Kelly M. Kapic

Unpacking John Owen Through the Voices of Church History John Owen (1616–1683), a major figure in church history, has left an indelible impression on Christian theology. His depth of insight, devotional richness, and theological breadth have shaped the hearts and minds of laypeople, pastors, and scholars for generations. But what truly distinguishes Owen from his peers, and why does he continue to resonate through the centuries? Owen Among the Theologians invites readers to examine the writings of Owen alongside those of other Christian thinkers from various eras and traditions. By putting Owen in fresh conversation with significant theologians who lived before and after him, this unique study offers a thorough theological study of specific themes such as the glory of Christ, communion with God, justification by faith, the perseverance of the saints, and much more. This compelling work not only helps readers gain a deeper understanding of Owen’s theology but, ultimately, a greater love of the triune God. Deep Theological Insights: Articulates Owen’s thoughts on topics such as the glory of Christ, communion with God, justification by faith, and perseverance of the saints, not only describing Owen’s view but also retrieving his thought for the good of the church today Comparative Framework: Uses techniques including comparison, complement, consensus, consequence, and contrast to help readers gain a nuanced viewpoint Diverse Perspectives: Includes thoughts from many well-known and influential thinkers from a wide range of eras and traditions, but also includes some lesser-known voices and unexpected topics Historical: Explores Owen’s theological and pastoral contributions and assesses their impact on the life and ministry of the church

What is the Christian life? What does it mean to live life in Christ? In this volume in Zondervan Academic's New Studies in Dogmatics series, theologian Kelly M. Kapic reflects on the Christian life: its foundation, its nourishment, and its goal. Kapic contends that the Christian life is, first and foremost, one that is lived in response to the love of the triune God. It thus flows from God toward us, and we are then drawn back into communion with God. As those united to God through Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit, Christians are enabled to respond to God's love. Shaped further by the community of faith, especially through corporate worship, Christians thus participate in this love of God and neighbor. What is true of the whole discipline of theology is thus reflected in the Christian life: Christ is its foundation, Christ is its source of nourishment, and Christ is its goal. New Studies in Dogmatics seeks to retrieve the riches of Christian doctrine for the sake of contemporary theological renewal. Following in the tradition of G. C. Berkouwer's Studies in Dogmatics, this series will provide thoughtful, concise, and readable treatments of major theological topics, expressing the biblical, creedal, and confessional shape of Christian doctrine for a contemporary evangelical audience. The editors and contributors share a common conviction that the way forward in constructive systematic theology lies in building upon the foundations laid in the church's historic understanding of the Word of God as professed in its creeds, councils, and confessions, and by its most trusted teachers. This volume presents a dogmatic account of the Christian life.

Work. Family. Church. Exercise. Sleep. The list of demands on your time seems to be never-ending. It can leave you feeling a little guilty--like you should always be doing one more thing. Rather than sharing better time-management tips to squeeze more hours out of the day, Kelly Kapic takes a different approach. In the paperback edition of You're Only Human, he offers a better way to make peace with the fact that God didn't create us to do it all by· exploring the theology behind seeing our human limitations as a gift rather than a deficiency;· laying out a path to holistic living with life-giving relationships and meaningful contributions to the world;· freeing us from confusing our limitations with sin; and· inviting us to rest in the joy and relief of knowing that God can use our limitations to foster freedom, joy, growth, and community. Readers will emerge better equipped to cultivate a life that fosters gratitude, rest, and faithful service to God.

Are you exhausted, anxious, and sick of feeling like you should always be doing one more thing? In this 40-day devotional, award-winning author Kelly Kapic helps you embrace the truth that God never intended for you to do it all. Topics include:? Facing your limits in a world that demands more, more, more? Why God's love isn't contingent on your behavior? The goodness of your body and the importance of embodied worship? Finding beauty in humility, dependence on others, and rest? Cultivating gratitude and embracing the rhythms and seasons of lifeEach devotion begins with a meaningful quote and ends with reflection questions. Kapic shows that limitations aren't sinful but rather that God purposefully designed humans to have limits and depend on one another. Rightly appreciated, these good limits promote freedom, joy, growth, and community. This devotional is based on Kapic's 2022 book, You're Only Human, and covers the same themes in a more accessible format. As you take this 40-day devotional journey, you'll follow a path to more holistic living that fosters a vision for healthy self-understanding, life-giving relationships, and meaningful contributions to the world.

Work. Family. Church. Exercise. Sleep. The list of demands on your time seems to be never-ending. It can leave you feeling a little guilty--like you should always be doing one more thing. Rather than sharing better time-management tips to squeeze more hours out of the day, Kelly Kapic takes a different approach. In the paperback edition of You're Only Human, he offers a better way to make peace with the fact that God didn't create us to do it all by· exploring the theology behind seeing our human limitations as a gift rather than a deficiency;· laying out a path to holistic living with life-giving relationships and meaningful contributions to the world;· freeing us from confusing our limitations with sin; and· inviting us to rest in the joy and relief of knowing that God can use our limitations to foster freedom, joy, growth, and community. Readers will emerge better equipped to cultivate a life that fosters gratitude, rest, and faithful service to God.

This book is not a before-and-after story. Our culture treats suffering like a problem to fix, a blight to hide, or the sad start of a transformation story. We silently, secretly wither under the pressure of living as though suffering is a predicament we can avoid or annihilate by working hard enough or having enough faith. When your prayers for healing haven't been answered, the fog of depression isn't lifting, your marriage is ending in divorce, or grief won't go away, it's easy to feel you've failed God and, worse, he's failed you. If God loves us, why does he allow us to hurt? Over a decade ago chronic illness plunged therapist and writer K. J. Ramsey straight into this paradox. Before her illness, faith made sense. But when pain came and never left, K. J. had to find a way across the widening canyon that seemed to separate God's goodness from her excruciating circumstances. She wanted to conquer suffering. Instead, she encountered the God who chose it. She wanted to make pain past-tense. Instead, God invited her into a bigger story. This Too Shall Last offers an antidote to our cultural idolatry of effort and ease. Through personal story and insights from neuroscience and theology, Ramsey invites us to let our tears become lenses of the wonder that before God ever rescues us, he stands in solidarity with us. We are all mid-story in circumstances we did not choose, wondering when our hard things will end and where grace will come if they don’t. We don't need to make suffering a before-and-after story. Together we can encounter the grace that enters the middle of our stories, where living with suffering that lingers means receiving God's presence that lasts.

This is not a how-to manual... (it's a field guide) We all want to know, "How can I help without hurting in this specific situation?" But there's no one answer, and there's definitely no short cuts, but there are key principles--or ministry design principles. Think of these like the rules an improvising actor learns--the principles are crucial--but the actor must decide how to put them into practice based on the complexities of the situation. This book contains and explicates 20 ministry design principles developed over decades of observing, studying, and experimenting. They're in no way perfect, but they represent the very best ideas we have to date for how to do effective poverty alleviation in the kingdom of God.

Western Civilization is wealthier, but it isn't happier. We are the richest people ever to walk the face of the earth, but according to research, we aren't becoming happier. Families and communities are increasingly fragmented, loneliness is skyrocketing, and physical and mental health are on the decline. Our unprecedented wealth doesn't seem to be doing us much good. Yet, when we try to help poor people at home or abroad, our implicit assumption is that the goal is to help them to become like us. "If they would just do things our way, they'd be fine " But even when they seem to pursue our path, they too find that the American Dream doesn't work for them. What if we have the wrong idea altogether? What if the molds we are using to help poor people don't actually fit any of us? What if the goal isn't to turn other countries into the United States or to turn America's impoverished communities into its affluent suburbs? In Becoming Whole (building on the best-selling When Helping Hurts), Brian Fikkert and Kelly M. Kapic look at the true sources of brokenness and poverty and uncover the surprising pathways to human flourishing, for poor and non-poor alike. Exposing the misconceptions of both Western Civilization and the Western church about the nature of God, human beings, and the world, they redefine success and offer new ways of achieving that success. Through biblical insights, scientific research, and practical experience, they show you how the good news of the kingdom of God reshapes our lives and our poverty alleviation ministries, moving everybody involved towards wholeness.

Many Christians wonder what the Christian life is all about. They hear about “grace” but struggle to rightly understand it, much less live it. They are taught about God, but their vision of him does not always reflect the full biblical portrait of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. When this happens Christians struggle to know the ways of God and how to joyfully participate in his work. The God Who Gives provides a compelling vision of Christian faith and life, helping readers discover the uniqueness of the gospel - that God's kingdom comes not by taking, but by giving - God gives Himself! We are invited into the fullness of life that can only come through the gift of God’s divine generosity. Taking readers through the grand biblical narrative of creation, fall, redemption, and kingdom author Kelly M. Kapic helps us see our story in and through the story of Scripture. He shows that everything belongs to God, and yet because of our turning and taking from him we experience a kind of suffocating bondage to sin. So how does God reclaim us? God gives again. The God who gave in creation restores by recreating us through his Son and by his Spirit. The kingdom of God is an overflowing measure of divine generosity that we are invited to participate in. The God Who Gives calls readers to discover that the whole Christian story is founded upon the Triune God’s self-giving and our belonging to God. Fully embracing this truth changes how we view God, ourselves, and the world. Living in God's gifts, we are freed to give ourselves and truly experience life.

World Magazine Book of the Year Creative Quarterly Professional Graphic Design Runner-Up Christianity Today's Book of the Year Winner ECPA Top Shelf Book Cover Award "This book will make no attempt to defend God. . . . If you are looking for a book that boasts triumphantly of conquest over a great enemy, or gives a detached philosophical analysis that neatly solves an absorbing problem, this isn't it." Too often the Christian attitude toward suffering is characterized by a detached academic appeal to God's sovereignty, as if suffering were a game or a math problem. Or maybe we expect that since God is good, everything will just work out all right somehow. But where then is honest lament? Aren't we shortchanging believers of the riches of the Christian teaching about suffering? In Embodied Hope Kelly Kapic invites us to consider the example of our Lord Jesus. Only because Jesus has taken on our embodied existence, suffered alongside us, died, and been raised again can we find any hope from the depths of our own dark valleys of pain. As we look to Jesus, we are invited to participate not only in his sufferings, but also in the church, which calls us out of isolation and into the encouragement and consolation of the communal life of Christ. Drawing on his own family's experience with prolonged physical pain, Kapic reshapes our understanding of suffering into the image of Jesus, and brings us to a renewed understanding of—and participation in—our embodied hope.

Beginning to study Reformed theology is like stepping into a family conversation that has been going on for five hundred years. How do you find your bearings and figure out how to take part in this conversation without embarrassing yourself? The Pocket Dictionary of the Reformed Tradition takes on this rich, boisterous and varied tradition in its broad contours, filling you in on its common affirmations as well as its family tensions. Here you will find succinct and reliable entries on Latin terms, such as ad fontes and sola fide Theologians, from Calvin to TorranceConfessions, such as the Belgic and WestminsterDoctrines, such as atonement and sanctificationApologists, such as Francis Schaeffer and Cornelius Van Til And much more. The Pocket Dictionary of the Reformed Tradition is ready to assist you over the rough parts of readings, lectures, conversations and blogs. It will also be a companionable and concise introduction to one of the great Christian traditions. Designed for students and pastors alike, the short and accessible volumes in the IVP Pocket Reference Series will help you tackle the study of biblical languages, church history, apologetics, world religions, Christian spirituality, ethics, theology, and more.

Whenever we read, think, hear or say anything about God, we are doing theology. Yet theology isn't just a matter of what we think. It affects who we are. In the tradition of Helmut Thielicke's A Little Exercise for Young Theologians, Kelly Kapic offers a concise introduction to the study of theology for newcomers to the field. He highlights the value and importance of theological study and explains its unique nature as a serious discipline. Not only concerned with content and method, Kapic explores the skills, attitudes and spiritual practices needed by those who take up the discipline. This brief, clear and lively primer draws out the relevance of theology for Christian life, worship, mission, witness and more. "Theology is about life," writes Kapic. "It is not a conversation our souls can afford to avoid."

This textbook offers a fresh approach to modern theology by approaching the field thematically, covering classic topics in Christian theology over the last two hundred years. The editors, leading authorities on the history of nineteenth- and twentieth-century theology, have assembled a respected team of international scholars to offer substantive treatment of important doctrines and key debates in modern theology. Contributors include Kevin Vanhoozer, John Webster, Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen, and Michael Horton. The volume enables readers to trace how key doctrinal questions were discussed, where the main debates lie, and how ideas developed. Topics covered include the Trinity, divine attributes, creation, the atonement, ethics, practical theology, and ecclesiology.