10 Dead Guys You Should Know
Ten fascinating bite–sized biographies
This collection of ten short biographies will introduce you to Christians from a variety of places and times, who all boldly preached the gospel, despite the risk to personal reputations and safety. How short–sighted it would be not to glean insights from our ancestors, whether that entails learning how to walk in their steps – or else avoiding their missteps.
Written by Ian Maddock, Rachel Ciano and Stuart Coulton, who have all taught in this area. Each chapter has suggested further reading and additional suggestions ‘for the adventurous’.
Included in this book are:
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Athanasius: Against the World
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Augustine: The Grace of God Defeated Me
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Anselm: Faith Seeking Understanding
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Martin Luther: Here I Stand
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Thomas Cranmer: Lord Jesus, Receive My Spirit
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Richard Baxter: Keep These Hearts Above
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John Wesley: A Brand Plucked from the Burning
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Hudson Taylor: These I Must Bring Also
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Spurgeon: Preaching, Prayer and Perseverance
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Dietrich Bonhoeffer: The Cost of Discipleship
This book is ideal for anyone wanting a brief, entertaining, and illuminating overview of the lives and beliefs of these ten giants of the history of the Christian faith.
Appreciating the past doesn’t always come naturally for us living in the twenty-first century. The world we live in often equates newer with better and older with obsolete. If the young are our future, then the old are ‘over the hill.’ In an environment such as this that (wittingly or otherwise) encourages historical amnesia, we aren’t conditioned to intuitively see value in the past. ‘Not, of course, that there is any magic about the past,’ suggests C.S. Lewis. ‘People were no cleverer then than they are now; they made as many mistakes as we. But not the same mistakes. They will not flatter us in the errors we are already committing; and their own errors, being now open and palpable, will not endanger us.’ His conclusion? ‘Two heads are better than one, not because either is infallible, but because they are unlikely to go wrong in the same direction.’
We think Lewis was on to something profoundly insightful. And if it’s indeed true that two heads are better than one, then how much more ten! These chapters emerge from the experience Stuart Coulton, Rachel Ciano and Ian Maddock had teaching church history together at Sydney Missionary and Bible College, Australia’s oldest inter-denominational seminary. It’s been our privilege to introduce many cohorts of undergraduate and graduate students to the wealth of benefit and joy that comes with studying the way God has sustained his church throughout time and space, and we’re thankful now for the opportunity to share our passion with a wider audience through this book.