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by John R. Adolph (Author)
Not long ago, I prayerfully sought the Lord on the subject matter for a new series to teach the Antioch church and could sense the pressing of the Holy Spirit to lead the flock over which He has given me charge about "Him." To empower my study and enhance my substance, I walked into a neighboring Christian bookstore and asked an attendant for a good book about "Him"-to which the attendant said, "All we have for that kind of study is the Bible." I quickly agreed that the Bible would, of course, be the root reference material to guide my study, but I wanted a book that would take the titles given for Jesus Christ in the Scriptures and teach me what each of them meant. To my surprise, the clerk in the store politely told me, "We don't carry a book like that." When I heard this, I was astonished beyond description.
I took a stroll around the bookstore and took note of the plenteous books. There were books for almost everything, but no existing book presented Jesus Christ in type, symbol, and direct statement. No one book would take the titles of Jesus Christ and teach them with clarity, simplicity, doctrinal soundness, and godly integrity. Thus, the genesis of this project started its spiritual formulation. When I returned to my humble abode, I sat and prayerfully decided that instead of looking for a book of this magnitude, I would work diligently with some of the greatest theological minds of our day to produce it. Thus, the information shared in this book would be for the Christocentric growth of Disciples of Jesus around the world to utilize.
Thus, the purpose of this work is not to set forth some theological treatise that will serve as a plat-form of debate in days to come, even though this document does contain theology. This work is not an exegetical reprise produced for systematic theologians to grapple along the circumference of its depth-though it does indeed hold a degree of systematic theology. This text is not a hymn book, filled with songs whose lyrics are rooted in doctrinal truth-yet the book will contain the great hymns of the church. This book is a Christological anthology whose sole purpose is to take the titles of Jesus Christ ascribed to Him in the Scriptures and have the most phenomenal pastors of our age share "Him" with the world-and celebrate Him with great hymns that move the human heart with His redemptive love expressed at Calvary. In short, this book is where the sermon and the song meet at the foot of the Cross.
This work will present six significant shifts per chapter: (1) the author, (2) the Christocentric title and passage, (3) the great hymn of the church, (4) a moment of prayer bearing the title "Now Unto Him," followed by (5) the essay and concluding with (6) another great hymn of the church. Welcome to the first-ever HIM Book!
