Mark A. McIntosh – författare

Encountering the living Word in the words of the Bible 

When we read Scripture, we learn about God. When we pray the Scriptures, we experience the mystery of Jesus Christ and inhabit his life. 

In this book, Mark McIntosh and Frank Griswold bring to bear their decades of combined experience in both the church and the academy to introduce and explore the idea of praying the Scriptures. As McIntosh and Griswold demonstrate, this contemplative approach to the Bible integrates theology and spirituality and fosters genuine hope by bringing us into an encounter with the living Word. 

After first laying the foundation of what it means to pray the Scriptures, the authors guide the reader through vital biblical passages from different points in the church year, showing how the seasons of the liturgical calendar provide the soil in which the seeds of the Gospel can be nourished by the Holy Spirit, yielding in time a harvest of hope.

A spiritual introduction to Christian theology 

Christian belief can be understood neither entirely through doctrine nor entirely apart from it. Doctrine is the starting point, the seed of faith, from which springs forth flourishing life in the fellowship of the church. But that growth occurs only when theology and spirituality are held together in a relation of reciprocal influence. 

With decades of combined experience in both the church and the academy, Mark McIntosh and Frank Griswold prioritize the life-giving relationship between theology and spirituality in this immersive introduction to the Christian faith. Drawing inspiration and guidance from Christianity’s greatest mystical theologians—including Augustine, Maximus the Confessor, Thomas Aquinas, Bonaventure, and Catherine of Siena—McIntosh and Griswold unfold essential doctrines and illuminate the transformative power of Christian belief. The result is a book that propels readers beyond abstract knowledge to an experience of the living mystery who is God.

From Irenaeus and Aquinas to Girard, from Augustine to Zizioulas and contemporary feminist thought, Divine Teaching explores the ways in which major thinkers in the Christian tradition have shaped theology through the wide variety of their encounters with God. It makes theological study adventurous and interactive, not necessarily requiring a faith commitment from all, but allowing readers a thoughtful involvement in the subject that takes seriously the Christian vision of God as the ultimate teacher of theology.

Divine Teaching: An Introduction to Christian Theology is an imaginative and lively analysis of the Christian way of thinking, offering vivid and informing insight into the history and practice of Christian theology.

From Irenaeus and Aquinas to Girard, from Augustine to Zizioulas and contemporary feminist thought, Divine Teaching explores the ways in which major thinkers in the Christian tradition have shaped theology through the wide variety of their encounters with God. It makes theological study adventurous and interactive, not necessarily requiring a faith commitment from all, but allowing readers a thoughtful involvement in the subject that takes seriously the Christian vision of God as the ultimate teacher of theology.

Divine Teaching: An Introduction to Christian Theology is an imaginative and lively analysis of the Christian way of thinking, offering vivid and informing insight into the history and practice of Christian theology.