Life in the Kingdom

I would highly recommend this series of books by author James Bryan Smith...

* The Good and Beautiful God: Falling in Love With the God Jesus Knows

* The Good and Beautiful Life: Putting on the Character of Christ

* The Good and Beautiful Community: Following the Spirit, Extending Grace, Demonstrating Love

His material has been the source of our recent series on the kingdom of God...and we are studying The Good and Beautiful God in our book club discussions on Tuesday evenings...

Smith's final take on the kingdom, translated by yours truly goes something like this...The Kingdom of God is a life lived out in the context of a community of others that exists for the good of others in the world rather than their own interests. It is a radical lifestyle that is foreign in SO many ways to the culture of 'going to Church' found in many American Churches.

We will now turn to study the book of Romans on Sundays, as well as its role in defining the Kingdom of God. It was Romans that transformed the thinking of Martin Luther, who started the reformation which led to the eventual creation and proliferation of nearly every denomination within Evangelical Christianity. Click HERE to link to Luther's preface to the Book of Romans, which is a crucial document in the thinking and spiritual formation of the church in the last several centuries.