Seedbed – August 2016
In the coming months, more titles will be rolling of the Seedbed presses that showcase the caliber and giftedness of Asbury Seminary’s faculty and staff (past and present!). Winfield Bevins, Sandra Richter, Stephen Semands, John Oswalt, and Timothy Tennent will all add another resource to the shelves before Christmas, and we want to give you a sneak peek into what you can expect
Grow at Home: A Beginner’s Guide to Family Discipleship (Now Available)
There are tons of books on Christian parenting. A quick internet search will produce a near endless number of results. While many of these books are immensely helpful, very few address one of the most critical 
aspects of family faith—the role of discipleship in shaping children’s lives.
Perhaps you’re new to the idea of family discipleship. It’s simple, really. Family discipleship is when parents help their children become disciples of Jesus Christ in the home through reading the Bible, praying, worshiping, and doing missions together. It starts in our marriages, by loving our spouses with the love of Christ. It happens by teaching, loving, and sharing our faith with our children.
In Grow at Home, Winfield Bevins unpacks these ideas for families of all ages and backgrounds with a practical guide to family discipleship. When we bring the gospel back in the home, it will spread through our neighborhoods and into the communities where we live. Let the journey begin!
The Epic of Eden: Isaiah (In Preorder)
Often named “the fifth gospel,” the book of the prophet Isaiah has more to say about Israel’s coming Messiah than any other Old Testament book. Brilliant, courageous, uncompromising, this prophet declared that “the year of the LORD” had come and God’s people needed to either step up, or stand down. Indeed, when Isaiah spoke, kings trembled.
But too often, when Isaiah speaks today, God’s people have trouble hearing. Why? We often miss the larger context. In The Epic of Eden: Isaiah, Dr. Sandra Richter takes participants back to the eighth century BCE. This eight-week study explains Israel’s religion and economy, explores the definition and role of the prophets, and helps us to apply the message of this great champion of the faith to our lives today.
The Unseen Real: Life in the Light of the Ascension of Jesus (Coming Soon)
The early Christians believed that when Jesus ascended into heaven he had been installed and exalted as King, reigning as Lord of all. Today, it’s more tempting to view Christ’s kingship as only symbolic—as we treat contemporary British monarchs. With sin and suffering, pain and brokenness, evil and injustice all around, how dare we proclaim that Jesus is reigning now? So it’s easy to push his kingship off into the future. “He’s not really king now,” we conclude, “But of course, he will become king when he returns in the future.”
In The Unseen Real: Life in the Light of the Ascension of Jesus, Dr. Stephen Seamands explores the ascension of Christ not as an ancient biblical concept or a future revelation, but as it relates to the “here and now.”
Belief in the ascension, rightly understood, is a foundation for accepting and embracing our humanity with all its qualifications, imperfections, and limitations. The ascension is our greatest hope.
OneBook Daily-Weekly: The Book of Isaiah (Coming Soon)
The book of Isaiah is centered on the theme of servanthood. Just as Isaiah had his lips cleansed so he could speak a message to the nation, so the nation of Judah was to experience a similar fiery cleansing so it could convey God’s message to the world. During this time, the Judean people asked many of the same questions we ask today. Has God rejected us? Is God capable of delivering us? If God wants to deliver us, both from circumstances and from our sins, and he can deliver us, is he actually going to deliver us?
In this OneBook Daily-Weekly, Dr. John Oswalt takes learners on a deep dive into chapters 40–55, where we discover that often we experience the fire of captivity is not for the purpose of destroying us, but rather for the purpose of cleansing us and revealing to us the strength and sovereignty of God.
How God Saves the World: A Short History of Global Christianity (Coming Soon)
In a world awash with mission statements, the Christian mission is increasingly becoming white noise, lost in a sea of marketing language and organizational best practices.
How God Saves the World takes a look at the mission of the church in a way you might not have understood it before. Rather than exploring the history of global Christianity through a long series of countless names and events, Timothy Tennent presents this remarkable journey in the three-act model of a true epic play.
Complete with a world in turmoil, heroes and heroines of all shapes and sizes, and the ultimate Guide leading the way, this short book will remind you of the small, yet significant, role we play in a much larger story that spans both time and space.
When will the book “How God Saves the World” be available in hard back? I would like to give this book as a present to the members of my bible study group. I can only find it as a Kindle book.