Best Selling Books by Peter J. Leithart

The Federal Vision communicates the importance of applying a more robust Covenant theology to our study of the relationship between obedience and faith, and to the role of the Church and Sacraments in our salvation.

Shakespeare was, as Caesar says of Cassius, "a great observer," able to see and depict patterns of events and character. He understood how politics is shaped by the clash of men with various colorings of self-interest and idealism, how violence breeds violence, how fragile human beings create masks and disguises for protection, how schemers do the same for advancement, how love can grow out of hate and hate out of love. Dare anyone say that these insights are irrelevant to living in the real world? For many in an older generation, the Bible and the Collected Shakespeare were the two indispensable books, and thus their sense of life and history was shaped by the best and best-told stories. And they were the wiser for it. Literature abstracts from the complex events of life (just as we all do in everyday life) and can reveal patterns that are like the patterns of events in the real world. Studying literature can give us sensitivity to those patterns. This sensitivity to the rhythm of life is closely connected with what the Bible calls wisdom.

Gratitude is often understood as etiquette rather than ethics, an emotion rather than politics. It was not always so. From Seneca to Shakespeare, gratitude was a public virtue. The circle of benefaction and return of service worked to make society strong. But at the beginning of the modern era, European thinkers began to imagine a political economy freed from the burdens of gratitude. Though this rethinking was part of a larger process of secularization, it was also a distorted byproduct of an impulse ultimately rooted in the teachings of Jesus and the apostle Paul. Christians believed that God stood at the center of the circle of gratitude. God was the object of thanksgiving and God gave graciously. Thus, Christians taught that grace cancelled the oppressive debts of a purely political gratitude. Gratitude: An Intellectual History examines changing conceptions of gratitude from Homer to the present. In so doing, Peter J. Leithart highlights the profound cultural impact of early Christian "ingratitude," the release of humankind from the bonds of social and political reciprocity by a benevolent God who gave--and who continues to give--graciously.

You''ve been baptized. But do you understand what it means? Baptism is the doorway into membership in the church. It''s a public declaration of the washing away of our sin and the beginning of our new life in Christ. But the sacrament that is meant to unite us is often a spring of division instead. All Christians use water to baptize. All invoke the triune name. Beyond that, there''s little consensus. Talk about baptism and you''re immediately plunged into arguments. Whom should we baptize? What does baptism do? Why even do it at all? Peter Leithart reunifies a church divided by baptism. He recovers the baptismal imagination of the Bible, explaining how baptism works according to Scripture. Then, in conversation with Christian tradition, he shows why baptism is something worth recovering and worth agreeing on.

Worship isn''t a retreat from the political and cultural clashes of our time or preparation for culture-transforming work. Culture is transformed in church liturgy. By working out a biblical theology of worship, Peter J. Leithart shows how the church''s liturgy Christianizes culture, moving creation toward its consummation in the new creation.

In the second volume of his commentary on the gospel of Matthew, Peter Leithart presents a close study of Matthew 13 through 28, underscoring Jesus'' formation of a counter-kingdom that also retells the story of Israel. Jesus is the true Israel who takes on the roles of various Old Testament leaders: Moses the law-giver, Joshua the conqueror, Solomon the philosopher-king, Elisha the wonder-working prophet leading a company of prophets, as well as Jeremiah and Ezekiel warning of the temple''s imminent destruction. Jesus'' interactions with the leaders of Israel recapitulate Yahweh''s tortured interactions with Israel in the Old Testament. In spite of Israel''s repeated rejections, Yahweh never gave up on His beloved. His love is stronger than death, and He returns as the world-emperor to send His new Israel to disciple the nations.

As the modern world crumbles, Christians scramble for answers. The solution is right in front of us - the Christian church, an outpost of the heavenly city among the cities of men. The Theopolitan Vision explains what the church is, and how the Spirit empowers the church''s world-transforming mission through Word and worship, Scripture and liturgy. It shows how the church can be a city of light in a dark age.