The Meanings We Choose is an engagement with responsible bible reading-Hebrew Bible/Old Testament and New Testament texts-for the past as well as for the present and future. Its stated perspectives are multi-denominational Christian but the implications of such readings go far beyond a specific confessional framework. In the present political climate the aware, responsible "personal" is meaningful for any community, confessedly religious as well as otherwise. While the articles collected in this volume, broadly speaking, can and perhaps should be compartmentalized as ideological criticism,...

By using stories and narrative examples of real problems at actual churches in conflict, Charles Cosgrove and Dennis Hatfield help us identify the hidden structural boundaries in any group relationship.

The apostle Paul was a cross-cultural missionary, a Hellenistic Jew who sought to be -all things to all people- in order to win them to the gospel. In this provocative book Charles Cosgrove, Herold Weiss, and K. K. Yeo bring Paul into conversation with six diverse cultures of today: Argentine/Uruguayan, Anglo-American, Chinese, African American, Native American, and Russian. No other book on the apostle Paul looks at his thought from multiple cultural perspectives in the way that this one does. From the introduction outlining the authors' cultural backgrounds to the conclusion drawing...

Foreword by Don Wardlaw
This exceptional book by Charles Cosgrove and Dow Edgerton will be a rich resource for pastors wanting to reach their congregations in a fresh way. Rather than discussing preaching in general or even a specific approach to preaching, it focuses on a new way of engaging the biblical text for preaching.
In Other Words combines Cosgrove and Edgerton's critical acumen, creative imagination, and pastoral discernment to present contemporizing restatements of Scripture, speaking timeless truths in modern speech. In describing their -incarnational translation, -...

Arguing from scripture is one of the ways that Christians test their moral judgments. But are all methods of appealing to the Bible equally valid and effective? In this book Charles Cosgrove looks at the churchs long tradition of moral debate and analyzes five important hermeneutical rules that guide contemporary use of scripture in ethical argument.

After introducing the nature of moral arguments generally, Cosgrove devotes one chapter to each of the five rules of biblical interpretation that make ethical appeals to scripture persuasive. He sets forth each rule's rationale, provides...