This collection of essays and sermons challenges us to consider the Sermon on the Mount as Jesus' serious proposal for an alternative society, a speech of resistance to the forces and institutions that dominate the world. This two-part volume brings together the thoughts of biblical scholars and storytellers, theologians and historians, and evangelical and mainline scholars. Eighteen writers tackle Jesus' landmark sermon, as timely in today's discussions of empire, occupation, poverty, and wars as ever. They demonstrate that the Sermon on the Mount puts before us not an impossible ideal, but...

This book seeks to press the wisdom of Proverbs into active duty in the trenches of everyday life and put the principles of character formation in working clothes. The wisdom Proverbs describes is not designed to master life's challenges but to learn to manage them and adapt. In learning to adapt, individuals grow and mature spiritually. Relying on solid biblical scholarship, this book brings to the fore the neglected sentence literature in Proverbs 10-29 and the vital resources they contribute to the process of character formation. Contrary to popular opinion, the book of Proverbs, even...

Proverbs and the Formation of Character presses the wisdom of Proverbs into active duty in the trenches of everyday life and puts the principles of character formation in working clothes. The wisdom Proverbs describes is not designed to master life's challenges but to learn to manage them and adapt. In learning to adapt, individuals grow and mature spiritually. Relying on solid biblical scholarship, Dave Bland brings to the fore the neglected sentence literature in Proverbs 10-29 and the vital resources they contribute to the process of character formation. Contrary to popular opinion, the...

While the traditional Christian engagement with environmental ethics too often begins and ends with Genesis, this project joins numerous recent efforts by biblical scholars to identify new foundations on which Christians can make ethical choices about creation. Wisdom literature, a largely untapped resource, offers a unique point of entry for environmental ethics. Despite their marginalization in ethical debates on the environment, the biblical sages have a great deal to say about the inseparability of Gods creation and righteous living--observations that must then be brought into...