What Does the Bible Really Teach about Homosexuality?
Kevin DeYoung (Crossway)
In the coming years, many churches will face an acute dilemma: how to hold steady to the biblical model of marriage and sexuality without suggesting that the Bible obsessively condemns deviations from that model. DeYoung, pastor and Gospel Coalition blogger, seeks out this balance in another of his brief, punchy books (like Crazy Busy and The Hole in Our Holiness). The Bible, DeYoung writes, may not be “the story of God giving a lecture on same-sex marriage or trying a case before the Supreme Court.” But it does contain clear, consistent teaching on homosexual behavior. DeYoung’s book outlines that teaching while answering a range of possible objections.
The Great Fire: One American’s Mission to Rescue Victims of the 20th Century’s First Genocide
Lou Ureneck (Ecco)
At first glance, Asa K. Jennings might have seemed ill-suited to spearhead a bold humanitarian rescue operation. The Methodist pastor from Upstate New York was “a small man in wire-rimmed glasses, barely over five feet tall. He stood not quite straight: his back was hunched, an artifact of tuberculosis, which had struck him in his 20s.” Yet Jennings is credited with saving the lives of hundreds of thousands at the end of the Armenian genocide. On assignment with the ymca in Smyrna, Turkey, Jennings—with help from an intrepid American naval officer—hatched a daring evacuation plan as Turkish forces set the refugee outpost ablaze. In The Great Fire, Ureneck, a Boston journalist, tells the story of Jennings and his brave companions.
Effective Discipling in Muslim Communities: Scripture, History and Seasoned Practices
Don Little (IVP Academic)
Missionaries in Islamic countries are often encouraged by the surprising number of Muslims willing to profess belief in Jesus. (David Garrison’s 2014 book, A Wind in the House of Islam, compiles many dramatic firsthand testimonies of recent converts.) But Little, a veteran missiologist, warns that cultural pressures will all but guarantee backsliding unless stronger efforts are made to help new converts grow in the faith. “We who are laboring to plant churches in the Muslim world must learn to disciple more effectively,” writes Little. “Far too many of those who are coming to faith in Christ out of Islam today will fall away from Christ unless workers and believers seeking to disciple them learn to disciple well.”
