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Title: The Untold Story of the New Testament Church: An Extraordinary Guide to Understanding the New Testament
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Manufacturer: Destiny Image Publishers
List Price: $13.99
Our Price: $8.97
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| Customer Reviews: |
| The Untold Story of the New Testament Church: An Extraordinary Guide to Understanding the New Testament by Destiny Image Publishers Buy it read it | | This book is great, he explains the story of the New Testament in order. Some of it is made up from "Mirror Reading" and extra Biblical history, so don't expect absolute truth. But it will open your eyes to some interesting things that were hidden for you all along. | | The Untold Story of the New Testament Church: An Extraordinary Guide to Understanding the New Testament by Destiny Image Publishers Church renewal | | Frank Viola has, for a long time, studied the modern church. He has written a number of books on church renewal and reform. He is passionate about returning to the methods of the early church and its effectiveness. In The Untold Story of the New Testament Church, Viola has "straightened out" the New Testament, by placing the NT books in chronological order following the events of the book of Acts. | | The Untold Story of the New Testament Church: An Extraordinary Guide to Understanding the New Testament by Destiny Image Publishers subtitle is an understatement | This is a fantastic book. If you really want to understand the New Testament, you can glean bits of information from a sermon here, a convention there, or get it all mixed up by watching a movie (normally not concerned with accuracy as much as drama). But you can save yourself time and frustration by reading this well-written, engaging, and often fascinating book.
This last year I have been exploring the Hebrew roots of Christianity, reading somewhere between 75 - 100 books. (Such books as Our Father Abraham: Jewish Roots of the Christian Faith, New Light on the Difficult Words of Jesus: Insights from His Jewish Context and Yeshua: A Guide to the Real Jesus and the Original Church, excel, filled thoroughly with information on their specific topics.) But even after so much reading, I've highlighted nearly every page of this book! The interplay with society and history, and the original meaning and progression of the New Testament letters is thought-provoking and motivating.
This book's clear, enlightening manner will answer questions you've had since becoming born-again (for me that's 29 years). More importantly, it will help correct thinking you were sure you were right about.
For your personal study and understanding, I recommend this book right up there with getting a Concordance!
Pastors, Bible Study leaders, Youth group leaders - prevent misunderstandings of the New Testament from taking root early, or help your students uproot wrong ideas. Though this is not a text book (and the writing is fluid and accomodating) it could easily be used as one. Get this book. See for yourself that it is a crucial addition to your ministry material. | | The Untold Story of the New Testament Church: An Extraordinary Guide to Understanding the New Testament by Destiny Image Publishers The Greatest Story Ever Told! | Viola's epic volume "The Untold Story of the New Testament Church" is absolutely the best little guide to understanding the order of events in the life of the first-century ekklesia!
Viola relies on the scholarship of F.F. Bruce, Donald Guthrie, and A.T. Robinson for the dating of the books. He wonderfully weaves together the book of Acts with the Epistles to create one amazing story. Viola follows the story of the church according to Acts and successfully places the epistles in their historical-cultural context. Enabling the reader to better apply the Scriptures to their life.
The New Testament comes alive in movie form as Viola uses some of the best N.T. scholarship to reassemble the entire story of the church as it happened in the beginning! I found that this book was able to give me deep insight into the lives and the circumstances behind the writings of the letters of the Apostles.
Viola helps the reader along with his use of maps and background information on people and places. His book is easy to read. You follow his graphic retelling of Acts and stop to read an epistle at every point in time the book was believed to have been written. His book is fluid and he makes little to no assumptions about the chronology of the events.
(I strongly recommend you read a contemporary translation like the NLT or the Message when following along in the N.T. in order that you might receive a fresh glimspse into the motivation and passion behind the letters. We tend to only see what we've always seen when we read from the same translation.)
I connected with Paul's trials and tribulations in ways I never had before. Many times I had to stop reading just to reflect on the sufferings of Paul and ask myself if I could have endured what he endured.
From the conflict and turmoil of the immature and immoral at Corinth... to the Judaizers and "super apostles" who opposed Paul at every turn... you will not want to stop reading until the story is complete.
However, as Viola points out, the story is not complete. The Bride of Christ is still in a battle bewteen good and evil. The story of the early church is a reminder of the trials that are inevitable for the Christian. Yet... the Bride will endure and will persevere unto the end. This is not a fairy tale or an ancient bedtime story for the religious. It is the ongoing story of the New Testament church. It is our story!
I also want to recommend:
Going to the Root: Nine Proposals for Radical Church Renewal
The Centrality of Jesus Christ (Works of T. Austin-Sparks)
Rethinking The Wineskin: The Practice of the New Testament Church
Pagan Christianity: Exploring the Roots of Our Church Practices
Paul's Idea of Community: The Early House Churches in Their Cultural Setting, Revised Edition
NOTE: Viola includes Paul's brief trip to Spain. There is little evidence for this and it is certainly a debatable claim among scholars. Some scholars believe that Paul was never released from Rome for a fourth apostolic journey and the letters to Timothy and Titus were written during his initial house arrest in Rome before his death under the reign of Nero. | | The Untold Story of the New Testament Church: An Extraordinary Guide to Understanding the New Testament by Destiny Image Publishers A very different way to read the New Testament | If you've ever wondered what prompted Paul to write any of the epistles, or when the gospels were written, this is the book for you. Viola pieces together a history of the New Testament church based on the book of Acts and available contemporary history. Viola gives readers a great overview of how the church began and it spread throughout the Roman empire.
You will get the most out of Viola's take on the state of the churches that Paul wrote his letters to. He fills in the "other side of the conversation," the part we don't get from reading Paul's letters. It reminds us that these letters went to real churches having real problems.
Viola has a clear, unabashed bias against the institutional church. His critique of the modern church is spot-on, but be aware that it is there. If you want a clearer picture of the early church, and what Christianity was supposed to look like, pick up this book! | | The Untold Story of the New Testament Church: An Extraordinary Guide to Understanding the New Testament by Destiny Image Publishers Book Description | | Watch the New Testament come alive! Understand God's Word like never before! The New Testament is often hard to understand. A major reason is because it is not arranged in chronological order. Paul's letters, for example, are arranged by size rather than chronologically. This makes the New Testament a bit like a Chinese puzzle! For this reason, one famous Bible scholar said that reading the New Testament letters is like hearing one end of a phone conversation. The book you hold in your hands reconstructs the other end so that you can understand virtually every word! "The Untold Story of the New Testament Church" is a unique Bible handbook that weaves Acts and the Epistles together chronologically . . . creating one fluid story! This epic volume gives readers a first-hand account of the New Testament drama that is riveting and enlightening. It includes dates, maps, and background information about the people, the cities, and the events of the first-century church using a "you-are-there" approach. Get up-close and personal with apostles Paul, Peter, James and John and learn of their personal struggles. Understand the circumstances behind each inspired letter they penned. Watch the chaotic swirl of first-century people and events fall into place before your very eyes. Discover what Paul's "thorn in the flesh" really was. Learn what happened to all the apostles after the book of Acts was finished. Be ushered into the living, breathing atmosphere of the first century and uncover the hidden riches found in God's Word! |
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