Portraits of God: A Biblical Theology of Holiness, By Allan Coppedge

Portraits of God

A Biblical Theology of Holiness

by Allan Coppedge

Portraits of God
paperback
  • Length: 432 pages
  • Dimensions: 6 × 9 in
  • Published: November 07, 2008
  • Imprint: IVP Academic
  • Item Code: 3864
  • ISBN: 9780830838646

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What is God like?

Answering this is the great quest of human existence.

Because God is so different from us, we struggle to describe him. While doctrinal statements about God certainly have their place in Christian understanding, the Bible more often uses God's actions and roles to help us know him better. Indeed, some of the most helpful insights in Scripture arise when God is compared to something else: a rock, an eagle or a tower. And many "human" metaphors--metaphors taken from the world of actions and relationships--bring us even closer to understanding God.

In Portraits of God, Allan Coppedge suggests we look carefully at God as our Father, Redeemer, King, Judge, Priest and Creator. These portraits taken together give us an understaning of the Holy One for which no single category is adequate. These images work their way through the whole of Scripture. They are the doorway allowing us into the mysteries of God's very being.

In Portraits of God, Coppedge offers a comprehensive survey, picturing a God who wants to be known personally and who has profoundly communicated himself. Coppedge finds the inexhaustible nature of God to be one of holiness reflected in and best described by the language of diverse roles. Approaching God in this way transforms us, as churches and individuals, to reflect God's own holy character.

This is a book for students, pastors and churchgoers alike. Anyone desiring to know more deeply and wholly the Christian God revealed in the Bible will find in Portraits of God a treasure of scholarship and truth.

CONTENTS

Abbreviations
Introduction
1. Biblical Roles of God: An Overview
2. The Unity of the Roles
3. Holy God as Transcendant Creator
4. Holy God as Sovereign King
5. Holy God as Personal Revealer
6. Holy God as Priest
7. Holy God as Righteous Judge
8. Holy God as Loving Father
9. Holy God as Powerful Redeemer
10. Holy God as Good Shepherd
11. The Implications of Roles
Bibliography
Names Index
Subject Index by Theme
Scripture Index

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Allan Coppedge

Allan Coppedge (Ph.D., University of Cambridge) is Beeson Professor of Christian Theology at Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore, Kentucky, where he has taught for more than twenty years. He has written Portraits of God: A Biblical Theology of Holiness; John Wesley in Theological Debate: Predestination, Perfection, and Pluralism in the 18th-Century Revival and The Biblical Principles of Discipleship. He is also coauthor of In His Image: A Workbook on Scriptural Holiness. He has written four Key Idea Books including God's Purposes for You, Setting the Pace, When the Holy Spirit Comes and The Promise of Something More. Coppedge has completed postdoctoral work at Johns Hopkins University. He is president of the Barnabas Foundation, a discipleship training organization for students and local churches, and he has served as dean and professor of Old Testament at the Biblical Seminary of Colombia in Medellín, Colombia.