The books shown here have been authored or edited by Seminary faculty. Information on where to purchase the books is included.
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Church and Society: Missiological Challenges for the Seventh-day Adventist Church
Rudi Maier
The Church has a reservoir of wisdom and truth in the Bible, and a role to play in witnessing to that truth. The Bible is full of mandates and challenges that ask us, the disciples of Jesus Christ, to “Make our light shine, so that others may see our good works and give glory to our God in heaven” (Matt 5:16). The purpose of this book—written by 34 dedicated Christian scholars and community practitioners—is to help Christ’s church to understand how this “world” and the people who live in it think, feel, and react to some of the issues they face in their daily lives, and how to bring peace, justice and compassion to the society that surrounds our homes, churches, and communities. Jesus says, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God (Matt 5:9).” Shalom, which we translate as peace means more than the absence of conflict. To live in shalom, as a peacemaker, means we actively live our lives in a way that brings healing, wholeness, harmony and well being to the lives of people we meet. This is not a prescriptive book that will provide answers to all the social and missiological woes in society (though there will be some guidelines for how to start various ministries). Instead, the authors have attempted to describe some of the problems that exist in our societies and churches and have encouraged the readers as individuals, as well as groups, to find their own answers to many of the issues raised. Some of the issues raised will not be comfortable to discuss in Church circles, but we all hope that they will be treated with the same respect and compassion that Jesus gives in response to each one of our needs.
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The Love of God: A Canonical Model
John C. Peckham
"For God so loved the world . . ."
We believe these words, but what do they really mean? Does God choose to love, or does God love necessarily? Is God's love emotional? Does the love of God include desire or enjoyment? Is God's love conditional? Can God receive love from human beings?
Attempts to answer these questions have produced sharply divided pictures of God's relationship to the world. One widely held position is that of classical theism, which understands God as necessary, self-sufficient, perfect, simple, timeless, immutable and impassible. In this view, God is entirely unaffected by the world and his love is thus unconditional, unilateral and arbitrary.
In the twentieth century, process theologians replaced classical theism with an understanding of God as bound up essentially with the world and dependent on it. In this view God necessarily feels all feelings and loves all others, because they are included within himself.
In The Love of God, John Peckham offers a comprehensive canonical interpretation of divine love in dialogue with, and at times in contrast to, both classical and process theism. God's love, he argues, is freely willed, evaluative, emotional and reciprocal, given before but not without conditions. According to Peckham's reading of Scripture, the God who loves the world is both perfect and passible, both self-sufficient and desirous of reciprocal relationships with each person, so that "whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life."
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Women and Ordination: Biblical and Historical Studies
John W. Reeve
"It is the accompaniment of the Holy Spirit of God that prepares workers, both men and women, to become pastors to the flock of God." Ellen G. White, Testimonies for the Church, vol. 6, p. 322. "The biblical understanding of ordination is not that the act changes those who are set aside, but only that the church is acknowledging what God has already done by equipping them through the gifts of the Spirit." Jiri Moskala, dean, SDA Theological Seminary. "Women's ordination to ministry does not violate the preservation of God's name, neither His precepts written in the Holy Scriptures. Only two factors can limit the decision of the Adventist Church in favor of women's ordination: avoiding scandal and the hindrance of the evangelizing mission to the world." Natanael B. P. Moraes, professor of applied theology, Adventist University of São Paulo, Brazil.
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An Understanding of the Biblical View on Homosexual Practice and Pastoral Care: Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary Position Paper
Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary
The intent of this document is not to judge but to clearly set forth what Scripture teaches concerning homosexual practices and offer guidelines on how to interact with persons of same-sex orientation.
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Shame & Honor: Presenting Biblical Themes in Shame and Honor Contexts
Bruce L. Bauer
Most Christian theology is framed in terms of Guilt/Innocence which people from an individualistic Western context have an easy time relating to. However, the peoples in the 10/40 Window and those in the major world religions would hear the gospel more clearly if it was expressed and framed in terms of God taking our shame and giving us his honor.
From September 19-21, 2013 almost one hundred theologians, missiologists, and field practitioners gathered at Andrews University for a conference dealing with the challenge of presenting biblical theme in Honor/Shame contexts. This book shares the conference presentations with a larger audience. -
Servants and Friends: A Biblical Theology of Leadership
Skip Bell
Against the chatter of pop psychology and the latest list of must-have motivational habits, twenty Bible scholars and ministry professionals thoughtfully grapple with what the Scriptures, in their totality, actually have to teach us about the essence of true leadership. In Servants and Friends, Skip Bell and his team examine and correlate the breadth of evidence in the Old and New Testaments. They trace the nature of God's intent, and bring it all together in a fresh and challenging theological understanding that may radically alter what we have thought leadership really is.
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Adventist Evangelistic Preaching
Russell C. Burrill
Whether you've preached hundreds of evangelistic sermons or you're preparing for your first, you'll find Adventist Evangelistic Preaching invaluable in making your presentations more persuasive, practical, and effective. In this book, Russell Burrill, veteran soul winner and evangelist, lays out the lessons he has learned over decades of evangelistic preaching and leads the reader, step by step, through every aspect of the evangelistic process from sermon preparation to calling for decisions.
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Drinking at the Sources
Jacques B. Doukhan
The schism between Israel and the Christian Church is rooted in the most profound reality in history.
When Jesus said that He was the Messiah, was His contention not to have consequences in a land occupied by Roman legions since 66 B. C.? In a land where leaders of resistance movements had regularly been proclaimed king and Messiah by their troops? Alas, messianic adventures were not uncommon in those times! Many of them ended in atrocious massacres.
Drinking at the Sources separates historical fact from fiction in an attempt to discover what was responsible for the hatred between early Christians and Jews that carries on to this day. It seeks to identify, from each side’s viewpoint, the decisive factors and arguments both sides have used in constructing seemingly insurmountable walls.
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The Ellen G. White Encyclopedia
Denis Fortin and Jerry Moon
This masterwork brings together hundreds of articles that describe the people and events in the life of Ellen White, as well as her stand on numerous topics. Everything from the hymns Ellen White loved to the homes she lived in are covered in heavily referenced articles. You’ll find a detailed chronology of her life and extensive articles on her ministry, her theology, and her statements in the light of advancing scientific knowledge. Whether you’re preparing a sermon, teaching a class, or finding answers to personal questions, this single resource has the answers you need.
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Youth Speak: The Church Listens
Kenley D. Hall and S. Joseph Kidder
Twenty-three participants invested three days in October 2012 to brainstorm as a think tank on the topic of keeping and reclaiming youth in the Seventh-day Adventist church. The group was composed of pastors, researchers, practitioners, and academics.
Three subtopics quickly emerged in the discussions. The first one dealt with why 50% of youth and young adults are leaving the church. Second, the groups dealt with how to keep them in the church. The final topic was how to reclaim those who left.
This book includes papers and resources featured at the conference:
- The Youth Speak: Research papers dealing with why some youth and young adults leave the church and some stay, and how to attract more of them to come back.
- The Church Responds: Case studies of churches that are attracting youth and young adults back to the church. This section includes several reflection papers on specific churches that are successfully reaching the younger generation.
- Appendices: Papers dealing with Church of Refuge, an association of churches devoted to actively keeping youth and bringing back those who have left.
Among the 10 papers included in this book, you will find powerful ministry ideas presented by Roger Dudley, Barry Gane, Ron Whitehead and Jeff Boyd, and more. Topics include building a church that retains its young adults, how to attract young adults to the church, and creating a culture of acceptance.
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Madaba Plains Project 6: The 1996 and 1998 Seasons at Tall al-'Umayri and Subsequent Studies
Larry G. Herr, Douglas R. Clark, Lawrence T. Geraty, Oystein S. LaBianca, and Randall W. Younker
This volume reports on the 1996 and 1998 seasons of the excavations at Tall al-‘Umayri and vicinity conducted by a consortium of colleges and universities principally sponsored by Andrews University.
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Christ and His Law: Adult Sabbath School Bible Study Guide: Teachers Edition
Gerald Klingbeil and Chantal J. Klingbeil
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Music and Worship in Africa: Adventists' Dialogue from Biblical, Historical, and Cultural Perspectives
Sampson M. Nwaomah, Robert Osei-Bonsu, and Kelvin Onongha
"Music and Worship in Africa" presents ideas that need to be discussed and studied. This book presents various author's views of these two subjects that have generated a lot of disagreement. However, many good biblical and Spirit of Prophecy principles are shared to help the reader struggle with these important issues.
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The Concept of Divine Love in the Context of the God-World Relationship
John C. Peckham
The Concept of Divine Love in the Context of the God-World Relationship addresses the significant and far-reaching theological conflict over the nature of God’s love, which is deeply rooted in broader conflicts regarding divine ontology and the nature of the God-world relationship. After engaging the traditional historical theology of love and recent exemplars of competing and influential conceptions of divine love, John C. Peckham seeks an alternative to the impasse by an extensive inductive investigation of the entire biblical canon in accordance with a final-form canonical approach to systematic theology, offering an alternative model of divine love that draws on the richness of the biblical text as canon and holds considerable implications for the God-world relationship.
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Quality Research Papers For Students of Religion and Theology
Terry Dwain Robertson and Nancy Jean Vyhmeister
This updated third edition of Quality Research Papers—fast becoming a standard reference textbook for writing research papers in the fields of religion and theology—gives improvements and added material for such things as the expanding field of online research and doing church-related research in a professional manner.
Because so many new developments have taken place in the field of research, especially in terms of electronic research, this handy reference explores the ways to do research on the internet, including how to document such research.
Quality Research Papers offers great opportunities to students today, especially in distant learning situations, to determine which resources can be used and which should be rejected. For this reason Nancy Vyhmeister brought in Terry Robertson, Seminary Librarian at Andrews University and professor of the seminary master’s level research courses. His expertise in library, computers, and the Internet are invaluable to the book.
In addition to substantial, current information on electronic resources and online research, this third edition preserves all of the features of the original editions, now presented in a newly revised, more logical order.
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Cleansing the Sanctuary of the Heart: Tools for Emotional Healing
David Sedlacek and Beverly Sedlacek
Struggling to pluck the sin from your life but having trouble conquering your past? Biblical counseling is a resource for Christians who need help locating the sin in their lives and cutting it out. David and Beverly Sedlacek offer the truths they have learned through years of clinical practice in this comprehensive guide to Cleansing the Sanctuary of the Heart. This book is a distillation of the biblical principles the Sedlaceks have used to heal others who have sought counseling for addictions, mental and emotional disorders, relationship problems, and abuse.
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On the Unique Headship of Christ in the Church: A Statement of the Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary
Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary
We, the faculty of the Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary, affirm that Christ is the only Head of the Church (Eph 1:22; 5:23; Col 1:18). Therefore, while there exists legitimate leadership in the Church, no other human being may rightfully claim a headship role in the Church. As Head of the Church, Christ provides the ultimate manifestation of God’s love (Eph 5:23, 25), demonstrating and vindicating God’s moral government of love (Rom 3:4, 25-26 5:8), and thus defeating the counterfeit government of the usurping “ruler of this world” (John 12:31; 16:11; cf. DA 758; 2T 2:211).
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Adventist Maverick: A Celebration of George R. Knight’s Contribution to Adventist Thought
Gilbert M. Valentine and Woodrow W. Whidden
Dr. George R. Knight is a man on a mission. He wants people to know by experience the riches of God’s grace in Christ.
Knight is an accomplished speaker and teacher, but writing has been his primary mode of communication. He began with the history and philosophy of Christian education and then added the history and theology of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. He has also taken special interest in growing the church’s understanding of Ellen White and how her writings should be interpreted and applied.
Adventist scholars admire Knight’s penchant for treating controversial issues such as the Shut Door, the 1888 General Conference, the 1901 reorganization, and Ellen White’s inspiration in an open, honest, and balanced way. At times, his method has reached beyond the controversial to the shocking. One of his books bears the name Myths in Adventism; a chapter in his book on the Crucifixion is called “The Bible’s Most Disgusting Teaching”; and he titled one of his articles “Adolf Hitler and Ellen White ‘Agree’ on the Purposes of Adventist Education.”
But Knight doesn’t shock merely for effect. He does it to get people’s attention despite the noise that today’s culture has accustomed them.
This book is a collection of writings that give a great overview of Dr. George R. Knight's many outstanding contibutions to the Seventh-day Adventist church. Topics covered are the issues of a hermeneutic for understanding and applying Ellen White’s writings, Christology, last-generation perfectionism, substitution and sacrifice as more than mere metaphors, and Ellen White’s counsels on lifestyle as based on principle rather than rigid literalism.
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The Audience of Matthew: An Appraisal of the Local Audience Thesis
Cedric E. W. Vine
This book seeks to establish the inadequacy of readings of the Gospel of Matthew as intended for, and a reflection of, a local audience or community. Despite repeated challenges, the local audience thesis continues to dominate a large proportion of Matthean scholarship, and, as such, the issue of determining the Gospel's audience remains an open question. This book posits four main critiques. First, the assumptions which underpin the text-focused process of identifying the Gospel's audience, whether deemed to be local, Jewish, or universal, lack clarity. Literary entities such as the implied reader, the intended reader, or the authorial audience, prove inadequate as a means of identifying the Gospel's audience. Second, local audience readings necessarily exclude plot-related developments and are both selective and restrictive in their treatment of characterisation. Much is lost or ignored, as a coherent and simplified audience context is derived from the complex narrative world of the Gospel. Third, this book argues that many in an audience of the Gospel would have incorporated their experience of hearing Matthew within pre-existing mental representations shaped by Mark or other early traditions. Thus, they would have understood the Gospel as relating to events and settings distinct from their own context, regardless of the degree to which they identified with characters or events in the Gospel. Fourth, this book argues that early Christian audiences were largely heterogeneous in terms of ethnicity, age, sex, wealth, familiarity with Christian traditions, and levels of commitment. As such, the aural reception of the Gospel would have resulted in a variety of impacts. A number of these critiques extend beyond the local audience option and for this reason this thesis does not posit a particular audience for the Gospel. (Publisher website)
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Beyond Imagination
John Templeton Baldwin, Jerry D. Thomas, and L. James Gibson
In this book, we will explore some of the wonders of the universe and of life on our little planet. But most importantly, we will explore the wonder of our own existence. Since the earliest days of human history, people have struggled with the big questions of life. Why are we here? Where are we going? What happens to us when we die?
Some people believe that science offers all the answers we seek; others feel that science leaves them empty. It doesn't offer answers for some of the deepest longings of the human heart. But that doesn't mean that those answers can't be found.
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Toward a Bright Future: Economic Self-Reliance in Africa. Third Adventist Mission in Africa Conference
Bruce L. Bauer
How can the Adventist Church best fulfill the Great Commission in Africa? To address this main question the "Adventist Mission in Africa: Challenges and Prospects" conference met at Andrews University from October 19-21, 2007. Over a hundred administrators, academics, pastors, and lay people gathered for a time of dialogue and reflection. This volume contains the thoughtful papers presented.
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Revisiting Postmodernism: An Old Debate on a New Era. Papers Presented at the First Symposium on Postmodern Sensitive Mission at Andrews University, Berrien Springs, MI October 18-20, 2012
Bruce L. Bauer and Kleber O. Gonçalves
"Revisiting Postmodernism: An Old Debate on a New Era" was the title of the first symposium on postmodern sensitive mission held at Andrews University, on October 18-20, 2012. This multi- and inter-disciplinary symposium sought to explore, examine and critically engage with themes and issues related to the challenges and opportunities of postmodernism to adventist mission.
Perspectives were presented from those engaged in the fields of practical theology, history, communication, philosophy, social sciences and arts in relation to missiology. This volume presents some of the papers presented at the symposium. -
Legado Adventista: Un Panorama Histórico y Teológico del Adventismo
Merlin Burt, Alberto Timm, and Gluder Quispe