The store already houses a great list of DVD titles (such as Metamorphosis, The Case for a Creator, and The Privileged Planet) that can be purchased individually or bought together as a set. With more titles on the way, the site looks to be a great place to find resources for individuals, home groups, or even local community events. If you’re interested in joining the conversation and exploring the evidence that certain features of the universe and living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, check out the website at http://www.intelligentdesignfilms.co.nz

The Gospel Coalition has teamed up with Matthias Media to freely host all 31 issues of the acclaimed Christian journal kategoria online. A quarterly journal produced by the Matthias Center for the Study of Modern Beliefs, kategoria was created to provide Christians with tools for critical thinking and research.

In Greek, kategoria literally means “speaking against” and was used by poets and historians of the ancient world to describe the activity of bringing a charge against another party. With essays and reviews on topics such as euthanasia, spirituality, deconstruction, utilitarianism, the kategoria journal sought not just to establish Christianity in the world of ideas but to critically assess and challenge secular thought, its philosophies and ideas.

You can find the full archive at http://thegospelcoalition.org/kategoria

This month, CCI have released a new 25 page article by Danielle Sallade on human flourishing. In the article, Sallade examines the practical aspects of what it means to live a life that might be correctly described as having flourished. Looking particularly at the lives of University students that she interacts with on a daily basis, she agrees with the philosopher, Blaise Pascal, who said that “the sole cause of man’s unhappiness is that he does not know how to stay quietly in his room”. Sallade argues that a “culture of busyness” inhibits our ability to live in right relationship with God, our environment, neighbors, and ourselves. She writes:

I am troubled by this change in students as they progress through their education, and I have wondered what causes it. I think a major reason behind the change is that college students are constantly thinking about how their education is tied to the job they will get or the graduate school they will apply to. Since they know they are competing for a finite number of jobs or graduate school positions, their focus becomes the competition to outperform everyone else or at least stay toward the top of the pool. Their education and extracurricular pursuits become more about résumé-building and standing out from classmates rather than on what they are learning and how they are enjoying their God-given gifts. The same is true for high school students competing for a finite number of college acceptance letters. This causes pressure, fear, and stress, which in turn causes students to overwork and overcommit.

With this as the environment, my colleagues and I have thought much about how to counsel our students to live out their faith in their unique role as students. What should they believe about the purpose of a college education? How should their faith as Christians affect how they should study? How they should manage their time? How they should rest? How might they flourish in the fast-paced, pressure-filled culture they inhabit?

In thinking through the answers to these questions, I have realized that the students’ drive to achieve and outperform others is directly tied to their understanding of the nature of work and their definition of success. Most are working with a worldly viewpoint as their foundation. But as sinners in a fallen world, the worldly viewpoint is flawed and has caused our society to lose a God-centered perspective about work and success. The Bible graciously provides an alternative way to live that is God-centered rather than self-centered. When lived out, the result is freedom from the competitive rat-race and freedom from fear.

Our self-centered rather than God-centered approach has at least three mistakes at its core: (1) We wrongly value certain types of work over others. (2) We place our identity in our work and seek justification through our work. (3) We work as if we were independent operators, solely responsible for our daily provision, forgetting that God is our ultimate provider. These three mistaken perspectives about work affect what people believe about college education, which in turn affects the culture on college campuses today.

You can read the whole article on the Gospel Coalition site or download the PDF here.

Here’s her full outline:

1. The Culture of Busyness

1.1. Value in All Types of Work
1.2. Value in All Types of Work—by Design
1.3. Value in All Types of Work—By Example

2. Identity in Work

2.1. Identity in Christ
2.2. Work That Flows Out of Identity in Christ

3. Depending on God in our Work

3.1. Sabbath
3.2. Focus on Faithfulness

4. Conclusion

Sallade is a graduate of  Princeton University and Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and currently a staff member of Princeton Evangelical Fellowship.

(HT: Andy Naselli)

With that in mind, here are a few resources that might be useful in our reflection and proclamation of the fantastic, life-changing truth of these events.

Books:

The Cross

Jesus, Keep Me Near the Cross: Experiencing the Passion and Power of Easter Edited by Nancy Guthrie, Crossway, 2009.

Scandalous: The Cross and Resurrection of Jesus (RE: Lit) by D. A. Carson, Crossway Books, 2010.

Redemption Accomplished and Applied, John Murray, Eerdmans, 1955.

The Death of Death in the Death of Christ, by John Owen, Banner of Truth, 1959.

The Cross of Christ by John R.W. Stott, InterVarsity, 2006

The Truth of the Cross by R. C. Sproul, Reformation Trust Publishing, 2007.

The Resurrection

The Christ of the Empty Tomb by James Montgomery Boice, P & R Publishing,  2010.

The Resurrection of the Son of God by N. T. Wright, Augsburg Fortress Publishers, 2003.

Jesus’ Resurrection: Fact or Figment?: A Debate Between William Lane Craig and Gerd Ludemann edited by William Lane Craig, Ronald Tacelli, Paul Copan, and Gerd Ludemann InterVarsity Press, 2000.

Assessing the New Testament Evidence for the Historicity of the Resurrection of Jesus by William Lane Craig, Edwin Mellen Press, 1989.

The Resurrection, An Interdisciplinary Symposium on the Resurrection of Jesus edited by Stephen T. Davis, Daniel Kendall, and Gerald O’Collins, Oxford University Press, 1999.

Risen Indeed: Making Sense of the Resurrection by Stephen T. Davis, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1993.

The Son Rises: The Historical Evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus by William L. Craig, Wipf & Stock, 2000.

Raised with Christ: How the Resurrection Changes Everything by Adrian Warnock, Crossway Books (January 31, 2010)

Christopher Price & John Sabatino of CADRE (the Christian Colligation of Apologetics Debate Research & Evangelism) have helpfully posted a review of many of the above books on their site.

Online Articles and E-Books

Fifty Reasons Why Jesus Came to Die by John Piper (Free book made available by Desiring God Ministries)

This Joyful Eastertide: A Critical Review of The Empty Tomb by Steve Hays (Free online book by the bloggers at Triablogue)

The Argument from Miracles: A Cumulative Case for the Resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth by Timothy and Lydia McGrew (75 page pdf article)

Resurrection: God Saves by Mark Driscoll and Gerry Breshear (Free 24-page chapter from their new book, Doctrine: What Christians Should Believe)

He is Risen Indeed by Ben Witherington III (Reproduced from Witherington III’s New Testament History: A Narrative Account)

Evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus by Shandon L. Guthrie

Can the resurrection narratives be harmonized? Articles by J.P. Holding and Glenn Miller

Articles by William Lane Craig:

Contemporary Scholarship and the Historical Evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus Christ

The Bodily Resurrection of Jesus

The Disciples’ Inspection of the Empty Tomb

The Guard at the Tomb

The Historicity of the Empty Tomb of Jesus

Reply to Evan Fales: On the Empty Tomb of Jesus

Articles by Gary Habermas:

Explaining Away Jesus’ Resurrection: The Recent Revival of Hallucination Theories

Jesus’ Resurrection and Contemporay Criticism: An Apologetic: Part 1 and Part 2

The Late Twentieth-Century Resurgence of Naturalistic Responses to Jesus’ Resurrection

Experiences of the Risen Jesus: The Foundational Historical Issue in the Early Proclamation of the Resurrection

Audio

The Evidence for the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth – William Lane Craig

The Resurrection of Jesus Christ: Some Historical Considerations Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3 -  Gary Habermas

Radical Effects of the Resurrection – John Piper

Christ’s Resurrection – Sinclair Ferguson

Jesus is Alive – Mark Dever

The Good News of the Resurrection – Alistair Begg

The Doctrine of the Resurrection Part 1 and Part 2 – Wayne Grudem (Systematic theology class)

Why Does Jesus’ Resurrection Matter? and Q & A at The Vertias Forum- N T Wright

Debates

William Lane Craig and Robert Cavin: Did Jesus Rise From The Dead? (1995)
William Lane Craig and Gerd Ludemann: Did Jesus Rise From The Dead? (1997)
William Lane Craig and Robert Price: Did Jesus of Nazareth Rise From The Dead? (1999)
William Lane Craig and Gerd Ludemann: Jesus’ Resurrection: Fact or Figment? (2002)
William Lane Craig and Hector Avalos: Did Jesus Rise From The Dead? (2004)
William Lane Craig and John Shelby Spong: Did Jesus Rise From The Dead? (2005)
William Lane Craig and Bart Ehrman: Is There Historical Evidence For The Resurrection Of Jesus? (2006) (Transcript also available)
William Lane Craig and James Crossley: Was Jesus Bodily Raised From The Dead? (2007)
William Lane Craig and Roy Hoover: Should We Believe that Jesus’ Resurrection is Historical? (2008)
Bart Ehrman and Michael Licona: Is the Resurrection of Christ Provable? (2008)
Gary R. Habermas and Arif Ahmed: Did Jesus Rise Bodily From the Dead? (2008) PART I PART II PART III PART IV PART V PART VI PART VII PART VIII PART IX
Gary Habermas and Kenneth Humphreys Resurrection – Religious Fiction or Historical Fact? (2008) PART I PART II PART III PART IV PART V PART VI

Watch the video here.