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Resources: Reading over the Fathers’ Shoulders
Here are several good guides to early exegesis, along with some of the best editions of the early interpreters’ own writings.
Compiled by Collin Hansen
Early Voices on Bible Study
The Church Fathers faced two big questions: “What is Scripture?” and “How should we read it?”
The First Bible Teachers: Christian History Timeline
Traditions in Bible Reading
Resources: Go Tell It!
Many are telling the continuing story of the African church. Here are some of the best renditions.
COLLIN HANSEN & CHRIS ARMSTRONG
African Apostles: Christian History Timeline
Midwife of the Christian Bible
Irenaeus identified the books of the New Testament, then showed the church how they fit with the Old.
Fr. John Behr
The First Bible Teachers: Did You Know?
Interesting and unusual facts about the church's first Bible interpreters
The First Bible Teachers: From The Editor - The Founding Fathers We Never Knew
Chris Armstrong
By Chris Armstrong
The Habits of Highly Effective Bible Readers
What we can learn from the church fathers that will enrich our own Bible study.
A conversation with Christopher A. Hall
Why the Reformers Read the Fathers
The First Battle For the Bible
A century after Christ's death, a literalist and a spiritualizer forced the church to choose how it would read the Scriptures it inherited from the Jews
Joseph T. Lienhard, S.J.
Origen: Friend or Foe?
By turns bizarre and insightful, Origen's allegorical forays remain fascinating reading today.
John R. Franke
Too Racy for Bible Study
Origen could not believe the Song of Songs was a hymn to erotic love. So what did it mean?
Warren Smith
Opponents of Allegory
The scholars at Antioch rejected allegory in favor of history. But their interpretive method led some into heresy.
Steven Gertz
Scripture Saturation
To achieve holiness, believed the early monks, you must soak in the moral sense of the Word.
Patrick Henry Reardon
Origen's Monastic Legacy
Three Wise Men from the East
The Cappadocian Fathers brought the best gift of all: a powerful scriptural defense of the Trinity and Christ's divinity against the Arian heretics.
Edwin Woodruff Tait and Chris Armstrong
Classical Ear-Training
What the church fathers heard in Homer and Virgil tuned them to the harmonies of Scripture
Christopher A. Hall
Augustine's Key
The West's foremost theologian offered a single principle by which even the unlearned could unlock Scripture's meaning.
Gerald Bray
Augustine vs. Literalism
Why he was so fond of spiritual Scripture interpretation
The African Apostles: Did You Know?
The rapidity of Africa's twentieth-century baptism was stunning. There's no better place to see the future of the global church.
by Chris Armstrong and Collin Hansen
Anatomy of an Explosion
It's an indelible image: the white missionary venturing into deepset Africa. But the real story is what happened when African converts relayed the gospel message in their own words.
an interview with Dr. Ogbu Kalu
Bishop Before His Time
Samuel Ajayi Crowther's consecration as the first African Anglican bishop looked like a great leap forward for the church. But the talented ex-slave collided with the roadblock of racism
Ted Olsen
Pioneer of Self-Euthanizing Missions
To Henry Venn, a mission's only purpose was to render itself unnecessary.
Ted Olsen
Holy Johnson and the Ethiopian Church
Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her hands unto God, said the Psalm. Yet racism in the mission churches clouded that vision. James Johnson (1836-1917) offered a solution.
Ted Olsen
The Brilliant Career of Joseph Kiwanuka
Over the protests of a divided church, the scholarly Ugandan priest became the first African Catholic bishop. Just three years after his death, 12 more Africans would follow in his footsteps.
Sarah E. Dahl
The Prospect Terrified Me
Apolo Kivebulaya, a convert from Islam, bravely preached to witch doctors, hostile chieftains, and Pygmy tribes.
Steven Gertz
A Soul of Fire
William Wade Harris - a Liberian activist - left an unsuccessful local ministry to trail across the Ivory Coast. In 18 months, he baptized 100,000 converts.
Elizabeth Isichei
African Family Values
Harris was one of several indigenous Christian leaders who took an open approach to polygamy. They cited social conditions and biblical support.
Elizabeth Isichei
A Hunger For Holiness
East Africa's second generation Christians faced that age-old spiritual problem - dullness of hearts. Simeon Nsibambi's message of a victorious life sparked a revival that continues today.
Mark Shaw
The People's Prophet
Simon Kimbangu's brief but powerful ministry inspired faith in Central Africans and fear in white authorities. Imprisoned for stirring up the Congolese people, Kimbangu became the catalyst for Africa's largest independent church.
Steve Rabey
Supernatural Faith
Known for their fidelity to prayer and confrontation with the spirits of indigenous religion, West Africa's Aladura churches grew from the radical faith of a group of visionary leaders.
by Elizabeth Isichei and Robert Schirmer
A Transatlantic Alliance
Two South Africans changed their country by linking their church with an African American church
Joan Millard
A Leopard Among the Bannas
Mahay Choramo faced down hardship and violent opposition to the murderous nomads of Ethiopia's southern frontier.
Aaron Belz
J.R.R. Tolkien: Did You Know?
Windows on the life and work of J.R.R. Tolkien
Chris Armstrong and Steven Gertz
J.R.R. Tolkien: From the Editor - He Gave Us Back Myth and with it, Truth
Chris Armstrong
Meeting Professor Tolkien
An American professor spent a summer with Tolkien. He remembers the man, his faith, and his writings.
Clyde S. Kilby
Tolkien: Man Behind the Myth
At odds with his age, he created another.
Bradley J. Birzer
A Feeling for Language
Without philology, Middle-earth would never have exisited. But what is philology?
Tom Shippey
The Christian Humanists
Tolkien joined these authors in countering the decadence of a dark century.
Joseph Pearce
One Truth, Many Tales
How did tolkien's approach to writing for a secularizing world compare with those of his Christian contemporaries?
David Mills
Sacramental Imagination
Catholicism anchored Tolkien's life and suffused his writings.
Thomas Howard
The Life and Times of J.R.R. Tolkien: Christian History Timeline
Good & Evil in Middle-earth
The characters are mythic, but the epic sweeps across a Christian moral landscape.
Ralph C. Wood
J.R.R. Tolkien: The Gallery - The Inklings
Tolkien relished his weekly meetings with this club of remarkable friends.
Jennifer Lynn Woodruff--Old Boys and Ivory Towers, Thomas Howard--The Key Inkling, Edwin Tait--The Medium is the Message
Tollers & Jack
Tolkien and Lewis made an odd couple, but the contributed profoundly to each other's work.
Colin Duriez
Hobbits & Englishmen
His were small people surmounting impossible odds.
Humphrey Carpenter
Father of Epic Fantasy
Scores of authors have paid Tolkien the highest homage - imitation.
Aaron Belz
An Unexpected Party
Like Bilbo discovering one dwarf after another at his door, Tolkien found himself, in the 1960s, hosting a growing American fan club.
Michael Foster
Understanding Tolkien: Recommended Resources
From light romps to profound reads, a bumper crop of books tells us more about the maker of Middle-earth.
Steven Gertz and Chris Armstrong
Jonathan Edwards: Did You Know?
Interesting and unusual facts about Jonathan Edwards
Steven Gertz and Chris Armstrong
Jonathan Edwards: From the Editor - Papa Edwards
Chris Armstrong
A Modern Puritan
Edwards bestowed the riches of Puritanism on a world shaped by the Enlightenment.
The Editors
A Mind on Fire
Throughtout his eventful life, America's theologian was driven by a vision of the beauty in God's sovereignty.
Stephen R. Holmes
Devoted Disciplinarian
Pastor Edwards spared neither loving care nor the rod.
Richard A. Bailey
The Trouble with George
Edwards worried that the strong emotions raised by George Whitefield's preaching would produce not steady Christians by religious hypocrites.
Chris Armstrong
Jonathan Edwards: A Gallery - The Mind Shapers
Edwards modeled himself as theologian, philosopher, and pastor after outstanding figures in each field.
Stephen J. Nichols
Those Exceptional Edwards Women
Jonathan spent his life surrounded by beautiful women, and it showed.
Heidi L. Nichols
Jonathan Edwards: Christian History Timeline - Passing the Torch
The claimers and reclaimers of Jonathan Edwards
Mark Noll
Archive: Pilgrim's Paradise
Heaven's bliss was among Edwards's favorite preaching themes.
An excerpt from his sermon, "The Christian Pilgrim."
Testing the Spirits
The heart stirring revivalism of the Great Awakening led Edwars to develop a new religious psychology.
David W. Kling
The Book of James
The famed William James drew on Edwards's psychology but not his theology.
David W. Kling
Language of Ecstasy
Edwards's interest in religious psychology arose from his own almost mystical encounters with God.
David W. Kling
The Northampton Eviction
When a pastor's irresistible ideals met his congregation's immovable status-consciousness.
Allen Guelzo
Holy Pagans
Could a person be saved without knowing Christ? Among the Indians, Edwards began to wonder.
Gerald R. McDermott
Thunderstorms & Flying Spiders
Edwards saw the Exuberant Goodness of the Creater in every detail of nature.
Thunderstorms & Flying Spiders is adapted from Jonathan Edwards: A Guided Tour of His Life and Thought, Stephen J. Nichols, (P&R Publishing), "Spiders & Rainbows: the Invisible God in the Visible World," 159-171. Used by permission.
Expect Joy!
Edwards found the Christian life sweet and said so often.
Douglas A. Sweeney
Jonathan Edwards: Christian History Interview - On His Own Terms
Jonathan Edwards has much to say to us today, if we can get past his peculiar accent.
A conversation with George Marsden
Jonathan Edwards: Recommended Resources
Chris Armstrong
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