Making Disciples Jesus’ Way: Wisdom We Have Missed is a book for disciples and discipling practitioners. Its purpose is to challenge and provoke our contemporary Western discipleship and spiritual formation paradigms by providing the contextual backdrop of what it meant to “make disciples” in the Gospels. Then it asks: What are we doing, why are we doing it that way, and what fruit are we getting (or not getting)? The thesis of the book is that, when we reconnect with the “make disciples” contextual presuppositions in the Gospels, we can more clearly see the “missing ingredients” in discipleship today.

Sneak preview: Chapter 5 – “Do and Teach”

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This engaging book is innovative – written from the perspective of a 12-year old boy learning first-century Judean shepherding from his father.

Rich in contextual content – opens up Psalm 23 in fresh and new ways and provides new insights for today’s “sheep” and shepherds. Full of “aha moments,” for example, why all green grass is not good to eat; why sheep spook when water ripples; what is a “cast down” sheep, and under what circumstances would a shepherd intentionally break a sheep’s leg.

An easy, quick read for busy people – yet with enough penetrating spiritual insights for a lifetime of pondering.

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The text within the pages of The Rest of The Story: A Closer Look at Familiar Passages is like someone pulling the curtain back so you can see the movie that’s been playing for quite some time on the big screen. While it’s been there all along, you just didn’t have the capacity to take it all in because it was under wraps, disguised. Within these pages, Doug Greenwold “pulls back the curtain” to help expose wisdom and insights that have been staring us in the face for centuries. Because of our old paradigms and a lack of cultural, geographical, and contextual understanding, we miss much of the greatest “movie” of all that God has given to us to draw our hearts toward His.

Sneak preview: Chapter 9

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Ideal for small groups, home fellowship and Adult Education classes, the book’s workbook format encourages both journaling and pondering. In doing so, it creates a sense of discovery and excitement by digging more deeply into God’s Word through the use of historical, cultural, literary and geographical context. Each chapter challenges the reader with open-ended, probing, soul care type questions to draw out appropriate heart and mind issues for transformational reflection and journaling.

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Table of Contents and Forward

Chapter 5: Removing Barriers with Amazing Grace

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It is known as the story of “The Prodigal Son” yet Jesus never used that term. Who came up with that title, and why? I suspect no one knows. But one thing does seem to be self-evident. It had to have been a Westerner who came up with that title. No one conversant with first-century Middle Eastern village culture would ever have characterized this parable in that way. This story is about a father and two sons; and as it contextually unfolds, we begin to see that the narrative is really a story about the father’s heart towards his two lost sons. Hence the more expansive title of this deeper digging into Jesus’ parable.

Depending on your Bible translation, the story Jesus unfolds in Luke 15:11-32 is only about 500 words long. It can be read in a matter of minutes, yet pondered for a lifetime. It tells a remarkable story that has made a lasting impression on our language. When someone comments that a person is “the family prodigal,” they are most likely drawing upon this story as the basis for their use of that word. Another cultural idiom “hidden” in this story, but readily recognized by a Middle Easterner, could be coined the “elder-brother syndrome.” But that gets ahead of our story.

You are invited to revisit the greatest short story ever told as it is now reconstituted with its original context. May you be touched in transforming ways as you rediscover how much there is still to absorb from this “familiar” story.

Sneak a peek: Chapter 5 – The Pursuit of Pleasure

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This book contextually restores twelve of Luke’s most “familiar” passages, e.g., return to Nazareth, Simon, the leper, the paralytic, the calling of Levi, the demoniac, Jairus, the bleeding woman, etc., in an engaging narrative story-telling format. In doing so, paradigm challenging insights (with pastoral applications) reveal themselves from passages we thought we knew and understood. Each chapter challenges the reader with open-ended, probing, rabbinic-type questions to draw out appropriate heart, mind and soul issues for transformational reflection and journaling.

Encounters With Jesus: The Rest of Their Stories restores Jesus’ compelling encounters with people back into their Middle Eastern context. One reviewer deemed the book “rich … thought-provoking … sometimes startling … always refreshing … a whole new way of looking at Jesus.”

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Sneak a peek: Chapter 5

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Jesus’ parable of the “Good Samaritan” is both widely known and frequently cited. In today’s idiom we sometimes say of another who performs a good deed, “My goodness, you certainly were a good Samaritan to that person.” Many of our states have “Good Samaritan” laws to encourage people to respond in emergency situations without the fear of legal liability.

But while this parable may indeed be widely known and frequently referenced, how well is it really understood? Doug Greenwold digs into the context of the parable in five chapters that explores how Jesus radically challenges our paradigm of 1) who is my neighbor; and 2) what does it mean to be neighborly?

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As the father of a son with special needs, I’ve long been drawn to Jesus’ encounter with a paralytic in Luke 5. When previously pondering this encounter, I always did so from Jesus’ perspective. Until recently I never viewed this remarkable event from the perspective of the paralytic’s four friends. Approaching this encounter from that viewpoint gave rise to this new eight chapter book.

• Chapter 1 – The Paralytic’s Remarkable Friends
• Chapter 2 – Best Laid Ministry Plans!
• Chapter 3 – Faith, Discernment, God’s Will and the Body
• Chapter 4 – A Faith that Wrecks a Roof
• Chapter 5 – Forgiven? We Didn’t Come for That!
• Chapter 6 – Jesus, You Can’t Do That!
• Chapter 7 – Exceeding Expectations with Jesus
• Chapter 8 – Woe to You Capernaum!
• Appendix – The Case for Context
  •  

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This book presents a new kind of Bible study based on a very old premise – that context enriches content when you study the Scriptures, i.e., that we need to adopt the mindset and ethos of the times of the text if we are going to fully grasp the purpose and meaning of a passage.

Zechariah and Elizabeth: Persistent Faith in a Faithful God resets the familiar Luke 1 story of Zechariah and Elizabeth back into its original contextual setting. This enables the reader to experience the fuller story as if we were neighbors of Zechariah and Elizabeth. In so doing, it allows 21st Century westernized hearts and minds to connect with the 1st Century Middle Eastern mindset that Luke assumes we would have understood. As Paul Harvey would say, now we have “the rest of the story” making this small book eminently useful for small groups and Bible studies (including ZOOM sessions!) and personal devotions.

The book is conveniently organized into twelve chapters, each with appropriate “Reflections” and Scripture to ponder, including:

• A Priest is Born
• Great Expectations
• Waiting
• Being Misunderstood
• Unfulfilled Longings
• Dashed Dreams
• An Incredible Announcement
• Restoration
• God’s Gracious Glimpse
• A New Priest is Born
• Some Closing Thoughts
• Looking Ahead

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eBook (PDF) $6.95