history
Those who ‘rest in unvisited tombs’
Michael Haykin
Date posted: 1 Apr 2022
In a recent statement regarding some of the cultural turmoil in North America, historian Owen Strachan, the Provost and Research Professor of Theology at Grace Bible Theological Seminary in Conway, Arkansas, made an observation about church history that I found quite surprising. He noted that ‘epic stands for truth … are usually taken alone, so high is their cost’.
I found it quite surprising because my own study of church history has given me a fundamentally different perspective. It is a perspective that I have learned inductively from church history (be it the Apostolic era with the Pauline circle, or the Cappadocian Fathers, or the Celtic Church, or the Reformers, or the Puritan brotherhood, or the Evangelical revivals of the 18th century), and it is namely this: God never does a great work in the history of the church except through a band of brothers and sisters.
history
David Zeisberger’s zest for spreading the gospel
Michael Haykin
Date posted: 1 May 2021
When William Carey drew up his paradigm-changing book An Enquiry into the Obligations of Christians to Use Means for the Conversion of the Heathens in 1792, he included a mini-history of missions.
He cited examples of missionaries passionate for the expansion of the rule of Christ. In this mini-history, he referenced a remarkable missions-minded community, the Moravians. Carey’s words about this 18th-century body of believers are tantalisingly brief, but indicative of their influence upon him. ‘When I came to evangelism and missions,’ Carey noted, ‘none of the moderns have equalled the Moravian Brethren in this good work’.