Four New Releases

Posted on April 30, 2018 by Kim

Today is the release date for 4 new titles.

Pride and Humility at War: A Biblical Perspective by J. Lanier Burns

240 pages | $17.99 | SAMPLE CHAPTER

About

Is pride a necessary tool to achieve significance? Is humility a form of self-hatred? In contrast to the world, the Bible consistently presents humility as the supreme virtue, while pride is the underlying depravity behind specific sins. Pride and humility are at war . . . and humility, not pride, has the advantage.

Humility’s surprising essence is God-centeredness—living for the glory of God rather than self. On the basis of this biblical principle, Christ’s example, and the contemporary need, J. Lanier Burns argues for an unfamiliar connection between true significance and a humble dependence on the Lord.

Endorsements

“Professor Lanier Burns has come to our help in this splendid biblical-theological and pastoral-theological study. . . . He invites us to grow in grace with him—growing downward into the presence of God so that we will grow upward in likeness to Christ. This book is a love gift to the church and breathes the spirit of an author who comes to us saying, ‘The Lord Jesus has given me this to share with you.’ May the ‘loaves and fishes’ he brings here be blessed, broken, and multiplied in our lives!”

—Sinclair B. Ferguson, Chancellor’s Professor of Systematic Theology, Reformed Theological Seminary

“Dr. Lanier Burns, along with Dr. Howard Hendricks, has been one of the most sought-after professors at Dallas Theological Seminary. His integrity, his spiritual maturity, and his biblical insight make him more than qualified to pen Pride and Humility at War. . . . While his professional and academic credentials are without question, I would like to commend him to you as one who genuinely practices what he preaches—with humility.”

—Anne Graham Lotz, Author, The Daniel Prayer

“The early church fathers and the medieval scholastics regarded pride as the worst, most insidious of the seven deadly sins. Lanier Burns explains why—straightforwardly and with an eye to practicality that can disguise the profundity of his insight. . . . Not every book inculcates godliness of character into the reader who meditates on its thesis—but this is one such book.”

—R. Todd Mangum, Clemens Professor of Missional Theology, Biblical Theological Seminary

About the Author

J. Lanier Burns (ThM and ThD, Dallas Theological Seminary; PhD, University of Texas, Dallas) is senior research professor of theology at Dallas Theological Seminary. Since 1973, he has served as the president of the Asian Christian Academy in Bangalore, India.

For the Love of Discipline: When the Gospel Meets Tantrums and Time-Outs by Sara Wallace

160 pages | $12.99 | SAMPLE CHAPTER

About

NO PARENT ENJOYS DISCIPLINING . . . but we know it’s important, so we grit our teeth and make it happen!

. . . Right? Or can it be more than something we just “put up with”?

Sara Wallace, a mother of five, brings you a personal, frank account of her own journey with discipline—and introduces an entirely new way to look at it. Not as something we do to our children, but as something we do for them . . . not as a necessary evil, but as a beautiful privilege!

We can be glad when our children disobey while still in our care—they are showing us where they need to be strengthened and encouraged, giving us a chance to shape their hearts.

Would you like to feel equipped, and excited, to discipline? Here are practical tools, specific skills, a solid gospel foundation, and specific day-by-day things you can say and do to make disciplining your children intentional and consistent.

Endorsements

“I don’t know the last time I read such a refreshing, biblically balanced parenting book. . . . Sara Wallace navigates through both plain and tricky areas of child discipline. . . . I highly recommend this little treasure.”

—Paul Tautges, Author; Senior Pastor, Cornerstone Community Church, Mayfield Heights, Ohio; Founder, Counseling One Another

“Sara’s concepts combine personal experience with wonderfully practical tips, helping to guide parents in the godly task of loving our children in the way we discipline them.”

—Kristi James, Writer; Church-Planting Wife; Mother of Three

“Sara Wallace comes alongside you as a friend and fellow struggler, striving to honor God with gospel-saturated discipline.”

—Kevin Carson, Department Chair of Biblical Counseling, Baptist Bible College and Theological Seminary, Springfield, Missouri

About the Author

Sara Wallace is author of the Bible study The Gospel-Centered Mom and has written articles for the Gospel Coalition and RELEVANT magazine. She and her husband have five sons.

Domestic Abuse: Help for the Sufferer by Darby Strickland

56 pages | $4.99 | SAMPLE PAGES

About

What characterizes your marriage? Marriage is a place for sacrificial giving—so a spouse who uses it to gain power and control is violating God’s design. If you are being oppressed, you are probably feeling isolated and alone . . . but you’re not alone.

Scripture has much to say about your experience, your safety, and God’s heart for you—he does not blame you for your suffering and does not tolerate oppression. In fact, he wants to rescue you.

Experienced family counselor Darby Strickland helps you to cut through confusion, speak out and find support, and then determine your next steps.

God knows the suffering and wounds of oppression, and he delights in redeeming and rescuing— especially his heartbroken children.

About the Series

Resources for Changing Lives provide book- and booklet-length counsel and guidance from a biblical perspective. Counselors including David Powlison, Paul David Tripp, and Ed Welch get to the heart of our struggles and help us understand the spiritual issues involved, guiding us to biblical truths and outcomes that honor God and teach us how to live.

Darby Strickland (MDiv, Westminster Theological Seminary) is a counselor who teaches others, at CCEF and at churches, how to counsel abusive marriages and care for the abused.

Domestic Abuse: Recognize, Respond, Rescue by Darby Strickland

56 pages | $4.99 | SAMPLE PAGES

About

What hope is there when a loved one’s marriage is abusive?

One spouse seeking to control and dominate the other is a prevalent problem, and even Christian marriages are not safe from it. But how can counselors and concerned family and friends know how to approach it . . . or even recognize it?

Experienced Christian counselor Darby Strickland demonstrates how to recognize and uncover oppression, then uses Scripture to show what is truly happening in abusive marriages. She equips us to be wise and informed as we confront oppressors and advocate for the oppressed.

Learn to walk patiently with victims and guide abusers toward repentance, through concrete suggestions for reorienting the heart of the oppressor while comforting and protecting the oppressed.

ABOUT THE SERIES

Preface to Streams of Mercy

Posted on April 26, 2018 by Kim

Here is the preface to Streams of Mercy: Prayers of Confession and Celebration by Barbara R. Duguid and edited by Iain M. Duguid.

PREFACE

As I wrote in my foreword to Prone to Wander, “Confession is good for the soul.”* That remains true for all of us. We are deeply sinful creatures, even after we have been redeemed by God. Our thoughts, our words, and our deeds are often shaped by our idolatries far more than they are by the gospel. We think, say, and do things that we ought not to think, say, and do. And often we don’t think, say, and do the things we should. Indeed, even when we are doing the very best things—reading our Bibles, praying, serving our families and our churches—our motives are shaded by all kinds of self-interest and self-promotion. In his letter “Man in his Fallen Estate,” John Newton details at length the sad state of our fallen condition, not merely before our conversion but after it, and not merely in the worst of people but in the very best.†

That is why the Bible tells us not to pretend that we are practically perfect, but instead to confess our sins, remembering that God is faithful and just and will forgive all our sins for the sake of Jesus Christ (see 1 John 1:8–9). Our firm hope of salvation rests not on our own progress toward holiness, which is always far less than it should be, but rather on Christ’s death, which atoned for every one of our sins, and on his perfect righteousness, which now clothes us like a spotless festival garment (see Zech. 3).

Historic church liturgies therefore always featured corporate confession as a central element.‡ Yet we live in a therapeutic culture that is uncomfortable with acknowledging and owning the fact that we ourselves are unclean, as is the community around us (see Isa. 6). Even in our private prayers, we have often neglected the teaching of Jesus’ model prayer, “Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors” (Matt. 6:12), or we repeat those words verbatim as a mindless slogan, never reflecting on what our own specific personal debts might be.

It is for these reasons that Barb and our son Wayne began writing corporate prayers of confession for each Sunday’s service at Christ Presbyterian Church in Grove City, Pennsylvania—a practice that Barb has continued more recently at Christ Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia. These prayers are built around the theme of the Scripture passage for each week’s sermon, and they seek to expose the specifics of our own struggles with sin. In that way, we are regularly pointed back to the good news of the gospel and we may hear afresh the affirmation of our own forgiveness through God’s grace to us in Jesus Christ.

The structure of these confessions is straightforward. We begin with a scriptural call to confession, which roots and grounds our confession in God’s Word. We want to be clear that the actions and attitudes we are calling people to confess are genuinely sinful, not simply breaches in the traditions and rules of men (see Mark 7:5–13). The Bible is to be our sole rule of faith and practice, and the scriptural call to confession underlines that reality. In most cases, the prayers are explicitly Trinitarian, confessing our many failings to the Father, giving thanks to the Son for his death on the cross as well as for his perfect (and specific) obedience in our place, which is credited to us by faith, and asking the Holy Spirit to strengthen us to pursue lives of new obedience.

The purpose of confessing our sins is always to remind us of what a great Savior we have. We confess that “there is no health in us” in order that our hearts may be drawn afresh to the Great Physician of our souls, who has provided for our desperate need for cleansing in the gospel. For that reason, we always follow each prayer of confession with a scriptural assurance of pardon: God’s authoritative declaration that each and every one of the sins of his people is forgiven in Jesus Christ. This is our only hope in life and death. These assurances, too, we have endeavored to make specific, providing gospel encouragement that is tailored to our particular failings and that points us afresh to the new life that is ours in Christ.

These prayers may be used as an aid in private devotions or as a help to those who lead God’s people in worship. We have supplied indexes of themes, of Scriptures cited, and of the sermon passages that originally gave us the focus for these particular prayers when we shared them with our congregations. There is also an index of hymns and songs, which lists some of the music that went with the prayers in their original worship context, as well as allusions to hymns and songs within the prayers themselves. We give permission for people to adapt and adopt this material for such use in corporate worship services as will bless the church.

Our debt to others in this compilation is not hard to see. Arthur Bennett’s The Valley of Vision* was a model for us, in both its scope and its rich and evocative language of devotion. We are also indebted to the team at P&R for many hours of hard work in helping us bring this material to its final form.

It is our prayer that God will continue to use these prayers in the lives of many people, so that we may once again rediscover that, as Martin Luther put it in the first of his ninety-five theses, “the entire Christian life is to be one of repentance.”

Iain M. Duguid

* Barbara R. Duguid and Wayne Duguid Houk, Prone to Wander: Prayers of Confession and Celebration (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 2014), 11.

† See “Man in His Fallen Estate (1),” in Select Letters of John Newton (repr., Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 2011) 117–23.

‡ See Bryan Chapell, Christ-Centered Worship (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2009) 89.

* Arthur G. Bennett, The Valley of Vision: A Collection of Puritan Prayers and Devotions (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1975).

BOOK HIGHLIGHT — For the World: Essays in Honor of Richard L. Pratt Jr.

Posted on April 24, 2018 by Kim

For the World: Essays in Honor of Richard L. Pratt Jr. edited by Justin S. Holcomb & Glenn Lucke

240 pages | $17.99 | Paperback

About

Richard L. Pratt Jr. (Th.D., Harvard University) is President and Founder of Third Millennium Ministries, an organization formed in 1997 to provide free biblical education “for the world.” Many around the world have benefitted from his decades of cognitively stimulating and incisive teaching, ministry, and scholarship. He is Adjunct Professor of Old Testament at Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando; an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church in America; and the author of a number of books, including Every Thought Captive: A Study Manual for the Defense of Christian Truth.

This volume in honor of Richard broadly covers his lifelong themes of biblical studies, theological studies, hermeneutics, the kingdom of God, ministry training, missions, evangelism, and biblical education for the world.

Essays by:

Michael Briggs
Stephen W. Brown
David M. Correa
William Edgar
John M. Frame
Justin S. Holcomb
Reggie M. Kidd
Jongho Kim
Glenn Lucke
Gregory R. Perry
Scott Redd
Monica Taffinder
Simon Vibert
Bruce K. Waltke

Endorsements

“At the end of my first semester of seminary, I was overwhelmed with all the work I needed to get done. So when Richard Pratt offered my class the option of a fasting-and-prayer retreat instead of a final, I signed up, thinking it was an easy way to get out of taking an exam. Instead, I found the retreat to be just what my anxious heart needed. That retreat was just one of the many things Richard used to teach me through his life and ministry that continue to impact my own life and ministry. I am extremely thankful for Richard and his influence in my life.”

—Elliott Grudem, Lead Pastor, Leadership Development and Church Planting, Vintage Church, Raleigh, NC

“For—and around—the world, indeed! Richard has traversed God’s Word and God’s World in pursuit of God’s call to him to know, teach, and apply the whole Bible to all of life. Many Christians in our generation have studied, preached, and gone out locally and far away. But few have put the triad together and with such clarity and zeal. Please read these chapters and go and do likewise.”

—Andrew Peterson, President, Reformed Theological Seminary Global Campus

“Having known Richard since our Covenant College days, and having benefited from his friendship and ministry throughout the years, I count it a privilege to endorse this volume. Richard’s varied vocations as Old Testament professor, conference speaker, pastor, and head of the extraordinary missionary endeavor of Third Millennium are unified by his singular passion of exalting Christ and his gospel before the nations by multiplying equipped indigenous leaders for our Lord’s church. The reader is in for an inspiring journey through each chapter and page.”

—Harry L. Reeder III, Senior Pastor, Briarwood Presbyterian Church

Table of Contents — Zephaniah, Haggai, Malachi by Matthew P. Harmon & Iain M. Duguid

Posted on April 19, 2018 by Kim

Here is the Table of Contents for Zephaniah, Haggai, Malachi (Reformed Expository Commentary) by Matthew P. Harmon & Iain M. Duguid.

Series Introduction

Preface

1. Introduction to Zephaniah, Haggai, and Malachi

Zephaniah: Hope through the Darkness

2. The End Is Near: Zephaniah 1:1–2:3

3. The End of Pride: Zephaniah 2:1–15

4. The End of Despair: Zephaniah 3:1–20

Haggai: Rebuilding God’s House

5. God’s Great Plan for Your Life: Haggai 1:1–15

6. The Best Is Yet to Come: Haggai 2:1–9

7. Cleaning Up Your Life: Haggai 2:10–19

8. A Whole New World: Haggai 2:20–23

Malachi: A Love Letter to a Wandering People

9. Extraordinary Love versus Everyday Apathy: Malachi 1:1–5

10. True Worship: Malachi 1:6–14

11. Role Reversal: Malachi 2:1–9

12. Faithless Spouses and a Faithful God: Malachi 2:10–16

13. Longing for Justice: Malachi 2:17–3:6

14. Generous: Malachi 3:6–12

15. Hard Words against God: Malachi 3:13–4:6

Bibliography

Index of Scripture

Index of Subjects and Names

BOOK HIGHLIGHT—Mighty to Save: Discovering God’s Grace in the Miracles of Jesus by Richard D. Phillips

Posted on April 18, 2018 by Kim

Mighty to Save: Discovering God’s Grace in the Miracles of Jesus by Richard D. Phillips

$12.99 | 248 pages | Paperback

About

Calming the storm. Healing the sick. Raising the dead. These are just a few of the wondrous works of Jesus Christ. Yet these miracles are only a small glimpse into his most wondrous miracle of all—redeeming his children. Examining thirteen miracles of Jesus in the gospel of Luke, Richard Phillips traces their underlying significance straight to the cross. In this exciting study, Phillips expounds the true meaning and intention of these miracles and shows how each one reveals God’s mighty saving grace.

Endorsements

“One of the best studies of the miracles of Jesus that I have seen. Richard Phillips opens up the meaning and significance of the miracles of Jesus with penetrating insight. With great skill, he also applies their lessons to contemporary life. One is left with an overwhelming sense of the greatness and sufficiency of God’s grace.”

—Eric J. Alexander

“I started reading Mighty to Save with a mind focused on learning about Jesus’ miracles—and finished it with a heart overflowing with worship. A spectacular view of our Lord and Savior displayed through the lens of his miracles.”

—Carol J. Ruvolo

“In this accessible study, Pastor Phillips shows us the significance of these divine acts—not only as proofs of Jesus’ person, but as content-rich indicators of his work for sinners.”

—Michael S. Horton

The Author

Richard D. Phillips (MDiv, Westminster Theological Seminary) is the senior minister of Second Presbyterian Church of Greenville, South Carolina. He is a council member of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals, chairman of the Philadelphia Conference on Reformed Theology, and coeditor of the Reformed Expository Commentary series.