When Augustine handed over the leadership of his church in AD 426, his successor was so overwhelmed by a sense of inadequacy that he declared, “The swan is silent”, fearing the spiritual giant’s voice would be lost in time. But for 1,600 years Augustine has not been silent - and neither have the men who faithfully trumpeted the cause of Christ after him. Their lives have inspired every generation of believers and should compel us to a greater passion for God.

In the sixth volume of the Swans Are Not Silent series, John Piper celebrates the importance of poetic effort by looking at three influential Christians whose words magnificently display a commitment to truth and a love of beauty. Examining the lives of George Herbert, George Whitefield, and C. S. Lewis, Piper helps us appreciate the importance of carefully crafted words by exploring how Christians can use them to testify to God's glory, wonder at his grace, and rejoice in his salvation.

Jesus' words in John 12 are sobering: unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it will bear little fruit. The history of Christianity's expansion proves that God's strategy for reaching unreached peoples with the gospel includes the sufferings of his frontline heralds - the missionaries who willingly die a thousand daily deaths to advance God's kingdom. For William Tyndale, Adoniram Judson, and John Paton, the price they paid to translate the Word of God, to pave the way for missionary mobilization around the world, and to lead the hostile to Christ was great.

John Newton, Charles Simeon, and William Wilberforce suffered lifelong opposition and endured for the causes of gospel truth, missionary zeal, and political justice. They found, in solid doctrine and humble joy, the tough roots for habitual tenderness in response to their adversaries - without doctrinal or moral flinching. They are examples of remarkable grace. In the third book of the Swans Are Not Silent series, best-selling author John Piper looks at the lives of these three great men and how they not only endured great opposition but did so with joy and without bitterness.

You don't have to be perfect to do God's work. Look no further than the twelve disciples, whose many weaknesses are forever preserved throughout the pages of the New Testament. Join best-selling author John MacArthur in Twelve Ordinary Men as he draws principles from Christ's careful, hands-on training of the original disciples for today's modern disciple, you!

How did the world arrive at its current, disorienting state of identity politics, and how should the church respond? Historian Carl R. Trueman discusses how influences ranging from traditional institutions to technology and pornography moved modern culture toward an era of "expressive individualism." Investigating philosophies from the Romantics, Nietzsche, Marx, Wilde, Freud, and the New Left, he outlines the history of Western thought to the distinctly sexual direction of present-day identity politics and explains the modern implications of these ideas.

Dealing sensitively with touchstone issues, R.C. Sproul sends a challenge to deepen your understanding of the Holy Spirit through the scriptures. Come to know this mysterious member of the Trinity and see his work in your life.

The Christian life is a process of growing in holiness, our natural response to the good news of our redemption in Christ. This kind of growth is gradual, and obstacles are plentiful. Thankfully, we don't have to go it alone. God has given us his Spirit so that we can overcome temptation and become more and more conformed to the image of Christ. But how does the Spirit work? What is the nature of our own personal involvement in the process? And how do we know if we are making progress?

The Puritans, as a body, have done more to elevate the national character than any class of Englishmen that ever lived. Ardent lovers of civil liberty, and ready to die in its defense - mighty at the council board, and no less mighty in the battlefield - feared abroad throughout Europe, and invincible at home while united - great with their pens, and no less great with their swords - fearing God very much, and fearing men very little - they were a generation of men who have never received from their country the honor that they deserve.

With a balance of wisdom, candor, and scholarly rigor, the beloved archbishop emeritus of Philadelphia, Charles J. Chaput, traces the human experience from ancient times to today to find threads of connection in our yearning for God, love, honor, beauty, truth, and immortality. He looks at our modern appetite for consumption and individualism and offers a penetrating analysis of how we got here and how we can look to our roots and our faith to find purpose each day amid the noise of competing desires.

Born After Midnight stirs us toward renewal. Be it in the realm of money, worship, worry, or prayer, A. W. Tozer applies God's high wisdom to our everyday living to show sin bitter and Christ sweet, helping us crave heaven and lose our taste for the world. If you will take God for who he says he is, trust his promises as true, and forsake the world in clutching for heaven, it will cost you everything. But it will give you eternity. Born After Midnight invites you to seek what cannot be lost.

Five hundred years after the beginning of the Protestant Reformation, many people - Christians and non-Christians alike - view it as a conflict about issues that are no longer relevant to the church. But what if the Reformation still has something to teach us? What if the doctrines so vigorously debated and defended by the Reformers still matter today? In this accessible primer on the Reformation, Michael Reeves and Tim Chester introduce listeners to 11 key questions raised by the Reformers.

The good news that God’s Word proclaims is a recipe to use in times of disaster. That is to say, it comes as a relevant announcement only to those who are in trouble for one reason or another. This book calls for more realism in facing life’s challenges and a richer view of God and his purposes to match them.

Being a pastor is a complicated calling. Pastors are often pulled in multiple directions and must "become all things to all people" (1 Cor. 9:22). What does the New Testament say (or not say) about the pastoral calling? And what can we learn about it from the apostle Paul? According to popular New Testament scholar Scot McKnight, pastoring must begin first and foremost with spiritual formation, which plays a vital role in the life and ministry of the pastor. As leaders, pastors both create and nurture culture in a church.

Veith explores and presents a true understanding of justification by faith, the means of grace, vocation, theology of the cross, the two kingdoms, worship, and the church. This is a revised edition of the original text written in 1999.

The story of the church is important for Christians to know, for it contains rich and uplifting stories of God’s dealings with His people. Dr. Sinclair B. Ferguson takes the listener on a tour of the Christian history, featuring stories and songs to give believers a sense of their place in God’s kingdom and to encourage them in their walk.

The Puritans, as a body, have done more to elevate the national character than any class of Englishmen that ever lived. Ardent lovers of civil liberty, and ready to die in its defense - mighty at the council board, and no less mighty in the battlefield - feared abroad throughout Europe, and invincible at home while united - great with their pens, and no less great with their swords - fearing God very much, and fearing men very little - they were a generation of men who have never received from their country the honor that they deserve.

Every generation faces the temptation to wander from orthodoxy—to seek out the jolt that comes with false teaching, and to drift with cultural currents. And so every generation must be awakened again to the thrill of orthodoxy, and experience the astonishment that comes from stumbling afresh upon the electrifying paradoxes at the heart of the Christian faith. In The Thrill of Orthodoxy, Trevin Wax turns the tables on those who believe Christian teaching is narrow and outdated.

John Newton, Charles Simeon, and William Wilberforce suffered lifelong opposition and endured for the causes of gospel truth, missionary zeal, and political justice. They found, in solid doctrine and humble joy, the tough roots for habitual tenderness in response to their adversaries - without doctrinal or moral flinching. They are examples of remarkable grace. In the third book of the Swans Are Not Silent series, best-selling author John Piper looks at the lives of these three great men and how they not only endured great opposition but did so with joy and without bitterness.

Dallas Willard, one of today's most brilliant Christian thinkers and the author of The Divine Conspiracy ( Christianity Today's 1999 Book of the Year), presents a way of living that enables ordinary men and women to enjoy the fruit of the Christian life.

The heart of this book is a thoughtful and inspiring look at Wesley's theology of grace and its power to transform. Included are two new chapters. 'Vision and Means' explores Wesley's mission and methods, and 'To Serve the Present Age' considers the impact and relevance of his message today. In addition, an updated reading list facilitates further study, and questions at the end of each chapter stimulate personal reflection and small group discussion.Ideal as a textbook or for personal study and reflection, this book will advance your knowledge and piety as you travel 'the way to heaven.

Right now, Truth is under attack, and much is at stake. Christians are caught in the crossfire of alternative Christian histories, emerging faulty texts, and a cultural push to eliminate absolute Truth altogether. As a result, many churches and Christians have been deceived. Worse still, they propagate the deception that poses itself as Truth!

Can a Christian-killer really endure 195 lashes from a heart of love? Can a mystic who thinks he was caught up into heaven be a model of lucid rationality? Can an ethnocentric Jew write the most beautiful call to reconciliation? Can a person who lives with the unceasing anguish of empathy be always rejoicing? Can a man's description of the horrors of human sin be exceeded by his delight in human splendor? Can a man with a backbone of steel be as tender as a nursing mother?

The last command Jesus gave the church before he ascended to heaven was the Great Commission, the call for Christians to "make disciples of all the nations.

"But Christians have responded by making "Christians", not "disciples". This, according to brilliant scholar and renowned Christian thinker Dallas Willard, has been the church's Great Omission.

Looking back to the crisis of the Reformation and beyond, Unbelievers shows how, long before philosophers started to make the case for atheism, powerful cultural currents were challenging traditional faith. These tugged in different ways not only on celebrated thinkers such as Machiavelli, Montaigne, Hobbes, and Pascal, but on men and women at every level of society whose voices we hear through their diaries, letters, and court records. Ryrie traces the roots of atheism born of anger, a sentiment familiar to anyone who has ever cursed a corrupt priest, and of doubt born of anxiety.

In Stand Firm: Living in a Post-Christian Culture, Dr. John MacArthur drafts biblical battle plans for maintaining a life of Christian faithfulness. God has revealed what kind of people we are to be in a hostile world, and by his word and spirit, He supplies us with everything we need to persevere in holiness, humility, and love.

Is praying a duty or a delight? J. I. Packer and Carolyn Nystrom say that it's both; an essential, expected practice as a follower of Christ, but also a privilege and joy. As we start out learning to pray properly, however, the delight often seems to be missing. Here is practical help for active, honest praying that involves all of who we are - heart, hands and head - and moves us to deeper obedience, joy and intimacy with our Father.

Daily readings drawn from every century and every tradition of the Christian faith. Christianity through the ages... Ignatius, C.S. Lewis, John Calvin, Augustine, Catherine of Siena, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Thomas Aquinas, Martin Luther, Polycarp, John Wesley, Karl Barth, and Billy Sunday. These names, and so many others, fill the pages of church history. Yet they remain strangers to most of us. How Great Is Our God will introduce you to Christianity’s most influential thinkers from every century and every tradition—modernized for today’s reader.

In Reasons to Believe, Scott Hahn, a convert to Catholicism, explains the "how and why" of the Catholic faith - drawing from Scripture, his own struggles, and those of other converts, as well as from everyday life and even natural science. Hahn shows that reason and revelation, as well as nature and the supernatural, are not opposed to one another; rather, they offer complementary evidence that God exists. He is someone, and He has a personality, a personal style, that is discernable and knowable.

In this popular introduction to church history, now in its third edition, Mark Noll isolates key events that provide a framework for understanding the history of Christianity. The book presents Christianity as a worldwide phenomenon rather than just a Western experience. Students in academic settings and church adult education contexts will benefit from this one-semester survey of Christian history.