Origins of the Creed
If you were a Christian living in the great port city of Alexandria, Egypt in the year 320, your life would likely be full of excitement. Less than 10 years before, the great Emperor Constantine had defeated his enemies, ended…
Tag Church History
Dr. Watts’ Scheme
Isaac Watts wrote nearly 600 hymns in the 18th Century. Churches around the world still sing many today. For instance, if you visited a congregation on any given Sunday in the English speaking world, it would not be a surprise…
Continual Prayer for Revival
In the last post on the revitalization of the eighteenth-century Baptists, we considered the way in which prayer was a central cause. The passing years did not diminish John Sutcliff’s (1752-1814) and Andrew Fuller’s (1754-1815) zeal in praying for revival…
The Origins of a Great Christmas Hymn
One of my favorite hymns of the Advent and Christmas season is O Come, O Come, Emmanuel because of its rich use of biblical imagery to recount the prophetic references to the coming Christ. The Latin text for this hymn…
When “Catholic” is not “Catholic”
Jerry L. Walls and Kenneth J. Collins, Roman but Not Catholic: What Remains at Stake 500 Years after the Reformation, Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Publishing Group, 464 pp. Bibliography and indicies. Paperback. $34.99. The title itself implies a kind of…
When “Catholic” is not “Catholic”
Jerry L. Walls and Kenneth J. Collins, Roman but Not Catholic: What Remains at Stake 500 Years after the Reformation, Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Publishing Group, 464 pp. Bibliography and indicies. Paperback. $34.99. The title itself implies a kind of…
Luther’s Lion-Hearted Historians
Luther expressed his appreciation for history and historians on numerous occasions. History, he believed, provides fodder for both fear and praise since God is sovereign over the course of human events. History records and reminds us how God “upholds, rules,…
The Printing Press and the Protestant Reformation
Johann Gutenberg and the Technology Johann Gutenberg is credited with having developed the movable type printing process sometime before 1450 while living in Strassbourg, but due to the limited information available about him the year is not certain. Gutenberg was…
The Printing Press and the Protestant Reformation
Johann Gutenberg and the Technology Johann Gutenberg is credited with having developed the movable type printing process sometime before 1450 while living in Strassbourg, but due to the limited information available about him the year is not certain. Gutenberg was…
Meet a Puritan: Joseph Alleine
Joseph Alleine (1634-1668) Life Born at Devizes, Wiltshire, Joseph Alleine loved and served the Lord from childhood. A contemporary identified 1645 as the year of Alleine’s “setting forth in the Christian race.” From eleven years of age onward, “the whole…