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Moreover, how were the early gentile Christians to find life-giving instruction from the Torah's long passages about wars, genealogies, and ceremonial law—linked to an ethnic people to which they did not belong and a temple that had been destroyed in A.D. 70? Surely these Scriptures had been preserved in order to prepare the world for Christ. But where in their pages was the Christian reader authorized to find him?

So the Bible teachers of those first centuries had daunting work to do. And they did not do it in dusty libraries and obscure classroom debates, as we might imagine from looking at the faith-detached work of some modern academic Bible scholars. Rather, the fathers (and mothers!) of the church approached Scripture reverently and with joy. They found in it the Fountain—the source of everything that mattered.

Irenaeus, Origen, and the rest studied the Hebrew Bible (though usually in Greek translation), along with the apostles' documents that would become the New Testament, with an almost physical thirst for God and his truth. They read them in settings marked by worship and the pursuit of holiness. And they believed that as they read and submitted their lives to the Word and their thoughts to Christ, the Holy Spirit was at work to open the eyes of their hearts and to build his church so "the gates of hell will not overcome it" (Matt. 16:18, NIV).

What came out of those "first Bible studies"? Only the central doctrines of the church, and some of the most exciting, challenging (and yes, sometimes downright strange) interpretive work that has ever been done on the Christian Scriptures. Think these first teachers are worth reading? You bet.

John Chrysostom, Athanasius, Theodore of Mopsuestia, Gregory of Nazianzus—Christian History is trying to do our bit to bring today's Christians back to these names, which have become obscure to us. Our Fall 2003 issue is dedicated to these and other early Bible teachers, their interpretive techniques, and the questions they asked and answered.

Working on this issue has stirred in me again the passion for Bible study that I first experienced as a college-aged convert. I hope the issue, which will begin mailing at the end of this month (November), will provide to many readers the same experience.

As we do for each issue, we will also be featuring a new article from issue #80, "The First Bible Teachers: Reading over the shoulders of the church's founding fathers," each week on www.christianhistory.net, starting on December 19th. Meanwhile, if you want to explore the fathers' interactions with the Bible, check out Christopher A. Hall's Reading Scripture with the Church Fathers (InterVarsity Press, 1998). Or, for a thorough soaking in the early fathers' own writings, see any volume of InterVarsity's new Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture.

"Don't know much about history," croons the song. That's surely the condition of the church today. So the editors at Christian History celebrate when something comes along—yes, even the Da Vinci Code—to remind us that the best path to the church's future is through our shared past.

Chris Armstrong is managing editor of Christian History magazine.

Copyright © 2003 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

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