(sung to the tune of 12 Days of Christmas)
On the 2nd day before Christmas, Bible Geek Gone Wild gave to me a chance to win a multi-publisher grab bag full of many goodies…
Welcome to day eleven of Bible Geek Gone Wild’s 2nd Annual 12 Days Before Christmas. We’ve made it into the home stretch of this year’s Christmas promotion. Today’s contest has prizes sponsored by B&H Publishing Group, Crossway Boooks, Abingdon Press, & Thomas Nelson. There will be one winner in today’s contest, who will receive the books listed below:
Romans by R.C. Sproul
Sproul’s sermons at St. Andrew’s Chapel are the foundation of these never-before-published expositions on Paul’s epistle to the Romans.
Chrysostom had it read aloud to him once a week. Augustine, Luther, and Wesley all came to assured faith through its impact. The Reformers saw it as the God-given key to understanding the whole of Scripture.
Throughout church history the study of the book of Romans has been pivotal to understanding Christian life and doctrine. Convinced that “Paul’s fullest, grandest, most comprehensive statement of the gospel” is just as vital today, R. C. Sproul delivered nearly sixty sermons on Romans from October 2005 to April 2007 at St. Andrew’s Chapel, where he has pastored for more than a decade. These never-before-published, passage-by-passage expositions will enrich any study of this weighty epistle.
Don’t Waste Your Life by John Piper
John Piper writes, “I will tell you what a tragedy is. I will show you how to waste your life. Consider this story from the February 1998 Reader’s Digest: A couple ‘took early retirement from their jobs in the Northeast five years ago when he was 59 and she was 51. Now they live in Punta Gorda, Florida, where they cruise on their 30-foot trawler, play softball and collect shells. . . .’ Picture them before Christ at the great day of judgment: ‘Look, Lord. See my shells.’ That is a tragedy.
“God created us to live with a single passion: to joyfully display his supreme excellence in all the spheres of life. The wasted life is the life without this passion. God calls us to pray and think and dream and plan and work not to be made much of, but to make much of him in every part of our lives.”
Most people slip by in life without a passion for God, spending their lives on trivial diversions, living for comfort and pleasure, and perhaps trying to avoid sin. This book will warn you not to get caught up in a life that counts for nothing. It will challenge you to live and die boasting in the cross of Christ and making the glory of God your singular passion. If you believe that to live is Christ and to die is gain, read this book, learn to live for Christ, and don’t waste your life!
Fearless by Max Lucado
Each sunrise seems to bring fresh reasons for fear.
They’re talking layoffs at work, slowdowns in the economy, flare-ups in the Middle East, turnovers at headquarters, downturns in the housing market, upswings in global warming. The plague of our day, terrorism, begins with the word terror. Fear, it seems, has taken up a hundred-year lease on the building next door and set up shop. Oversized and rude, fear herds us into a prison of unlocked doors. Wouldn’t it be great to walk out?
Imagine your life, wholly untouched by angst. What if faith, not fear, was your default reaction to threats? If you could hover a fear magnet over your heart and extract every last shaving of dread, insecurity, or doubt, what would remain? Envision a day, just one day, where you could trust more and fear less.
Can you imagine your life without fear?
The End of Christianity by William A. Dembski
Theodicy attempts to resolve how a good God and evil world can coexist. The neo-atheist view in this debate has dominated recent bestseller lists through books like The God Delusion (Richard Dawkins), God Is Not Great (Christopher Hitchens), and The End of Faith (Samuel Harris). And their popularity illuminates a changing mental environment wherein people are asking harder questions about divine goodness. Surprisingly, these books please intelligent design champion William Dembski, because “They would be unnecessary if Christianity were not again a live issue.”
Entering the conversation, Dembski’s provocative The End of Christianity embraces the challenge to formulate a theodicy that is both faithful to Christian orthodoxy and credible to the new mental environment. He writes to make peace with three claims: (1) God by wisdom created the world out of nothing. (2) God exercises particular providence in the world. (3) All evil in the world ultimately traces back to human sin. In the process, Dembski brings the reader to a fresh understanding of what “the end (result) of Christianity” really means: the radical realignment of our thinking so that we see God’s goodness in creation despite the distorting effects of sin in our hearts and evil in the world.
Deep Preaching by J. Kent Edwards
J. Kent Edwards recalls a story that late pastor J. Vernon McGee told about seeing children in South Africa playing a game of marbles in the dust with real diamonds. The precious stones were being handled with no regard for their true worth. Edwards fears the same thing happens today when preachers offer Scriptural truth to listeners without being completely overwhelmed by its greatness themselves in the process.
Deep Preaching is his call to rethink preaching. Edwards helps preachers learn to preach the word in ways that will powerfully change the lives of hearers. He contends that sermons “need not settle comfortably on the lives of the listeners like dust on a coffee table.
He encourages preachers to join him in casting off the lines that moor their ministries to the status-quo and make every effort to steer their preaching out of the comfortable shallows. He urges them to preach deep sermons rather than superficial ones, moving beyond the yawninspiring to the awe-inspiring, from the trite to the transforming.
New Testament Theology: An Introduction by James D.G. Dunn
In this volume in the Library of Biblical Theology series, James D.G. Dunn ranges widely across the literature of the New Testament to describe the essential elements of the early church’s belief and practice. Eschatology, grace, law and gospel, discipleship, Israel and the church, faith and works, and most especially incarnation, atonement, and resurrection; Dunn places these and other themes in conversation with the contemporary church’s work of understanding its faith and life in relation to God’s self-revelation in Jesus Christ.
The Word of Promise Next Generation New Testament
A full New Testament companion to go along with The Word of Promise Next Generation – New Testament . . . the audio Bible for the “wired generation!” A cool package of the full Word of Promise Next Generation – New Testament in an easy-to-read single column format reads more like a novel. Features include book introductions and MP3 CDs of the fully dramatized audio version of Word of Promise Next Generation. The audio features the voice talents of many of today’s top media stars, and is the perfect gift and learning tool for kids/teens ages 8 to 15.
Contest Details
The object of today’s contest will be to leave a comment telling about either your favorite Christmas gift or favorite Christmas memory. Following the close of the contest, the winner will be contacted via e-mail. Good luck! This contest is now closed. A winner will be announced soon.
Terms and Conditions
* This contest is limited to residents of the 48 state continental United States.
* Contestants may submit one entry per contest per day.
* The winner or winners will be announced following the close of each contest.
* Prizes will be shipped within several days of the close of each contest.
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My favorite Christmas memory is playing one of my first professional trombone gigs when I was in high school. It was for a midnight service at a mainline church. I played a solo from the balcony and it was probably the only time I felt I played perfectly. It was magical. It’s like I wasn’t actually playing. Music was just coming out of me. The setting of a traditional church with a lofted ceiling was perfect.
Jeff
I don’t know if this is favorite memory, but it’s certainly one that clearly stands out! We moved a lot when I was growing up – almost every year and sometimes more than once a year. When I was in early elementary school, we moved from Ft Worth to El Paso over Christmas break. We left Christmas Eve and somewhere on the way, my dad got sick and actually had to go to the hospital for what ended up to be strep throat. It was some county hospital in west Texas and he spent hours and hours waiting to be seen that Christmas day. We had a 1-foot tall Christmas tree in the station wagon with us that was made of bright green net with little glass balls sewed to it. And I got a mystery date game. That was my only present so it was considerably special to me.
At the risk of sounding cliché, my fondest memory of Christmas is the one the recurred every year–gathering with family at my grandmother’s house. We always enjoyed endless Christmas dinner, lots of visiting with family, and of course, the gifts.
My favorite Christmas memory is when I was very young. We would go to my grandparents house on Christmas Eve, put on old Christmas lps, light a fire in the fireplace, and open our Christmas presents.
I’m thinking that my favorite Christmas memory will be made this year based upon the blessing of Christmas three years ago.
You see, Thanksgiving week three years ago we took custody of a starved little 8 week old boy. (Our home had been childless for 15 years, with no hope of having children by natural means.)
Thirty days later, the week of Christmas, we took custody of his sister who was twenty-two months old.
That Christmas was a blur of adjustment, though our video shows a little girl enjoying some toys.
This year is the first year that both of them are at the point to understand what is going on.
The next Christmas was even better, as the adoption was finalized about twelve weeks before Christmas.
This year’s Christmas promises much joy to us all! They (I should say “we”) are excited, to say the least! We have read the Christmas story several times, and shall read it again.
I trust that this year’s Christmas will lay a foundation for many years of godly joy that my children will have because the Savior found a home in our hearts and led us to give our children a home in our house and our hearts.
My favorite Christmas memories are the trips we took when I was a child. We went down to my grandparents house in Florida and opened up presents on Christmas Eve. My Grandparents would buy themselves gifts then say it was from the other person, so the surprise was to see what they got themselves.
I loved waking up before the kids on Christmas day and video taping them, walking down the hall and realizing it was Christmas morning. Going to Christmas Eve service with my grandma is also a special memory.
My favorite would have to be lighting luminaries and putting them all the way up our mile long driveway that led to where we had a nativity set up, so as to remind our neighbors that they way is to Jesus. It was that time when I really got Christmas as a little kid, because the rest was all drowned out by food, family and gift getting.
My favorite Christmas memory is attending the annual Christmas Eve Communion Service with my family. Its a wonderful time to celebrate “God with us!”
Christmas Eve Communion Service at my parents’ church holds a special place in my heart. Growing up, we went every year. Even though I live a few hours away now, we still try to attend the service with my parents and sisters whenever possible. It’s really neat to bring my wife and kids to join in on the family tradition.
As a child, we always went to a live nativity put on by a small church out in the country. Even though the program only changed once in 20+ years, it was a great tradition to enjoy with my family, and sometimes I miss it on Christmas Eve. It’s something that I would like to do with my own family one day.
My favorie Christmas memory was with my family last year. We gathered around and did presents in the mornig, then thoughout the day, our large, extended family got together and played the Wii for hours into th night. It was a blast!
My favorite Christmas memories are sitting next to my Grandma, receiving massive amounts of second-hand smoke as she puffed away all night long, listening to her cackle laugh when my uncle creatively employed an over-intellectualized sexual innuendo while handing out presents, laughing quietly when she yelled “Cecil!” when my Grandpa undoubtedly cussed about something from across the room, and feeling like I was the most special kid on the planet when I opened her yearly gift of a dated Christmas ornament. She didn’t think I wanted them…I would fight anyone who would try to take them from me. Grandma…she loved Jesus more than anything…but I have to say I must’ve made the Top 10
My favorite Christmas memory is each year growing up myself and my two sisters would wait at the top of the stairs for a good 10-15 minutes until my parents said they were ready and we could go open up the presents. The anticipation was great and a lot of fun.
I was going to enter today’s giveaway because of the Dunn book, but then decided I had won too many books.
Fun memories, everyone!
My favorite Christmas memories are spending Christmas break from school with Grandma and Granddaddy getting ready for all of the family to arrive. Helping with the baking. Decorating the tree.
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