Product Description

A Masterpiece in Narrative Ecclesiology

Watch the New Testament come alive! Understand God's Word like never before!

The New Testament is often hard to understand. A major reason is because it is not arranged in chronological order. Paul's letters, for example, are arranged by size rather than chronologically. This makes the New Testament a bit like a Chinese puzzle! For this reason, one famous Bible scholar said that reading the New Testament letters is like hearing one end of a phone conversation. The book you hold in your hands reconstructs the other end so that you can understand virtually every word.

"The Untold Story of the New Testament Church" is a unique Bible handbook that weaves Acts and the Epistles together chronologically . . . creating one fluid story. This epic volume gives readers a first-hand account of the New Testament drama that is riveting and enlightening. It includes dates, maps, and background information about the people, the cities, and the events of the first-century church using a "you-are-there" approach.

Get up-close and personal with apostles Paul, Peter, James and John and learn of their personal struggles. Understand the circumstances behind each inspired letter they penned. Watch the chaotic swirl of first-century people and events fall into place before your very eyes. Discover what Paul's "thorn in the flesh" really was. Learn what happened to all the apostles after the book of Acts was finished. Be ushered into the living, breathing atmosphere of the first century and uncover the hidden riches found in God's Word.

"Frank Viola has produced a useful and engaging account of the New Testament Church, helpfully setting people and events within their first-century cultural context. While not everyone will agree with every detail of the author's reconstruction or theological interpretation, for any such retelling unavoidably involves some interpretation, still this account helps contemporary believers more fully appreciate the remarkable dynamism of our earliest Christian forebears."
Howard Snyder, Professor of History and Theology of Mission, Asbury Theological Seminary, author of "The Problem of Wineskins" and "The Community of the King."

"Many of us have been challenged by Frank's previous books examining New Testament church life and practice. Now with this story, focused on helping us see the church in its New Testament context, but in appropriate chronological order, we are greatly helped to understand the various letters of the New Testament. When you see the writings of Peter and Paul and John and the context into which they wrote, it helps make the why of their letters as clear as the what! Read this book at one sitting and you will marvel as the story of the early church unfolds before your very eyes."
Tony Dale, editor House 2 House magazine

"This volume has provided much needed information that is now in one place for the first time! Read it as I did with a highlighter pen in hand! Thanks, Frank, for the way you let the Lord use you in preparing this for the rest of us!"
Ralph W. Neighbour, Jr., author of Where Shall We Go From Here?

"Frank Viola has given us a different kind of church history, a history not of the institution but of the Body. It focuses on the people of God and their struggles; on Paul and his converts, enemies, disciples, and friends; on Peter and John and the churches they birthed and raised. Frank's book emphasizes what went forward among the saints to create eternal value rather than what happened politically to create the church of subsequent centuries. Although most history is written by the winners to justify their victory, The Untold Story gives us a history of the early churches as God's own people, whether they were ultimately victorious or troubled."
Hal Miller, author of Christian Community: Biblical or Optional?

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #16786 in Books
• Published on: 2005-01-01
• Format: Illustrated
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 208 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780768422368
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From the Publisher
Casting Doubt on the Historical Record of the Bible, the DaVinci Code and Gospel of Judas, Foment Confusion

New book unveils a brand new way to approach the New Testament - a narrative chronology

The Bible has always had its critics. With Biblical and historical illiteracy at an all-time high, people are gullible to swallow any lie, as long as it has a persuasive package. The Da Vinci Code (Daniel Brown) and recently discovered Gospel of Judas are but two examples. These foster doubt about the credibility of the canon and leave unwitting Christians wondering what is genuine and what is fictional. In The Untold Story of the New Testament Church (Destiny Image), Frank Viola expertly weaves the entire New Testament into a single synchronous story. He intersperses the story with often-fascinating history and background on each book of the New Testament. More important, he helps readers understand what is happening behind the scenes, from the rise of Emperor Nero to a clear explanation of Paul's travails—including his "thorn in the flesh."

This approach has never been done before. Noted scholar F.F. Bruce once said that reading the New Testament letters like hearing one end of a phone conversation. The Untold Story reconstructs the other side of that converstation creating one fluid story of the early church.

To Viola and other Christian scholars, the Bible needs no fictionalized redrafting to add to its historic accuracy. It remains the most enticing literature ever written. Rather, findings like the Gospel of Judas pick up where earlier findings such as The Gospel of Thomas, Secret Book of John and the Gospel of Mary started. The present-day insinuation that Judas was a "hero" points to our own twistedness; our need for dark heroes. It minimizes true martyrdom and uncovers our penchant for perverting the truth.

In The Untold Story, Viola re-sequences the books of the New Testament (in proper order) and helps us see what he calls "The big picture." The birth of the early church, full of intrigue, action and conflict, is anything but dull. He disdains the modern proclivity toward a cut-and-paste approach to scripture which takes individual verses out of context. By doing so, he explains, anyone can justify any behavior. He says this practice of building "floatable doctrines" undermines truth just as it did in the first century A.D.

"Without understanding the historical context of the New Testament," says Viola, "Christians have managed to build doctrines and invent practices that have fragmented the Body of Christ into thousands of denominations." Most of us have learned the story of Christianity in bits and pieces, all out of sequence. The Untold Story of the New Testament Church puts all of these bits and pieces together in understandable sequence. By so doing, we are given a picture of the early church that is accurate, revolutionary, and life-changing. It is also one that will help us to easily spot error and bogus revisionist theories that purport to tell us what really happened 2,000 years ago.

BOOK OVERVIEW The Bible is true and accurate in every respect but it isn't necessarily laid out in chronological order. Frank Viola painstakingly lays out the books of the New Testament and adds historical and sociological background. In a day where we are looking for the authentic, we so readily fall for the fictional. What was going on behind the scenes when Paul was writing his letters? How and where did the apostles die? How did Emperor Nero's wicked influence accelerate the spread of Christianity? What really was Paul's thorn in the flesh? No matter how many times a person has read the New Testament, Viola provides a rendering that will fascinate and inform. More important, in an era where truth is unclear, The Untold Story illuminates as well as encourages.

About the Author
Frank Viola is one of the most influential figures connected to the "New Revolution" of simple church and emerging house churches today. He is the author of six highly acclaimed books on radical church restoration, including "Rethinking the Wineskin," "Who is Your Covering?," "Pagan Christianity," "So You Want to Start a House Church?," and "The Untold Story of the New Testament Church." Frank lives in Gainesville, Florida.

Customer Reviews

Must read for everyone!
Most Christians have no idea what really happened in the first-century church. In fact, we have many misconceptions about the early church because our approach to the New Testament is misguided.

The reason for this is simple, yet mostly unknown. The books of the New Testament are not arranged in chronological order! Paul's letters, for instance, which make up most of the New Testament, are arranged according to size instead of chronologically. Therefore, it's difficult to know what happened when because we don't read our New Testaments chronologically. To put it another way, we simply don't know "the story" of the first-century church because we have never read it in its historical order.

Further, because our New Testament is not in chronological order, we cannot understand the letters from the perspective of the people who received them. Nor from the perspective of those who wrote them. We are ignorant of the cultural, the social, and the political environment behind the New Testament books. Instead, we learn chapters and verses, out of context. This is one reason why there are so many divisions in the church today. It is because anyone can prove any doctrine or practice by cutting and pasting verses together when they are lifted out of their historical, chronological context.

There is now a remedy for this. Frank Viola has written a masterful New Testament handbook that puts the entire first-century story together in an understandable way. In, The Untold Story of the New Testament Church, Frank takes all the New Testament books and puts them in their proper chronological order. He then "fills in" all the historical details behind each book, giving us a complete picture of what really happened in the first century. The book of Acts is weaved together with all of the New Testament letters, giving us a first-hand "you-are-there" narrative of the entire saga of the early church. The book includes maps, dates, and much more. After reading you feel as if you were transported back in time. Now each NT book comes alive, you understand what is going on, why Paul or James or Peter is writing these letters.

This book revolutionized my understanding of the New Testament, and I believe it will do the same for all who read it! We have used this book as a family reading through it from cover to cover. The book has the NT books listed in their order and we at each point stop and read that NT book from chapter to chapter. We have thoroughly enjoyed reading the NT using the book as a handbook.

Jimmy Bartles
I have to disagree with the previous reviewer. I have read Gene Edwards books on the early church and there is a night and day difference between this volume and those books. Viola documents his narrative with a vast amount of scripture and historical texts that appear in endnotes after every chapter. This book draws heavily from the research of Frederick Fyvie Bruce, who I studied in college. I have a friend who teaches seminary and he is using this volume for his course on New Testament survey. If you are looking for a well-researched, documented narrative of the early church as well as a complete picture of the historical setting behind each epistle based on solid biblical scholarship, this book is a great starting point.

Eye opening!
The "Untold Story of the New Testament Church" is one of the best written, most informative books I've ever read. It is eye opening, I would like to get it into the hands of every pastor and elder I know. I have already purchased three additional copies to pass around. This is must reading for anyone wanting to come into a deeper understanding of the early history of the church.