church leadership

Lactantius – An Original Writer Lucius Caelius Firmianus Lactantius was born around the year 255 in North Africa. Quickly earning a reputation for his intellectual prowess, in 290 he was invited by Emperor Diocletian to serve as professor of Latin and rhetoric in Nicomedia of Bithynia (today’s...

The Abitinian Martyrs – The Christians Who Couldn’t Do Without a Lord’s Day Service. " Sine dominico non possumus " ("We can't do without the Lord’s Day"). This was the answer of a group of 49 Christians (31 men and 18 women) who were arrested for participating in a Lord’s Day service. They lived...

John Ross and the Gospel in Korea In the autumn of 1874, the Scottish missionary John Ross arrived at a village known as “Korean Gate,” near the eastern border between Manchuria (in north-east China) and Korea. Sent to Manchuria by the Scottish United Presbyterian Mission, he had been working for...

Zwingli: God’s Armed Prophet In his time, Huldrych Zwingli was a deeply polarizing figure. Though clearly a leader of the Swiss Reformation, contemporaries Martin Luther and John Calvin denied Zwingli's influence, due in large part to his position on the Lord's Supper. Unlike his more famous...

Hope Masterton Waddell and His Missionary Team In 1841, a group of missionaries in Jamaica read a copy of Sir T. Fowell Buxton’s seminal book, The Slave Trade and Its Remedy. One portion stood out more than others. According to Buxton, among the black Christians in the West Indies, “there may arise...

Johann Von Staupitz – Luther’s “First Father” in the Doctrine of Predestination When Johann Von Staupitz first met Martin Luther, probably in 1506, he saw a young man who was both inquisitive and talented, with a strong potential to teach at the newly founded University of Wittenberg where the...

Perpetua and Felicitas – Two Martyred Mothers In A.D. 202, Emperor Septimius Severus tightened his measures against Christians who refused to pay homage to the imperial genius, the spirit of the emperor. Compliance required a minimal effort: a simple sprinkling of a few grains of incense on a...

Thomas Charles, Mary Jones, and the Birth of the Bible Society Many of us have heard the story of the sixteen-year-old girl who walked 25 miles to buy a Bible with the money she had saved while doing chores. That girl was Mary Jones, and her destination was a church at Bala, Wales, where a shipment...

Hadrian of Nisida and Theodore of Tarsus – Seventh-Century Star Teachers Sharing a passion for learning and teaching, Hadrian of Nisida and Theodore of Tarsus partnered together to create a school that brought new resources, methods, and inspiration to England. For those who think a scholar’s life...

Melito of Sardis – Pastor, Theologian, and Poet Melito is not a familiar name today. Until the last century, we could only find a mention of him in Eusebius’s Ecclesiastical History , mostly in connection with the controversy over the day in which the feast of Pascha (Easter) was to be celebrated...