From the Christian Life Collection: Sharing the Resurrection. . .

The Risen Jesus & Future Hope
By Gary R. Habermas
Rowman & Littlefield, 2003
(264 pages, $26.95, paperback)

The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus
By Gary R. Habermas and Michael R. Licona
Kregel Publications, 2004
(384 pages, $19.99, paperback and CD)

Living the Resurrection
By Eugene H. Peterson
Navpress, 2006
(151 pages, $16.99, hardcover)

The Christian Life Collection at Inklings Bookshop includes two books by Lynchburg’s resident authority on the resurrection of Jesus, Dr. Gary R. Habermas, currently distinguished professor and chair of the Department of Philosophy and Theology at Liberty University. I believe both these books play unique and different roles in contemporary Christian apologetics.

The Risen Jesus and Future Hope is a book of Christian apologetics and spiritual counseling centered on the Resurrection. Documenting an approach that he has taught for thirty years, Habermas takes as his starting point the centrality of the resurrection of Jesus in the Christian faith and then moves outward from that point, exploring the implications of the Resurrection in a number of doctrinal and practical areas. In Part I of the book, he explores the relationship of the Resurrection to several key doctrines: theism, the person and teachings of Jesus, the kingdom of God, salvation, commitment, and eternal life. In Part II, he explores the role that the Resurrection plays, or should play, in helping a Christian deal with the fear of death, personal suffering, and her relationship to the Holy Spirit and to Holy Scripture.

Dr. Habermas co-authored The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus with former student Michael R. Licona. Though filled with scholarly data and references, the fruit of years of research by both authors, this is not a book aimed primarily toward scholars. And though it clearly presents a comprehensive case for the resurrection of Jesus that would challenge skeptics and encourage seekers, this is not a book aimed primarily toward them. This book is a field manual for Christian soldiers called to carry the good news about Jesus, not combatively but graciously and humbly, to a desperately lost and often hostile world. Its aim is clearly stated in the preface:

This volume and its accompanying interactive software are tools to encourage Christians in their faith and to help them share with others the evidence for Jesus’ resurrection.

From the Christian Life Collection: Living the Resurrection. . .

One recent addition to the Christian Life Collection is Eugene Peterson’s Living the Resurrection – The Risen Christ in Everyday Life. This beautiful little work explores the ways we can “practice” the Resurrection by following in our daily lives the footsteps of Jesus in His life between the Resurrection and the Ascension.

In his first chapter, Peterson argues that reflecting on the surprising elements of the resurrection accounts in the Gospels can help restore the sense of wonder that is often missing in our attempts at spiritual formation.

The next two chapters explore two facts about the risen Jesus: he appears primarily at ordinary meals and he appears primarily to friends. Peterson, therefore, encourages Christians to follow the risen Jesus by seeking spiritual formation more than we usually do through ordinary meals and ordinary fellowship.