Veracity Fount

Our Book of the Day; "The Gospel in the Marketplace of Ideas: Paul's Mars Hill Experience for Our Pluralistic World" by Kenneth Duncan Litwak and Paul Copan

Our world is multicultural, multireligious, multiphilosophical. It ranges from fundamental monotheism to do-it-yourself spirituality to strident atheism. How can Christians engage in communicating across worldviews in this pluralistic and often relativistic society? When Paul visited Athens, he found an equally multicultural and multireligious setting. From Jews to Gentiles, elite to poor, slaves to slave owners, from olive-skinned Gentiles to dark-skinned Ethiopians―the Greco-Roman world was a dynamic mix. Religious practices were also wide and varied, with the imperial cult of emperor worship being the most prominent. Many also frequented the temples for the traditional Greek pantheon, and participated in the secret rituals of the mystery religions.Seeking to embolden the church's witness in today's society, philosopher Paul Copan and New Testament scholar Kenneth Litwak show how Paul's speech to the Athenians (found in Acts 17) provides a practical model for Christians today. They uncover the cultural and religious background of this key episode in the apostle?s career and they encourage believers to winsomely challenge the idols of our time to point contemporary Athenians to Christ.

Drop by at the Veracity Fount library this week and dive in! 😊

Book of the Day; 'God Behaving Badly' by David T. Lamb

God has a bad reputation. Many think of God as wrathful and angry, smiting people right and left for no apparent reason. The Old Testament in particular seems at times to portray God as capricious and malevolent, wiping out armies and nations, punishing enemies with extreme prejudice. But wait. The story is more complicated than that. Alongside troubling passages of God's punishment and judgment are pictures of God's love, forgiveness, goodness and slowness to anger. How do we make sense of the seeming contradiction? Can God be trusted or not? David Lamb unpacks the complexity of the Old Testament to explore the character of God. He provides historical and cultural background to shed light on problematic passages and to bring underlying themes to the fore. Without minimizing the sometimes harsh realities of the biblical record, Lamb assembles an overall portrait that gives coherence to our understanding of God in both the Old and New Testaments.

Drop by at the Veracity Fount library, Plot 2 Musuubire Henry, Close Bukoto and delve in this week.

Our featured book of the day; Spiritual Disciplines Handbook; Practices that Transform Us by Adele Ahlberg Calhoun

On the Spiritual Discipline of Simplicity;

’Tis a gift to be simple. ’Tis a gift to be free.” We may agree
with the sentiment, but there has never been a more complicated, cluttered, bureaucratic society than the one we live in today. In fact, the “good life” is often defined by how full, busy and complicated our lives are. Modern life is not simple. It is always about adding one more thing.

But the more we add, the more can go wrong: one car, one set of problems; two cars, two sets. Adding the latest, the biggest and the best to our lives wreaks havoc in our souls as well as our environment. Keeping it simple has fallen on hard times. And though we like the idea, we also like our choices.

Jesus teaches us that freedom is not found in having and doing but in keeping God and his will first in our heart. “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven...For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matthew 6:19-21). Jesus wants us to know that we don’t need all the things or experiences we think we do. What we really need is to keep first things first—Jesus and his kingdom. Life becomes much more simple when one thing matters most.