Earliest Christian Confessions

In this essay, Dr. Cullmann sets himself to answer these questions: •Why did Christians need to have, besides Scripture, and apostolic formula to summarise the faith they professed? •What circumstances brought this necessity about? •What is the composition of the first formulas, and how did they develop in the earliest times? •What is the essential content of the Christian faith according to the earliest formulas?

Preliminary Material /Vernon H. Neufeld -- The Literature and the Problem /Vernon H. Neufeld -- The Nature of the Homologia /Vernon H. Neufeld -- The Homologia and Judaism /Vernon H. Neufeld -- The Homologia in the Letters of Paul /Vernon H. Neufeld -- The Homologia in the Gospel and Letters of John /Vernon H. Neufeld -- The Homologia in the Synoptic Gospels and Acts /Vernon H. Neufeld -- The Homologia in Other Books of the New Testament /Vernon H. Neufeld -- The Primitive Christian Homologia /Vernon H. Neufeld -- Bibliography /Vernon H. Neufeld -- Index of Passages /Vernon H. Neufeld -- New Testament Tools and Studies.

Creeds and confessions throughout Christian history provide a unique vantage point from which to study the Christian faith. To this end, Donald Fairbairn and Ryan Reeves construct a story that captures both the central importance of creeds and confessions over the centuries and their unrealized potential to introduce readers to the overall sweep of church history. The book features texts of classic creeds and confessions as well as informational sidebars.

Throughout the centuries Christians have sought to understand better the nature of the earliest features of the gospel message, for in that understanding lies the opportunity to make relevant the gospel's power to effect change" in other words, to put new wine into fresh wineskins. Veteran New Testament scholar Richard Longenecker explains how early Christians "contextualized" the gospel message for their hearers just as Christians do today. Specifically, "New Wine into Fresh Wineskins" focuses on the relationships among the early Christian confessions in the letters of Paul and the Gospels and looks at how the New Testament writers contextualized these confessions for their own hearers. The volume also reflects on how Christian confessions are adapted for later cultures and contexts. For example, the same gospel message both tells of the past and promises a future, it both encourages and admonishes, and it both reveals and conceals the mysteries of God. With careful analysis and appreciation for how early Christians understood Jesus in a variety of situations, Longenecker challenges readers with the always relevant truth of the gospel.

Throughout the history of the Church, Christians have expressed their faith in word and song. Among the ways they confessed what they believed was through creeds. The term"creed," which comes from the Latin credo ("I believe"), has played a central role in the identity of the Church and expressing her core beliefs. Some of the more famous creeds are the Apostles' Creed and Nicene Creed. While these creeds developed in the first few centuries of the Church, the earliest creeds are embedded within the New Testament text itself. The singing of hymns, which are closely associated with creeds, has also been part of the Church's ancient heritage. These credal hymns were adopted from the synagogues and have continued to be an integral expression of worship today. The New Testament contains many of the hymns that the early Christians sang. Since these hymns are confessional in nature, we can state that hymns were creed-like, confessing in song what the earliest Christians believed. This book examines the ancient creeds and hymns found in the New Testament, shedding light on what the earliest Christians held to be central, definitional, and foundational to their faith.

Fischer challenges readers to take big steps in their faith and be like strong, caffeinated coffee rather than weak, powerless decaf. By taking these steps, the author promises, readers will begin to enjoy a deeper, more dynamic faith in Jesus.

Written by an L. A. County homicide detective and former atheist, Cold-Case Christianity examines the claims of the New Testament using the skills and strategies of a hard-to-convince criminal investigator. Christianity could be defined as a “cold case”: it makes a claim about an event from the distant past for which there is little forensic evidence. In Cold-Case Christianity, J. Warner Wallace uses his nationally recognized skills as a homicide detective to look at the evidence and eyewitnesses behind Christian beliefs. Including gripping stories from his career and the visual techniques he developed in the courtroom, Wallace uses illustration to examine the powerful evidence that validates the claims of Christianity. A unique apologetic that speaks to readers’ intense interest in detective stories, Cold-Case Christianity inspires readers to have confidence in Christ as it prepares them to articulate the case for Christianity.

"A history of doctrines of the early Church, written and arranged with exceptional clarity by a leading patristic scholar, the principal of St. Edmund Hall, Oxford. Canon Kelly describes the development of the principal Christian doctrines from the close of the first century to the middle of the fifth, and from the end of the apostolic age to the council of Chalcedon. His book thus covers the great doctrinally creative period in the Church's history, the centuries in which there was a constant upsurge of fresh ideas before the settled formalism of both the East and West. He gives the student and invaluable outline of Church history and patrology against which to place the evolving theological doctrines which he summarises and expounds" -- Back cover.