Sword and Verse

Sword and Verse
Author: Kathy MacMillan
Publisher: HarperCollins
Total Pages: 244
Release: 2016-01-19
Genre: Young Adult Fiction
ISBN: 0062324632

In a sweeping fantasy that award-winning author Franny Billingsley calls "fascinating and unique," debut author Kathy MacMillan weaves palace intrigue and epic world-building to craft a tale for fans of Rae Carson and Megan Whalen Turner. Raisa was just a child when she was sold into slavery in the kingdom of Qilara. Before she was taken away, her father had been adamant that she learn to read and write. But where she now lives, literacy is a capital offense for all but the nobility. The written language is closely protected, and only the King, Prince, Tutor, and Tutor-in-training are allowed to learn its very highest form. So when she is plucked from her menial labor and selected to replace the last Tutor-in-training who was executed, Raisa knows that betraying any hint of her past could mean death. Keeping her secret guarded is hard enough, but the romance that's been blossoming between her and Prince Mati isn't helping matters. Then Raisa is approached by the Resistance—an underground rebel army—to help liberate the city's slaves. She wants to free her people, but that would mean aiding a war against Mati. As Raisa struggles with what to do, she discovers a secret that the Qilarites have been hiding for centuries—one that, if uncovered, could bring the kingdom to its knees.

Dagger and Coin

Dagger and Coin
Author: Kathy MacMillan
Publisher: HarperCollins
Total Pages: 374
Release: 2018-10-09
Genre: Young Adult Fiction
ISBN: 0062324667

"Rich in politics, intrigue, and betrayal, Dagger and Coin is a complex feminist fantasy featuring a tough and prickly ex-princess that I couldn't help but adore."—Heidi Heilig, author of The Girl from Everywhere The sequel to Sword and Verse follows a familiar face—Soraya—as she attempts to rebuild a nation after the downfall of the monarchy. Readers who love Rae Carson and Kristen Cashore won’t be able to put this fantasy down. Soraya Gamo was meant to be queen of Qilara, until an Arnath slave rebellion upended the social order and destroyed the capital city. Now, improbably, she sits on the new ruling council beside Mati, Raisa, and Jonis from Book 1, and must work with her former enemies. She finally holds the political power she always wanted—but over a nation in ruins. As she helps to rebuild Qilara, she can, at last, use what everyone once told her to hide: her brain. But not everyone is ready to accept that the Arnathim are no longer enslaved to the Qilarites. So when a slave ship arrives in the city, full of Arnathim captured before Qilara fell, the civil unrest that has been bubbling since the rebellion erupts. Forced to confront her own prejudices, Soraya struggles to gain the trust of the Arnath people she once disregarded and establish peace in what has become chaos. With the threat of attacks high, Gelti, a former guard captain, trains Soraya in self-defense. As the two grow close, tension within the city ramps up, with danger, betrayal, and deception meeting Soraya everywhere she turns. Friends become foes, adversaries become companions, and the clashing of classes threatens to unravel all the good Soraya has been trying to do. Can Soraya, raised to be a submissive Qilarite lady, learn to be a true leader? Or will the sins of her past forever haunt the footsteps of her future?

Laying Down the Sword

Laying Down the Sword
Author: Philip Jenkins
Publisher: Harper Collins
Total Pages: 273
Release: 2011-10-25
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0062098551

Commands to kill, to commit ethnic cleansing, to institutionalize segregation, to hate and fear other races and religions—all are in the Bible, and all occur with a far greater frequency than in the Qur’an. But fanaticism is no more hard-wired in Christianity than it is in Islam. In Laying Down the Sword, “one of America’s best scholars of religion” (The Economist) explores how religions grow past their bloody origins, and delivers a fearless examination of the most violent verses of the Bible and an urgent call to read them anew in pursuit of a richer, more genuine faith. Christians cannot engage with neighbors and critics of other traditions—nor enjoy the deepest, most mature embodiment of their own faith—until they confront the texts of terror in their heritage. Philip Jenkins identifies the “holy amnesia” that, while allowing scriptural religions to grow and adapt, has demanded a nearly wholesale suppression of the Bible’s most aggressive passages, leaving them dangerously dormant for extremists to revive in times of conflict. Jenkins lays bare the whole Bible, without compromise or apology, and equips us with tools for reading even the most unsettling texts, from the slaughter of the Canaanites to the alarming rhetoric of the book of Revelation. Laying Down the Sword presents a vital framework for understanding both the Bible and the Qur’an, gives Westerners a credible basis for interaction and dialogue with Islam, and delivers a powerful model for how a faith can grow from terror to mercy.

The Sword Verse

The Sword Verse
Author: Malek Meselmani
Publisher:
Total Pages:
Release: 2015-04-15
Genre:
ISBN: 9781935577331

The thoughtful reader of the Qur'ān will probably pause in confusion, for how does one reconcile this verse with tens of other verses that call for tolerance, such as Q 2.256 (Pickthall trans.): "There is no compulsion in religion...." The baffled reader encounters two contrasting spirits, as if facing the conflicted protagonist of Robert Louis Stevenson's novella The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. A kind of schizophrenia seems incarnated in the Qur'ān with its verses of peace (which resemble the character of Dr. Jekyll) and its verses of killing (which reflect the character of Mr. Hyde), and the reader is left to ponder these questions:Why does the Qur'ān's text present a double personality?How can a Muslim take the Qur'ān as the guide for living one's life when it has two contrasting spirits?Which should the Muslim follow: the verses that reflect Jekyll or Hyde?

Holy Bible (NIV)

Holy Bible (NIV)
Author: Various Authors,
Publisher: Zondervan
Total Pages: 6793
Release: 2008-09-02
Genre: Bibles
ISBN: 0310294142

The NIV is the world's best-selling modern translation, with over 150 million copies in print since its first full publication in 1978. This highly accurate and smooth-reading version of the Bible in modern English has the largest library of printed and electronic support material of any modern translation.

Afraid of All the Things

Afraid of All the Things
Author: Scarlet Hiltibidal
Publisher: B&H Publishing Group
Total Pages: 272
Release: 2019-01-15
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1535905948

What does the gospel say about your fears? What does it say about the irrational ones, like sinkholes in the Target parking lot? How does it speak to the rational ones, like pet scan predictions? And does the gospel have a word for the fears you feel you'll have for life, like the possibility of losing the one you love most? Growing up in the green room of SNL, being born to a fire-eater and adopted by a SWAT cop, having internal organs explode, and adopting a deaf girl from China, Scarlet Hiltibidal has been given some strange life experiences—and lived in fear through most of them. But life changed for Scarlet when she learned to hold the gospel up to her fears. She realized that though she can't fix herself or protect herself, Jesus walked into this broken, sad, scary place to rescue, love, and cast out her—and your—fear. Seeing life in light of the cross will help you avoid fear, overcome fear when you can’t avoid it, and live beyond fear when you don’t overcome it. You don't have to be afraid of all the things.

Fight

Fight
Author: Preston M. Sprinkle
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2013
Genre: Nonviolence
ISBN: 9781434704924

In a world of violence, how can Christians live out Jesus' command to "love our enemies"? New York Times bestselling author Preston Sprinkle challenges us to consider a biblical response to violence.

The First Book of Swords

The First Book of Swords
Author: Fred Saberhagen
Publisher: JSS Literary Productions, LLC
Total Pages: 247
Release: 2020-02-13
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0979625718

Vulcan the god has a hard task to perform for his bored and restless colleagues — forge 12 magic Swords, quenched with human blood, and scatter them across the world. Each Sword possesses a different power. With them the gods will play a new, grand, and glorious Game. Mere humans foolishly striving for dominion, wealth and glory, are invited to risk their puny lives by joining in. (Later, the gods realize with horror that something has gone wrong in the forging, and with the Game. The Swords are much too powerful, controlling chance, enhancing fortune, changing destiny. And lethal even to their divine creators.) Jord the Smith, drafted to help Vulcan in his task, loses his right arm in the process (receiving the Sword Townsaver as pay). He is too weak to claim Mala, his bride-to-be, who joins a traditional fertility rite, where her partner might be the enigmatic Emperor, his face hidden by a leather mask. Nine months later, she gives birth to Mark. Thirteen years pass, then Townsaver wipes out a raiding party on orange-furred warbeasts, sent to Mark’s village. It falls to Mark to carry the blade away to hide or destroy it.

Girls with Swords

Girls with Swords
Author: Lisa Bevere
Publisher: WaterBrook
Total Pages: 242
Release: 2014-02-18
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0307457826

A passionate call for Christian women to effectively "wield the sword" of their God-given feminine strength against any evil that threatens them and those they love. What if you discovered you have been entrusted with an invisible, invincible, and incorruptible weapon? Would you use it? In a day of worldwide trafficking, gendercide, discrimination, and other hostility against women, Lisa Bevere points to a biblical foundation to present a model of feminine strength that will empower women to live confidently. Drawing on the many references to swords throughout Scripture, the author constructs a revealing and compelling female paradigm that will impact every area of a woman's self identity, spiritual awareness, relationships, and life vision and mission. Long known for her passionate and articulate expression of biblical womanhood, Bevere presents fresh imagery--as enticing and strong as polished steel--to prepare women boldly for the challenges they face in today's world. It's not enough to just be wise and strong: Now a woman must know how to wield her sword. Creatively forging the imagery of swords, the Word of God, and the Cross, Girls with Swords will teach you: • How to speak the language of heaven on earth • What it means to intercede • What it means to carry your cross • What it means to be discerning • How to disarm the enemy • Why women are the enemy’s target—and why God needs them to be heroes It’s time to take up your sword and be a hero.

Christianity in the Greco-Roman World

Christianity in the Greco-Roman World
Author: Moyer V. Hubbard
Publisher: Baker Academic
Total Pages: 381
Release: 2010-01-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1441237097

Background becomes foreground in Moyer Hubbard's creative introduction to the social and historical setting for the letters of the Apostle Paul to churches in Asia Minor and Europe. Hubbard begins each major section with a brief narrative featuring a fictional character in one of the great cities of that era. Then he elaborates on various aspects of the cultural setting related to each particular vignette, discussing the implications of those venues for understanding Paul's letters and applying their message to our lives today. Addressing a wide array of cultural and traditional issues, Hubbard discusses: • religion and superstition • education, philosophy, and oratory • urban society • households and family life in the Greco-Roman world This work is based on the premise that the better one understands the historical and social context in which the New Testament (and Paul's letters) was written, the better one will understand the writings of the New Testament themselves. Passages become clearer, metaphors deciphered, and images sharpened. Teachers, students, and laypeople alike will appreciate Hubbard's unique, illuminating, and well-researched approach to the world of the early church.