The Church Fathers on the Gospels

Michael Kok has compiled a helpful bibliography on the patristic reception of the Gospels here.

The Corinthian Epistles During the Patristic Period

Michael Kok has a brief but helpful survey here of the reception history of 1—2 Corinthians during the Patristic period.

Puritan Preaching

David Allen has an interesting post here regarding David Larsen on puritan preaching. There is much to peruse here but I was struck by this part.

It is not difficult to rhapsodize on puritan preaching. The average puritan in a lifetime would hear 7000 sermons involving 15000 hours of concentrated attention. These sermons were strong on application, which the puritans called “uses.” Richard Baxter had 66 uses enumerated in one sermon. He had two hours to preach, of course. John Owen had a section of uses with 150 observations at end of a particular sermon.

The Early Church's Textual Commitment

Larry Hurtado provides a good reminder here of how the early church was willing to go through the costly and time-consuming process of producing and disseminating Scripture. We are relatively spoiled in our age. I probably have 30-50 Bibles of various kinds, three versions of Bible software on my computer, two apps on my phone, etc. Yet I still find myself failing at times to heed the call "take up and read."

The One Who Trampled Hades Underfoot

I know that the title is a mouthful but you might enjoy this talk by Matthew Emerson,"'The One Who Trampled Hades Underfoot': A Comparative Analysis of Christ's Descent to the Dead and Trinitarian Relation in Second-Century Christian Texts and Hans Urs von Balthasar."

Free Audio Book of the Month: The Confessions of St. Augustine

Christianaudio.com's free audio book of the month is The Confessions of St. Augustine. To read more about this resource and to get your free audio download in either MP3 or M4B formats go here.

Is Today Jesus' Birthday?

Clement of Alexandria (ca. AD 150-215), "speculated that Christ was born on this day, November 17, 3 BC." You can read more about it here.

Pseudo-Ephraim and the Rapture

Roger Pearse does an excellent job examining pseudo-Ephraim and whether it teaches a pre-tribulational rapture here. Pearse's discussion involves points on languages, textual criticism, church history, and theology and is done in a thorough and balanced way. In many ways, this blog post is a model of how to have an academic discussion.

The Destruction of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre was destroyed 1009 years ago by order of Al-Hakim, the Caliph of Egypt, interestingly on this day in AD 1009. You can read a short article on the destruction here.

Church History, Archaeology, and Geography

Ferrell Jenkins has an excellent blog that focuses on archaeology and geography that relate to the Bible. He has now created a handy index focusing on his blog posts related to church history. You should check it out here.

Free Audio Book of the Month: Jonathan Edwards: America's Genius

Christianaudio.com is offering Christian George's Jonathan Edwards: America's Genius as their free audio download for the month of May. To read more about this resource and to get your free audio download in either MP3 or M4B formats go here.

Reading Together, Early Church Style

It's not everyday that one of your friends has a story featured in Christianity Today, "Reading Together, Early Church Style." You can read it here.

First Apocalypse of James

Apparently, a 1500-year old copy of the First Apocalypse of James has been found in the Egypt Exploration Society's archives at Oxford. This text is part of the larger Gnostic Nag Hammadi library. Here is one of several articles out there.

Free Audio Book of the Month: Why the Reformation Still Matters

Christianaudio.com is offering Why the Reformation Still Matters by Michael Reeves and Tim Chester as their free audio download for the month of December. To read more about this resource and to get your free audio download in either MP3 or M4B formats go here.

Luther on Galatians

Thomas provides a helpful list here of recent articles and books on Luther and his understanding or approach to Galatians.

The Appointment of David Friedrich Strauss

This is an interesting article on the controversy surrounding the appointment of David Friedrich Strauss to the faculty of the University of Zurich.

Studying the Apostolic Fathers

See this interview with Ken Berding who has just written a book entitled, The Apostolic Fathers: A Narrative Introduction.

Free Logos Book for July: The Old Religion in a New World: The History of North American Christianity

The free Logos Book of the Month for July is The Old Religion in a New World: The History of North American Christianity by Mark A. Noll. For this and other offers you can go to the Logos' Free Book of Month page here.

Five Myths about Gnosticism

See Michael Kruger's post here.

The Gift of Tongues Project

Some might be interested in this new website that seeks to collect all ancient textual references to the gift of tongues.

HT: Roger Pearse