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A few years ago, my husband and I were discussing the Bible and what is and isn't in it.  I have often been puzzled by how much narratives read into the Bible stories.  I became aware of it when I read Francine Rivers' novels about Bible women.  At the end of each book, she included a Bible study.  The first assignment in the Bible study is to read the story in the Bible.  What discovered with the story of Bathsheba was that there were details in my head that weren't in the Bible.  I was caught by surprise when I realized this. I discussed it with my husband and he said to me that God put what He wanted in the Bible.  The stories in the Bible aren't meant to point us to the people.  They are meant to point us to God. I was reading a book this morning, Welcome to the Story by Stephen J. Nichols, and came upon an interesting quote.  Nichols makes the point that as we're reading the Bible, we should begin to realize something.  "We, if...

This summer I reviewed a Children's book about church history by Stephen J. Nichols and Ned Bustard.  Reading that book made me realize how little I understood about church history and how much I really did want to know and understand.  So often names come up in conversations with my husband that I know who they are, but can't seem to keep straight.  So, I started looking for a book to help me fill in the blanks. In college, I took a class called the History of Christianity.  It was absolutely boring and the textbook was dry.  That's why I thought the history of the church wasn't something I wanted to know anything more about.   But, my mind has changed about that.   This summer I started reading another book by Stephen J. Nichols titled P ages From Church History .  The book starts with an introduction about why we should care about history.  I love this quote on page 13-14 "Without meaningful connections to the past, the soul does not...

Yesterday, I blogged about Church History ABCs and I wished for more--more context so that I could put the stories in that book into the big picture of history.  I was reading the blog from Hearts and Minds Books in Dallastown, PA, and Byron Borger mentioned this book: Pages From Church History: A Guided Tour of Christian Classics, also by the same author.  I read a few pages of it on Amazon and it seemed to be just what I was talking about.  I can't fully recommend it since I haven't read it (and I've definitely learned my lesson on that one), but I'm glad to know that there is a book like what I was thinking of out there!

I was excited to learn that a book about some heroes of the Faith of Church History has been published.  When I was growing up, I learned a lot about Quaker History--all about George Fox and William Penn as well as many others.  But, I didn't learn a lot about church history beyond Quaker History.  I want my children to have a more well rounded understanding of church history and more knowledge about it than I have. Stephen J. Nichols and Ned Bustard have published a new book called The Church History ABCs:  Augustine and twenty-five other heroes of the Faith.   Here is their website for the book:   http://www.churchhistoryabcs.com/index.html   The book begins with a short introduction and then a brief page on each of twenty-five people who lived as early as 110 A.D. and died as late as 1940.  (There is a gap between St. Patrick, who died in 461 and Martin Luther who was born in 1483.)  Each letter identifies a person important to chur...