Free Logos Books 2016

Free for a short time...

The Son Rises: Resurrecting the Resurrection [Vyrso LInk] . . . [Kindle]
by Robert L. Wise

When the Church gets lost in the maze of competing cultural agendas, its revolutionary message and life-giving influence are compromised and eventually consumed. This increasing marginalization is exactly what began to happen in the latter half of the twentieth century. Many say the answer is for the Christian community to seek a more prominent position in society, but respected teacher and bestselling author Robert L. Wise contends that we must confront the surrounding culture with a deeper understanding of Christ's resurrection. Only by recovering and sharing the resurrection of the living Lord can the Church reclaim the experience of the first believers, who found in the resurrection a doorway to personal redemption that, in turn, transformed society around them. The Son Rises is a fresh exploration of Jesus Christ's resurrection from the dead and his promise of continuing relationship with those who believe in him.

 

Here's another short time freebie:

A Well-Worn Path: Thirty-One Daily Reflections for the Worshipping Heart [Vyrso Link] . . . [Kindle]
by Dan Wilt

A Well-Worn Path is a beautiful collection of thirty-one brief daily spiritual reflections to renew your heart. Written by respected worship leader and teacher Dan Wilt, each devotional gives you a daily "boost of the Spirit," helping you find your well-worn path of intimacy with God. Designed for daily use, these short readings present a fresh, twenty-first century approach to the daily devotional, and will spark hope and faith in Jesus in you once again.

 

Short time freebie...

The Wiersbe Bible Study Series: Hebrews [Vyrso LInk] . . . [KIndle]
by Warren Wiersbe

Hebrews—written by Christians, to Christians, and for Christians—is loaded with theology accessible to any believer who wants to grasp the origin and meaning of faith. Penned at a time that was politically unstable, Hebrews targets believers who were tempted to abandon their faith and slip back into the rules and regulations of Judaism.

 

I was catching up on some Facebook acquaintances this morning and read about a church member that moved on a decade ago after getting married. She's had a rough time over the years, two kids, breast cancer with double mascectomy, divorce and now a recurrence of cancer.
It made the free book today a blessing.

When God Breaks Your Heart: Choosing Hope in the Midst of Faith-Shattering Circumstances [Vyrso LINK] . . . [KINDLE]
by Ed Underwood (2008)

Why is God letting this happen to me?

If you have never asked this question, you someday will.

There is perhaps no greater challenge to our faith than personal suffering. For pastor Ed Underwood this challenge came in the form of chronic leukemia. Though he prayed for and believed in God's healing, as the days slipped by and his pain became unbearable, Ed's heart was broken by a simple realization: The God who could do anything was not helping him. Yet a revelation from God's Word changed his heart and life forever.

In this poignant journey from tragedy to hope, Ed takes a fresh look at the story of Lazarus and his sisters—a story that explores suffering through the eyes of our Lord and His people. You'll find comfort during difficulty, be inspired to ask for the impossible, and discover a God whose heart breaks with yours.

 

Logos Bible Software's Free Book of the Month for April is...

Athanasius: On the Incarnation of the Word of God (with audio) [LINK]

Conflict with Arius and Arianism as well as successive Roman emperors shaped Athanasius's career. In 325, at the age of 27, Athanasius began his leading role against the Arians as a deacon and assistant to Bishop Alexander of Alexandria during the First Council of Nicaea. Roman emperor Constantine the Great had convened the council in May–August 325 to address the Arian position that the Son of God, Jesus of Nazareth, is of a distinct substance from the Father.

Athanasius espoused the Christological position that eventually defeated Arianism, which considered the divine Logos as a creature of God, begotten as a product of the Father’s will as a medium between the supreme God and creation. Athanasius maintained that begetting is an aspect of nature and not will, taught that the Son possesses the same divine nature as the Father and is equal to the Father. He argued that the incarnation of the Word was absolutely essential for human salvation. There was no other remedy for fallen humankind, which had succumbed to corruption and would eventually have extinguished itself. The redemption of humankind required the Word’s incarnation and death because humans could not escape the corruption, the penalty for sin, on their own. The Word Incarnate restored God’s creation, which had become disoriented by sin, because the indwelling of God the Word in the human body.

*Note: When you download this product, the text will download immediately and the audio will download automatically as soon as soon as production is complete.

 

Free Today

The Wiersbe Bible Study Series: Genesis 25–50 [Vyrso] . . . . [Kindle]
by Warren Wiersby (2012)

Our culture is filled with imitations posing as truth. Even the Christian church is not immune to imitators, where truth can become mired in compromise and fallacies. So how do we cultivate an authentic walk with God? The answers are found in the book of Genesis. This study examines the lives, experiences, and choices of three men who pursued a genuine relationship with God: Isaac, Isaiah, and Joseph.

Wiersbe Bible Studies deliver practical, in-depth guides to selected books of the Bible. Featuring insights from Dr. Warren W. Wiersbe’s Be Authentic commentary, this eight-week study features engaging questions and practical applications that will help you connect God’s Word with your life.

 

Why Athanasius’ ‘On the Incarnation’ Is Thrilling, Essential Reading [LINK]

Written just before the rise of Arianism, On the Incarnation of the Word of God lays out Athanasius’ views on the incarnation, a central issue of conflict throughout the Arian controversy. Not only is this work required reading for anyone who takes theology seriously, it’s shockingly readable. Athanasius’ words are truly timeless, and the warmth and passion that permeates the book vividly demonstrate that doxology need not be separated from orthodoxy—indeed, it must flow from it.

It is the Logos Free Book of the Month for April.
The Free Audio became available today.

 

Short time Freebie

Thriving in Babylon: Why Hope, Humility, and Wisdom Matter in a Godless Culture [Vyrso] . . . [Kindle]
by Larry Osborne (2015)

Meet a man forced to live in a fast changing and godless society. He faced fears about the future, concern for his safety, and the discouragement of world that seemed to be falling apart at warp speed. Sound familiar? His name was Daniel, and with the power of hope, humility, and wisdom, he not only thrived, he changed an empire while he was at it. Though he lived thousands of years ago, he has a much to teach us today.

Even in Babylon, God Is in Control!

 

Here is the latest free offering - Themelios: Volume 41, No. 1, April 2016

Order it now and it will download after it is digitalized for Logos Bible Software.
It should eventually also become available in PDF form on the Themelios website.

A big thanks to the Gospel Coalition and to Faithlife for continuing to offer new issues of this great resource.

 

Short time Freebie

Billy Graham: Candid Conversations with a Public Man
by David Frost [on Vyrso] . . . [on Kindle]

For years, Billy Graham and David Frost fascinated television audiences with their conversations about God, the Bible, and Graham’s decades-long ministry. Frost asked the questions that thousands of viewers wanted to ask. Graham answered them with authenticity and grace.

Along the way, Graham provided insight into life as an evangelist, a Christian father and grandfather, and a public figure in a changing culture. Most of all, Graham’s words show what it means to live out your beliefs—whether you speak to millions of people around the world or simply want to live faithfully at home and work.

With a chronology of Graham’s life, a preface from Frost, and a foreword from his grandson, Tullian Tchividjian, this weaving of stories, interviews, and reflections will inspire you to respond to God’s call with no reserve.

 

Take a Mobile Education Course
Introducing the Gospels and Acts: Their Background, Nature, and Purpose by Darrel Bock

Tim Challies is offering temporary access to a Logos Mobile Education Course [LINK TO BLOG].

Here is the course’s description:
Study the key events of the Gospels and the book of Acts with prolific New Testament scholar Dr. Darrell L. Bock. Dr. Bock walks you through the pivotal events of history that shaped the social, religious, and political environment of Jesus and the early church. Find out why the religious leaders wanted Jesus crucified and how the resurrection demonstrated God’s approval of Jesus as Messiah. Discover how the early church remembered, shared, and recorded the events of Jesus’ life, and how those events became the catalyst for ministry in the book of Acts. Learn about the literary features of the gospel genre and why some “gospels” were not included in the New Testament. Dr. Bock—an internationally recognized authority on theology and culture—developed this course for the Mobile Education platform so that you can read the Gospels and Acts with fresh eyes.
Upon successful completion you should be able to:

• Understand the effect of Hellenism on Second Temple Judaism
• Discuss the significance of the temple in Second Temple Judaism
• Summarize the ways in which Jesus created conflict with the religious leaders
• Compare and contrast the canonical Gospels with the “missing gospels”
• Explain the issues of authorship and date associated with each Gospel
• Describe the concept of resurrection in Judaism and the Graeco-Roman world
• Discuss the significance of the resurrection in each Gospel account and to the gospel message
• Summarize the key events in the life of the early church

 

Free Book of the Month for May
A Focus on Apologetics

Why God Won’t Go Away [LINK]
by Alister McGrath (2011)

Evangelical Atheists.
Best-selling authors like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, the New Atheists have found a foothold in today’s cynical society, and have ramped up their efforts to debunk the existence of God.

Renowned historian, theologian, and scholar Alister McGrath is on the frontlines of this conversation, publicly debating many of these prominent skeptics. In this thoughtful and accessible volume, McGrath gives a spirited rebuttal to the claims of the New Atheists, critiquing the New Atheism on its own merits and exploring the fundamental questions:

• Who are the New Atheists, and what do they believe?
• Is religion delusional and evil?
• Are human beings fundamentally good?
• How do reason and science prove or disprove faith?
• Is the best hope for humanity a ‘New Enlightenment’?

Also check out the discounted additional book by the same author, The Dawkins Delusion?

 

Short time Freebie

The Wiersbe Bible Study Series: Psalms [Vyrso LINK] . . . [Kindle]
by Warren W. Wiersbe

Rediscover this powerful collection of praise, prayer, and worship

Our God is extraordinary. A loving Savior. A caring Comforter. A tenderhearted Father. The One who has pursued our hearts at any cost. The book of Psalms celebrates the love story between creation and its Creator. It’s a story that shares the remarkable attributes of God, and our joyous response to all that He is. This study guide explores the book of Psalms, a collection that continues to be the definitive devotional, prayer book, and hymnal for every believer.

The Wiersbe Bible Studies Series explores timeless wisdom found in God’s word. Based on Dr. Warren W. Wiersbe’s popular “BE” series, each study provides topical, relevant insights from selected books of the Bible. Designed for small groups, this eight-week study features selected commentaries from BE Worshipful and BE Exultant!, engaging questions, and practical applications, all designed to help you connect God’s word with your life.

 

Free Logos Book from Lexham Press

Confronted by Grace: Meditations of a Theologian [LINK]
by John Webster
Lexham Press 2014, 227 pages

In this rich collection of sermons, John Webster considers the power of the gospel and the truth of God's grace. Born from years of theological and biblical study, these reflections serve to challenge, stimulate, and inspire, demonstrating the grace of God at work in the complexities of life.

By pointing us toward Christ, Confronted by Grace helps us grow in our understanding of the truth of the gospel.


Excerpt from Chapter 18, The Nature of Faith
Hebrews 11:1 Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

OFTEN WHEN WE THINK and talk about faith, we fall into a trap. The trap is that of thinking of faith as some sort of special power or faculty that we have, or at least that we ought to have. We think of faith as a sort of natural talent, a bit like being good at arithmetic or having a flair for gardening—again, some power or capacity we have or would like to possess. Very often thinking in this way about faith is bound up with a sense of frustration about ourselves, a sense that to some extent we are deficient Christians because we don’t seem to have much of a talent for faith. “If only we had more faith,” we chastise ourselves; if only we had a great measure of this mysterious power which would somehow make the Christian life more real and lift us out of our doubts and confusions.
The problem with thinking along these lines is that it begins in the wrong place. It begins with us: our attitudes, our emotions, our inner lives. And in this it tends to reinforce the false idea that sorting out how to live a life of faith is basically a matter of figuring ourselves out. It can encourage us in the idea that getting faith right means cultivating some attitude, putting our inner lives on some sort of disciplined regime. And the result of that is that we’re disoriented from the start. The basic rule for thinking about faith is this: What matters about faith is not us, but the object of faith. Faith isn’t primarily a power or capacity in me; it isn’t first and foremost an attitude which I adopt; indeed, it’s not first of all something which I do. Faith is objective—that is, faith is wholly turned outward to the object of faith. In a real sense, it’s not faith itself but that toward which faith is turned that is critically important in getting our thinking straight. What matters about faith is therefore not us but God, the object of faith. ......

Webster, John. Confronted by Grace: Meditations of a Theologian. Edited by Daniel Bush and Brannon Ellis. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2014. p 157.

 

Free Book of the Month for June
from the pages of Bible Study Magazine

Study the Word, 12 Christian Leaders on Bible Study [LINK]

Edited by Rebecca Van Noord, Jessi Strong, and John D. Barry
Lexham Press (2014)


Featuring Kay Arthur, Nancy Leigh DeMoss, Kevin DeYoung, Elyse Fitzpatrick, Max Lucado, Priscilla Shirer, R. C. Sproul, Chuck Swindoll, Lysa TerKeurst, Ann Voskamp, N. T. Wright, and Philip Yancey


Excerpt:

Strategic Bible Study

With three small children, Shirer hasn’t always had time to sit down for quiet, longer Bible study periods. “Sometimes, I’d pick a book of the Bible and look at one or two verses every day. I asked questions of the verses. I call them the five P’s of Bible study. Basically, it goes something like this: I pore over the passage, paraphrase the passage, and pull out the spiritual principles from the passage. I pose a personal question to myself to help me begin a dialogue with the Holy Spirit as to whether or not I am living what that verse is teaching. And then I plan obedience in regard to what I think the Holy Spirit is saying. I’ve used that for years.”

“Right now, I’m reading the Bible [all the way] through this year. It’s harder to carve out large portions of time for devotion, but I didn’t want that to [stop me].” She adds that it’s helpful to read a different version of the Bible to see the text in a new way. “You come upon those familiar passages that you’re used to reading in your other translation, but instead of skimming over it quickly you can see it in a whole new way because of the different verbiage. It’s neat not to anticipate what it’s going to say. It causes it to sink in differently.”

During her devotional time, Shirer tries to include her children. “I purposely position myself somewhere in the house so that when my kids get up, they’re going to catch me praying or reading the Bible. I do that so they can see that this is a part of my life. We will go over those Bible verses and I will ask them what it means to them. They really don’t know yet, but it’s just fun for us to go through different Scriptures. I’m just hoping at this point, at their young age, to interest them in the Bible.”

Van Noord, R. (2014). Priscilla Shirer: She Speaks: How Priscilla Shirer Leads by Surrendering.
​

 

The Twenty-Piece Shuffle: Why the Poor and Rich Need Each Other [Vyrso Link] . . . [Kindle]

Excerpt:

"Actual material homelessness is a rising problem in the Western world. In some cities homeless people are policed into one area, and in others they are policed into hiding, but it is never difficult to find the mysterious figures with tatty beards and haunted eyes, wearing multiple layers of ragged clothing and huddling beneath bridges, in doorways, on subway grates, around fires lit in steel drums, in lean-tos of cardboard and plastic sheeting. Men prematurely old. Young girls who know too much too soon. The flotsam and jetsam of the wealthiest society the world has ever known.

These are the people who are at the heart of the Sanctuary community—men and women and transgendered people who struggle with addiction, mental illness, traumatic histories, and present circumstances that are an impossible mix of poverty, violence, continual danger, exclusion, systemic oppression, abusive sex, and more. Even those who have a roof over their heads, often in rooming houses that plumb the depths of the term “grim,” are, in the most essential way, homeless. They have never experienced the kind of warm embrace summed up in that simple word “home.” Where they should have been nurtured, they endured violence; the very relationships that ought to have taught them to trust were characterized by betrayal of the meanest sort.

Is it any wonder, then, that most people in most places view my homeless brothers and sisters as “them”—burdens on society, hopeless, perhaps dangerous? But how can “they” display respect for themselves or others when they have been raised on a diet of contempt? Some Christians might say, with that peculiar mixture of smugness and relieved resignation, “The poor you will always have with you.”

I have so much to learn from my homeless friends. They teach me how much I take for granted and how sweet and rare safety and a true welcome are. My friends who have been outcasts all their lives because of mental illness reveal how deeply I still long to know that I really matter, that I am precious. My friends who struggle with addiction show me how rapacious my hunger is for ecstasy, for fulfillment—in a word, for glory.

My life, as blessed as I am, is filled with longing, pierced by a hunger that has never truly been sated. I’m like the prodigal, adrift and ravenous in a distant land, disappointed by most of what I have so eagerly sought, often disappointed with myself. My every experience of “home” has been fractured, ephemeral: scraps of rich meat thickly marbled with the indigestible gristle of failure, disillusionment, and broken relationship.

Paul, G. (2010). The twenty-piece shuffle: why the poor and rich need each other. Colorado Springs, CO: David C Cook.

 

The Logos Free Book of the Month for July is...

Pentecostalism: A Guide for the Perplexed [LINK]
by Wolfgang Vondey

This volume sheds light on the most persistent contrasts characterizing the Pentecostal movement: the tension between local manifestations and global Pentecostalism, the inconsistency between spiritual discernment and charismatic excess, the gap between rampant denominationalism and the pursuit of Christian unity, the disparity between poverty among many Pentecostals and the popularity of the prosperity gospel, the division between Oneness Pentecostals and their Trinitarian counterparts, and the worldview of Pentecostals beyond the confines of a religious movement. Those tensions form the essence of global Pentecostalism and represent the emergence of a global Christian world.

 

Free....

The Faithlife Study Bible (Second Edition) [LINK]

Lexham Press is pleased to announce a publishing partnership with Zondervan, bringing the Faithlife Study Bible to print in early 2017.
To prepare the FSB for print, we’ve gone back and revised the entire study Bible. Every single note was reviewed and more than two-thirds of the content was rewritten to be clearer, more concise, and to illuminate your understanding of Scripture. While you’ll have to wait for the print edition, these massive improvements can be found in the revised second digital edition.

Nearly every note in FSB has been expanded and reshaped by multiple people—those listed on the title page as editors or major contributors. As a result of this rich collaboration, FSB’s study notes have no single author.

The editors designed FSB to explore questions they had about the text, without regard to constraints of space. The digital content often runs much longer than what can fit on the page of a typical study Bible. These lengthy explorations provided an abundance of material for later editors to distill complex discussions into concise notes and articles for the print edition of FSB.

If you already have the Study Bible in your digital library it will download automatically.
If you don't have it follow the instructions on the linked page above.

 

Free Book of the Month for August

Believers Church Bible Commentary: Ecclesiastes [LINK]
by Douglas B. Miller (2010)

Doug Miller respects the pastoral and theological contribution of Ecclesiastes, without muting its critique of simplistic and comfortable approaches to the life of faith. It is particularly useful for Christians who need a fresh look at the insights of this ancient sage in an era of uncertain identity, the flux of worldviews, and the elusiveness of truth.

The Believers Church Bible Commentary Series is a cooperative project of Brethren in Christ Church, Brethren Church, Church of the Brethren, Mennonite Brethren Church, and Mennonite Church.