“Reading the Scriptures with the Church Fathers” by Christopher Hall

“Learning to read the Bible through the eyes of Christians from a different time and place will readily reveal the distorting effect of our own cultural, historical, linguistic, philosophical and, yes, even theological lenses. This is not to assert that the fathers did not have their own warped perspectives and blind spots.
It is to argue, [...]

“By comparison, we are pygmies” by Donald Macleod

“We can never be content with parrot-like repetition of the definitions of the past. Yet it would be presumptuous to speak before we have listened to the fathers. Men like Athanasius and Augustine, Basil and Calvin, are the Newtons and Einsteins of theology. By comparison, we are pygmies. Our only hope of far-sightedness is to [...]

“The most edifying product of Augustine’s pen” by Philip Schaff

“The Confessions are the most profitable, at least the most edifying, product of Augustine’s pen; indeed, we may say, the most edifying book in all the patristic literature. They were accordingly the most read even during his lifetime, and they have been the most frequently published since. A more sincere and more earnest book was never written… [...]

“The study of Augustine” by Peter Brown

“The study of Augustine is endless.”
–Peter Brown, Augustine of Hippo: A Biography (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1967/2000), x.

“My dear and faithful wife” by William Kiffin

“It pleased the Lord to take to Himself, my dear and faithful wife, with whom I had lived nearly forty-two years; whose tenderness to me, and faithfulness to God, were such as cannot, by me, be expressed, as she constantly sympathised with me in all my afflictions. I can truly say, I never heard her [...]

“A stereotyped impression at best” by George Marsden

“Jonathan Edwards is, by all accounts, one of the most remarkable figures in American history. More broadly, he is one of the most influential and respected Americans in the history of Christianity. Yet he is not as well known or understood as he should be. Most people who know anything about him recall only something [...]

“The faith the Church has received” by Irenaeus of Lyons (A.D. 115-202)

“The Church, though dispersed through our the whole world, even to the ends of the earth, has received from the apostles and their disciples this faith: She believes in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all things that are in them.
And in one Christ Jesus, the Son [...]

“We meet together” by Tertullian of Carthage (A.D. 160-212)

“We meet together as an assembly and congregation, that, offering up prayer to God as with united force, we may wrestle with Him in our supplications. This violence God delights in. We pray, too, for the emperors, for their ministers and for all in authority, for the welfare of the world, for the prevalence of [...]

“On the day called Sunday” by Justin Martyr (A.D. 110-165)

“And on the day called Sunday, all who live in cities or in the country gather together to one place, and the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read, as long as time permits; then, when the reader has ceased, the overseer verbally instructs, and exhorts to the imitation of [...]

“We need intimate knowledge of the past” by C. S. Lewis

“Most of all, perhaps, we need intimate knowledge of the past. Not that the past has any magic about it, but because we cannot study the future, and yet need something to set against the present, to remind us that the basic assumptions have been quite different in different periods and that much which seems [...]

“The danger in the American church” by Paul Grant

“Twenty-first century Christians stand on the shoulders of far more saints than those mentioned in the Bible. To acquaint oneself with church history is to meet one’s parents. Those who’ve gone before us make it easier for us to live our faith, because we see in their legacy the church’s progress along the race laid [...]

“This ex-Pharisee” by Paul Barnett

“During his decade-long burst of energy he walked thousand of kilometers (almost thirty per day) across forbidding mountain ranges and through arid wastelands proclaiming the message of the crucified but risen Messiah. For preaching a message that was offensive to both Jews and Gentiles he was repeatedly and severely flogged, and on one occasion stoned. [...]

“And then the Spirit came” by Michael Green

“Three crucial decades in world history. That is all it took. In the years between AD 33 and 64 a new movement was born. In those thirty years it got sufficient growth and credibility to become the largest religion the world has ever seen and to change the lives of hundreds of millions of people. [...]

“A Mighty Fortress is Our God” by Martin Luther

“A Mighty Fortress is Our God”
By Martin Luther, 1529
A mighty fortress is our God, a bulwark never failing;
Our helper He, amid the flood of mortal ills prevailing:
For still our ancient foe doth seek to work us woe;
His craft and power are great, and, armed with cruel hate,
On earth is not his equal.
Did we in our [...]

“This young man was Martin Luther” by Roland Bainton

“On a sultry day in July of the year 1505 a lonely traveler was trudging over an arched road on the outskirts of the Saxon village of Stotternheim. He was a young man, short but sturdy, and wore the dress of a university student. As he approached the village, the sky became overcast. Suddenly there [...]