Robert L Foster

Tucked away at the end of the Minor Prophets, the Books of Haggai and Zechariah offer messages of challenge and hope to residents of the small district of Yehud in the Persian Empire in the generations after the return from Babylonian exile. In this volume, Robert Foster focuses on the distinct theological message of each book. The Book of Haggai uses Israel's foundational event - God's salvation of Israel from Egypt - to exhort the people to finish building the Second Temple. The Book of Zechariah argues that the hopes the people had in the prophet Zechariah's days did not come true because the people failed to keep God's long-standing demand for justice, though hope still lies in the future because of God's character. Each chapter in this book closes with a substantive reflection of the ethics of the major sections of the Books of Haggai and Zechariah and their implications for contemporary readers.

Tucked away at the end of the Minor Prophets, the Books of Haggai and Zechariah offer messages of challenge and hope to residents of the small district of Yehud in the Persian Empire in the generations after the return from Babylonian exile. In this volume, Robert Foster focuses on the distinct theological message of each book. The Book of Haggai uses Israel's foundational event - God's salvation of Israel from Egypt - to exhort the people to finish building the Second Temple. The Book of Zechariah argues that the hopes the people had in the prophet Zechariah's days did not come true because the people failed to keep God's long-standing demand for justice, though hope still lies in the future because of God's character. Each chapter in this book closes with a substantive reflection of the ethics of the major sections of the Books of Haggai and Zechariah and their implications for contemporary readers.

The Book of Psalms includes some of the most impassioned language about God in the Old Testament. At the same time, the psalms as a collection constitute one of the most impassioned debates about the nature and activity of God on behalf of individuals, Israel, and the created order. In this learned yet accessible volume, Robert Foster offers the first major introduction to this debate about the person and work of God as it unfolds in the Book of Psalms. If God is the Just King, why does this King delay vindicating the oppressed and saving them from wicked oppressors? What happens when God turns in divine judgment against the people of Israel? Does God keep the promise God made to king of Zion and the covenant made with the people of Israel? Do the psalmists find God faithful and so worthy of the final commands in the Psalter to “Praise the LORD”? These powerful questions drive the debate within the Book of Psalms. By attending to the rhetoric of the psalmists’, Foster shows how the individual psalmists appeal to God in prayer and proclamation and how these contrasting voices give life to the Psalter and to its presentation of the living God.

What do you wonder about? What Is . . . discusses material that perplexes most people at some point in their life. What is time? Is it an illusion? What is the origin of the universe? What is the origin of animal life on Earth? Mass, charge, and spin are the three properties of elementary particles. What are mass, charge, and spin? What is consciousness? What is the answer to the hard problem of consciousness? What is the mind? How does the brain store and retrieve our memories? How is the sex one identifies with (that is one's gender-male or female) determined? What are data, information, knowledge, and wisdom? Can luck change the course of history? These things and so much more are covered here. Dare to open your mind and imagination to the way things we all wonder about work. This book will make you think, inspire you to deduce-on your own-additional truths about nature, and also give you a leg up in your own studies.

What do you wonder about? What Is . . . discusses material that perplexes most people at some point in their life. What is time? Is it an illusion? What is the origin of the universe? What is the origin of animal life on Earth? Mass, charge, and spin are the three properties of elementary particles. What are mass, charge, and spin? What is consciousness? What is the answer to the hard problem of consciousness? What is the mind? How does the brain store and retrieve our memories? How is the sex one identifies with (that is one's gender-male or female) determined? What are data, information, knowledge, and wisdom? Can luck change the course of history? These things and so much more are covered here. Dare to open your mind and imagination to the way things we all wonder about work. This book will make you think, inspire you to deduce-on your own-additional truths about nature, and also give you a leg up in your own studies.