Dr. Everett Ferguson has made substantial revisions in this second edition of Women in the Church: Biblical and Historical Perspectives. In chapter one, he writes in detail regarding the New Testament texts concerning women's roles in the assembly of the church. In chapter two, Dr. Ferguson explores the evidence from early church history concerning these same roles in the assembly. In chapter three, he addresses doctrinal considerations in light of the New Testament texts and the witness of early church history. Items completely new to the second edition include the Foreword by Dr. Ron...

This book employs a methodology that I have found helpful in dealing with other topics. This procedure is to assemble the New Testament texts on the topic and interpret them, then check this interpretation against usage in early Christian literature outside the New Testament, and finally to examine the doctrinal considerations to determine if the interpretation rests on solid biblical theology. Rather than gathering quotations from secondary literature, my approach is to read the source documents in the original and present the texts in their context. At the time of first edition of the book,...

The rule of faith was a summary of apostolic preaching and teaching made by writers of the early Christian centuries. As such it carries great importance for what the early church considered basic to its being and identity. It was not a fixed text, like a creed, but varied in wording and content according to circumstances. Yet, despite this flexibility and diversity, there is a clear Christ-centered, Trinitarian core at the heart of the rule shared by the early apostolic churches.
In this short guide, Everett Ferguson introduces readers to the primary sources of our knowledge of the rule, the...

About the Contributor(s): Philip LeMasters is Dean of the School of Social Sciences and Religion at McMurry University and the Corporate Secretary of the Board of Trustees of St. Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary. A priest of the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America, he is the author of Toward a Eucharistic Vision of Church, Family, Marriage, and Sex (2004) and The Goodness of God's Creation: How to Live as an Orthodox Christian (2008).

This is the second volume of Ferguson s collected essays, and includes some of his most memorable work."

A collection of essays on the practices of the early church by one of the foremost modern scholars of early Christianity, focusing on aspects of ministry, ordination and the emergence of canon.

The Church of Christ develops the affirmation that Christ is not complete without his people. It grounds ecclesiology in Christology and soteriology. Beginning with the Old Testament basis of the New Testament teaching about the church, the book gives a consistent correlation of Christ with the church's nature, membership, assemblies, ministry, and life.
This is not a historical study but a doctrinal study. The aim is to present a biblical theology of the church. A doctrinal approach, however, does not mean a doctrinal scheme is imposed on the text; rather, the effort is to let the...