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Discounted Ebooks You’ll Actually Read

Last month we featured the existing A Book You’ll Actually Read series alongside the release of the newest volume—On the Grace of God.

Given the helpful nature of the series, we wanted to make it available to as many people as possible in its entirety. That’s why we’re pleased to offer the complete series digitally (including Justin Holcomb’s newest volume) for $1.99 each.

To learn more about each book, click on the covers below to find them at Crossway.org. You will also find the ebooks at their reduced prices on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshout, Christianbook.com, eChristian, iTunes/iBooks,  Vyrso, or your participating independent bookstore’s site. Discounted prices available through 5/27/2013.*

Ebooks You’ll Actually Read:

On the Grace of God


On the Grace of God by Justin S. Holcomb

$7.99 $1.99

This small book, which can be read in about an hour, shows how God’s grace is the foundational theme and primary message of all of Scripture.
On Church Leadership

On Church Leadership by Mark Driscoll

$7.99 $1.99

In this concise book, Driscoll puts forth a model of church leadership that is both biblically sound and practically effective.
On Who is God?

On Who Is God? by Mark Driscoll

$7.99 $1.99

It’s one of mankind’s oldest questions, over which countless religions and philosophies have collided: Who is God? This quick read provides clear, biblical answers to who God is and how he relates to us.
On the Old Testament

On the Old Testament by Mark Driscoll

$7.99 $1.99

This quick read gives a solid and simple introduction to the Old Testament. Driscoll answers nine common questions about the Old Testament and gives an overview of the various kinds of OT literature.
On the New Testament

On the New Testament by Mark Driscoll

$7.99 $1.99

This brief book gives a solid and simple introduction to the New Testament. Spend just one hour with this book and you’ll find answers to many common questions about the New Testament, such as, Who wrote it? and Does it contain any errors?

Happy reading!

*Note: Some discounts may be unavailable outside the United States due to international rights agreements.

May 21, 2013 | Posted in: Books,Digital,Discipleship,Ministries,Publishing,The Gospel,The Grace of God,Theology | Author: Ted Cockle @ 8:53 am | 0 Comments »

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Posted in Books, Digital, Discipleship, Ministries, Publishing, The Gospel, The Grace of God, Theology | No Comments »

Let’s talk about . . . Sex and Money

PLEASURE.Sex & Money Cover

We live in a world obsessed with finding it, passionate to enjoy it, and desperate to maintain it. Chief among such pleasures are sex and money—two pleasures unrivaled in their power to captivate our attention, demand our worship, and drive us to hide or to despair.

In Sex and Money (now available), seasoned counselor and pastor Paul David Tripp pulls back the curtain on the lies that surround us and on the distortions we often overlook. As he exposes the insanity of our culture, he also wisely speaks to our own tendencies to fall prey to sexual and financial idolatry.

Sex and Money ultimately directs us to God’s Word and the liberating power of the gospel, offering real-world advice, and giving us the guidance we need to find true joy and enduring satisfaction.

Praise for Sex and Money

“I’ve come to count on Paul Tripp’s books to be biblical, Christ-centered, deep, engaging, and well-written. Sex and Money is no exception. Its insights into our cultural idolatries and God’s transforming grace are priceless.”
—RANDY ALCORN, Author, The Purity Principle and Managing God’s Money

“Fresh. Honest. Real. Paul Tripp tackles the familiar snares of sex and money with fresh perspective, honest answers from God’s Word, and a real sense of our need for God’s grace. I commend this new resource to you from my friend and ministry partner.”
—JAMES MACDONALD, Senior Pastor, Harvest Bible Chapel

“This is a humble, hopeful, relevant book—a wonderful reminder that Jesus’s way truly is easy and his burden is light. I highly recommend it.”
—CHRIS BRAUNS, Pastor, The Red Brick Church

“In Sex and Money, Paul Tripp has taken two of the greatest idols and unmasked them against the glorious gospel. If you really want to unseat the insanity and power of lust and materialism in your life, this book will take you to the one true solution—Jesus himself.”
—JAY THOMAS, Lead Pastor, Chapel Hill Bible Church

Preview an Excerpt from the Book

Download this excerpt as a PDF file 

 

May 13, 2013 | Posted in: Addictions,Author,Books,Counseling,Discipleship,Men, Husbands, Fathers,Publishing,Purity,Pursuit of Holiness,Sanctification/Growth,Sexual Immorality,Sin & Temptation,The Gospel | Author: Ted Cockle @ 1:51 pm | 0 Comments »

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Posted in Addictions, Author, Books, Counseling, Discipleship, Men, Husbands, Fathers, Publishing, Purity, Pursuit of Holiness, Sanctification/Growth, Sexual Immorality, Sin & Temptation, The Gospel | No Comments »

The Gospel and Moving Toward the Lost and Broken

In their book Faithmapping, Daniel Montgomery and Mike Cosper challenge us as we witness to our communities (emphasis ours):

We don’t necessarily need training or a new set of skills to be witnesses, we just have to believe that the gospel is truly good news.

Throughout the Gospels, Jesus is continually saying that he must go on to other villages (Mark 1:38; Luke 4:43). Jesus’s life is a movement toward people who are lost and broken. The incarnation is a story about God, in infinite power and holiness, moving toward us, enduring the humiliation of becoming human, bound up in a body with hands, feet, and speech, living a common, ordinary life for thirty years. It’s a movement from the glorious to the obscure, a journey of seeking us out. That movement continues throughout Jesus’s life. He moves toward the unacceptable members of society like tax collectors and prostitutes. He moves toward women who were marginalized in a male-dominated culture. He moves toward blue-collar workers like fishermen. He moves toward outcasts who are sick or disabled.

Religion huddles up. It builds up hedges that define who is in and who is out, and it rigorously defends those boundaries. The gospel moves outward. God moves toward us, and as his witnesses, we move outward too, moving toward people who are marginalized and excluded by the boundaries of religion. Like Jesus, the gospel should compel us outside our circles of familiarity, to the marginalized, the “least of these” of our society. In fact, something is terribly wrong with our understanding of the gospel if it is not continually moving outward.

A church that isn’t witnessing, that isn’t moving outward, doesn’t have a problem with technique. It doesn’t need a new program. Its problem is first and foremost a gospel problem. Witnessing is a natural response to the experience of God’s grace, and its power lies entirely in the gospel. If we’re not compelled to share the gospel, we should wrestle with whether we actually believe it.

Adapted from Faithmapping: A Gospel Atlas for Your Spiritual Journey, by Daniel Montgomery and Mike Cosper

Daniel Montgomery (MDiv, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary) is the founder and lead pastor of Sojourn Community Church in Louisville, Kentucky, and founder of Sojourn Network.

Mike Cosper is one of the founding pastors of Sojourn Community Church, where he serves as the pastor of worship and arts. He is also founder of Sojourn Music and contributes regularly to the Gospel Coalition blog.

Related Posts:

January 25, 2013 | Posted in: Discipleship,Evangelism,Loving Others,Missions,The Gospel | Author: Lindsay Tully @ 8:00 am | 0 Comments »

Posted in Discipleship, Evangelism, Loving Others, Missions, The Gospel | No Comments »

A Challenge from John Piper in the New Year

“If our single, all-embracing passion is to make much of Christ in life and death, and if the life that magnifies him most is the life of costly love, then life is risk, and risk is right. To run from it is to waste your life.” — John Piper, Risk is Right

Comfort is an oftentimes acceptable and encouraged idol, even in the lives of Christians.

While it is true that Jesus’s yoke is easy and his burden is light (Matt. 11:30), that does not mean that we’ve been promised our best life now. No, this is a life in which we have been promised difficulty if we choose to follow Christ (Luke 6:22-23; John 16:33; James 1:2-4; 1 Peter 4:12-14). But this life is not without hope, and it is not without joy. Sometimes, we need a faithful brother or sister in Christ to remind us of the brevity and purpose of this life, calling us to something greater than the elusive American Dream. In Risk is Right, John Piper is that faithful brother.

If you’re stuck in a rut and can’t remember the last “courageous” thing you’ve done for Christ, or are in a season of life where everything seems uncertain, or just need a good kick-start to start living intentionally in 2013, Piper is writing to you:

“Are you caught in the enchantment of security, paralyzed from taking any risks for the cause of God? Or have you been freed by the power of the Holy Spirit from the mirage of. . . safety and comfort? Do you men ever say with Joab, ‘For the sake of the name, I’ll try it! And may the Lord do what seems good to him’? Do you women ever say with Esther, ‘For the sake of Christ, I’ll try it! And if I perish, I perish’? . . . .

“On the far side of every risk—even if it results in death—the love of God triumphs. This is the faith that frees us to risk for the cause of God. It is not heroism, or lust for adventure, or courageous self-reliance, or efforts to earn God’s favor. It is childlike faith in the triumph of God’s love—that on the other side of all our risks, for the sake of righteousness, God will still be holding us. We will be eternally satisfied in him. Nothing will have been wasted.”

 

January 11, 2013 | Posted in: Discipleship,Evangelism,Faith,Fear and Anxiety,Missions,Persecution and Martyrdom,The Gospel,Worship | Author: Lindsay Tully @ 8:00 am | (2) Comments »

Posted in Discipleship, Evangelism, Faith, Fear and Anxiety, Missions, Persecution and Martyrdom, The Gospel, Worship | 2 Comments »

Thanks, Christmas Spirit, & New Year’s Resolutions

A guest post by Jessica Thompson

During this time of reflection on the last year, trying to figure out what to be thankful for each day of November, and also trying to be properly respectful of the true meaning of Christmas—my sense of failure, and alternately pride, grows in fertile soil. I fight with thoughts of “I really should be more grateful” and “I failed at my last 20 New Year’s resolutions” and “why doesn’t the incarnation make me fall to my knees?” mixed in with “why can’t people see Christmas is all about Jesus” and “look at those people pushing and shoving to get the Black Friday deals with greed spilling from their heart.” I can get pretty wrapped up in the me of everything.

One of my favorite tweets of 2012 came on New Year’s Day from my pastor. It read, “Feel like a jerk? Take heart, you’re a lot worse than you think. Good thing Jesus paid the whole bill. Happy New Year.”

That has stuck with me throughout the year, and I pray it sticks with me for the finish of it. I tend to think that if I’m grateful enough or if I don’t forget that Jesus is the reason for the season then maybe I’m actually doing okay and I’m somehow more pleasing to God. I forget the truth that the Bible gives me–that I was dead in my sin and a lot worse than I really even want to admit. Yet I also forget that my sins of ungratefulness, my sin of indifference to the incarnation, and all of my failures for this last year have been forgiven. I don’t have to make up for them, they have been cancelled, nailed to the cross. The truth is, I can never be good enough, grateful enough, or awed enough. There was only One who lived that way. He was perfect as his Heavenly Father was perfect, and that is now my clothing. My mind and heart come alive at this thought. The glorious light of undeserved right relationship with God chases the darkness of my self-condemnation and pride and gives me true gratefulness.

As you make your lists, and do your 30 days of thanks, and go through advent calendars, remember this: You were dead, you are now alive. He has forgiven all sins. He has cancelled all the debts. He has clothed you in his righteousness so that you don’t have to work up your own. There is goodness and mercy that are promised to follow you for the rest of this year, all of next year, and every day for the rest of your life. His faithfulness will never fail because he cannot deny himself. You have all the hope and grace you need to finish 2012 and to start the 2013. Jesus paid the whole bill and left the tip. There is nothing now for you to do except believe this good news, smile, and rest.

“Trust the past to God’s mercy, the present to God’s love, and the future to God’s providence.” – Augustine of Hippo



Jessica Thompson, co-author of Give Them Grace, is a member of an Acts 29 church in California and has been homeschooling for the past two years. She is married and has three children.

December 27, 2012 | Posted in: Christmas,Gratitude,The Gospel | Author: Crossway Author @ 8:00 am | (2) Comments »

Posted in Christmas, Gratitude, The Gospel | 2 Comments »