brett Callaway and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2018-11-07 with total page 156 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Not so long ago it was taken for granted that God exists. Today, there is a blindness to him even though he makes his presence known to all. The book begins by showing how better to recognize his presence and understand how he reveals himself to us. The next three chapters discuss how we move from an awareness of his presence to beginning to know him, and through a knowledge of him, begin to know what his purpose is for us and how our lives are shaped by that knowledge. Having seen how he reveals himself to us and how we know the world and see the world through different eyes, we then look at how to apply our new view in the face of a society that remains blind to this knowledge. Chapters 5–7 explore truth first from the standpoint of its existence, then in how to recognize its counterfeits, and finally to understand the consequences of its loss. Chapters 8–10 look at how and why being able to see God’s hand in all aspects of life, and to center life on him by faith in his son Jesus Christ, completely changes life for the better. Non-Christians often hear this claim made by evangelists. If they ask why, too often the answer is in “Christian-speak” that is foreign to them. The intent is to bridge from the place where they are and explain how Christians have found peace in times of suffering, even joy in the most horrific circumstances, enabling them to give thanks in all things. In a sense, the book finishes where it started, by looking at who we truly are, what kind of world this is, and how God has made all into his glorious plan.

Author : Mark D. Baker
Publisher : InterVarsity Press
ISBN 13 : 0830869093
Total Pages : 287 pages
Book Rating : 4.91/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Recovering the Scandal of the Cross written by Mark D. Baker and published by InterVarsity Press. This book was released on 2011-08-02 with total page 287 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For the first-century Roman world the cross was first and foremost an instrument of shameful and violent execution. But early Christians, who had seen their world upended by the atoning power of the cross of Christ, came to view it in an entirely different light. Deeply scandalous, it was paradoxically glorious. For the cross of Christ marked the epochal saving event in God's dealings with Israel and the world. And its meaning could not be fathomed or encircled by a single image or formulation. Since its publication in 2000, Recovering the Scandal of the Cross has initiated among evangelicals a new conversation about the nature of the atonement and how it should be expressed in the varied and global contexts of today. In this second edition Green and Baker have clarified and enlarged their argument in a way that will continue to provoke thought and conversation on this critical topic.

Author : Winnie Roach Oliphant
Publisher : Dorrance Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1434911373
Total Pages : 72 pages
Book Rating : 4.77/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Crossroads written by Winnie Roach Oliphant and published by Dorrance Publishing. This book was released on 2012-02 with total page 72 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Author :
Publisher : Rex Bookstore, Inc.
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 36 pages
Book Rating : 4./5 ( download)

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Download or read book Crossroads written by and published by Rex Bookstore, Inc.. This book was released on with total page 36 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: