Anglican Association of Biblical Scholars – serie

Roadmap, myth, or history? An accessible review of The Book of Revelation for today’s audience.

Conversations with Scripture: Revelation is the first book in the Anglican Association of Biblical Scholar Study Series. Written in accessible language and sensitive to those who have little or no experience in reading the bible, each book in the series focuses on exploring the historical and critical background, as well as how the biblical texts written centuries ago can still speak to readers today.

Frederick W. Schmidt, also the series editor, explores the approaches that have dominated the interpretation of John's Apocalypse and offers the reader an accessible means of understanding and evaluating them. With this grounding in hand, Schmidt explores how Revelation can shape our understanding of God, and nurture our spiritual lives in unexpected ways. Leaving behind left-behind theology, Schmidt offers instead an approach that allows this obscure, almost opaque text to speak to us anew about God, faith, hope, and justice.

A scholarly evaluation of the fourth Gospel and Johannine community.

For contemporary Christians, Johns Gospel is a paradox. On the one hand, it stresses boundaries: “No one comes to the Father except through me.”

But on the other hand, it’s all about community: “I have no longer called you servant, but friends.”

Conversations with Scripture: The Gospel of John encourages readers to draw out the tensions between these two perspectives for an open, inclusive reading of this difficult Gospel—and to find in it reaching meaning for their lives. With a study guide that includes thoughtful, challenging questions for reflection and discussion, this is an ideal resource for individual and parish study.

The best of therapy and spiritual direction begins with telling stories that describe where we have been and where we are going. Luke is neither a psychologist nor a spiritual director, but intuitively he understands the importance of storytelling as the key to human growth, change, and healing. Speaking to the crisis of faith faced by his church, Luke retells the story of Jesus birth, ministry, death, and resurrection as a means of addressing the spiritual struggles that resurface generation after generation. Touching on issues of belonging, authority, tradition, behavior, and hope, Schmidt offers a reading of Luke's gospel that speaks to today's reader.