1516 HT: Dan Graves Erasmus never joined the Protestant movement, but many scholars would argue he set the stage for the Reformers. Erasmus loaded the cannon that Luther fired. The greatest scholar of his day, Erasmus rammed two shots into the barrel of the Reformation. The first shot was a satire titled, The Praise of Folly, which…
1955 HT: Dan Graves In his last public appearance, Methodist layman John Mott said, “While life lasts, I am an evangelist.” The man who did as much as anyone to evangelize the world and unite divided denominations, died on this day, January 31, 1955 in Orlando, Florida. He was eighty-nine years old. Death was a place…
1499 HT: Dan Graves Katherine von Bora viewed herself as a prisoner in the cloister of Marienthron. Luther’s Reformation preaching had found its way behind the convent walls and she wanted out. It wasn’t as if she had chosen this secluded life for herself. Far from it. Her dad had brought her here when she…
1560 HT: Christian History Institute After reformers overthrew Roman Catholicism in Scotland, they needed a new church organization to replace it. Parliament commissioned six reformers to draw up a book of discipline, which they did. A few nobles refused to accept it, but a good number did, signing it on January 27, 1560 at the Tolbooth in…
1672 HT: Christian History Institute Richard Baxter was an English Puritan author, pastor, theologian, and controversialist. He gained a national reputation when revival broke out under his ministry at Kidderminster. England was fractured into many religious and political factions and he advocated peace, saying “In necessary things, unity; in doubtful things, liberty; in all things, charity.”…
1893 HT: Dan Graves On this day, January 23, l893, Christians throughout the world mourned the death of Phillips Brooks. Yet sorrow soon turned to songs of triumph and praise of God for Phillips Brooks’ life. Over his tomb they would erect these words: “A preacher of righteousness and hope, majestic in stature, impetuous in…
1793 HT: Christian History Institute FOR TWENTY YEARS, John Berridge was known as “the old devil” by the clergymen around Everton (a district of Liverpool in England). They grumbled against him because he preached to the people of their parishes—souls they had neglected. Not only that, but he used illustrations they considered in bad taste,…
1563 HT: Dan Graves Some things must be memorized to be really useful. If your work required you to multiply numbers such as 6×7 or 8×9, you would save a lot of time by memorizing the multiplication table. The same is true of Bible truths. A good catechism sets out the core truths that Christians…
1604 HT: Christianity.com Have you ever attended a frustrating meeting where nothing much seems to get done? The Hampton Court conference, held in 1604, was like that. When James VI of Scotland rode south to London on the way to the coronation that would make him James I of England, Puritans presented him with a…
1543 British Parliament prohibits the reading of the New Testament in English by “women or artificer’s prentices, journeymen, servingmen of the degree of yeoman, or under, husbandmen or labourers…” 1604 Puritan John Rainolds suggests to King James I “that there might bee a newe translation of the Bible, as consonant as can be to the…