Download: Notes on Philip Schaff's History of the Christian Church Series
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- Written by Tim Harris
When you search for history of the church, it won't be long before you read of a man named Philip Schaff.
Schaff was an 19th century church historian and professor. His contributions, without the advantages of modern technology such as the Internet and air travel, are astonishing.
Perhaps his greatest work was an eight-volume series entitled History of the Christian Church. The series covers the time period from the life of Jesus through the life of John Calvin. Though initially published about 150 years ago, the series is still in print, a testament to its quality and usefulness, given our age of ever-increasing information.
It took me four years to read through this series. I highly recommend it. But the problem is, it's so long that most people are unable or unwilling to devote the time to it.
I read it on Kindle, which allowed me to digitally highlight and make notes.
The information is so vast that I concluded a modern, easily-searchable index was needed. So I built one! And I want to give you access to it.
Get free access to my "cliff notes" of Philip Schaff's History of the Christian Church series, including a topically hyperlinked index.
- Links to read Schaff's series online
- Key quotes from each volume
- My personal notes (I don't always agree with Schaff)
- An introductory video explaining how to use the tools
*** Note: Volume 1 is available as of this post. Subsequent volumes will be published and indexed at the links provided. ***
5 Things I Didn't Know about Martin Luther (Celebrating the 500th Anniversary of the Reformation)
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- Written by Tim Harris
You've probably heard that October 31, 2017, marks the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther's protest of abuses surrounding the Roman Catholic Church's practice of selling indulgences.
Luther's publication of his 95 theses on 10/31/1517, which included Luther's public offer to debate the topic, is generally regarded as the start of the Reformation movement.
Today, every Christian today is familiar with the Reformation movement, right? Right???
Sadly, not really.
...
Between 2012 and 2016, I read Philip Schaff's 8-volume series, History of the Christian Church, which covers the history of the visible church from Jesus' birth through the life of Calvin and his successors.
After reading the series, I was shocked and embarrassed at how little I'd known about Luther and the Reformers, and how badly I'd mis-characterized them and their work.
I was shocked & embarrassed at how little I'd known about Luther & the Reformers. Click to Tweet
Each of these men were flawed products of their age.
Who among us isn't?
And I, by no means, fully agree with any of their views and teachings.
But with each of these men, the more I learned about their life, the better I understood them, the more I respected, empathized with and appreciated their intentions and contributions.
Through my study of the history of the visible church so far, I have become firmly convinced that:
- We have access to an absolute wealth of information in the history of Christians and believers past.
- It is a tragedy that so few people take the time to study and learn from the past.
- Christian leaders do others a great disservice by under-emphasizing the lessons of the past. Learning from the mistakes of the past is important to improving Christian unity.
...
Here are 5 things about Martin Luther that I'm embarrassed to say I didn't know. Perhaps you didn't know them either.
Want to Understand the End Times, Jesus' Second Coming, the Judgment and the Resurrection? (Learn the shocking truth on the Bible's most widely misunderstood teachings)
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- Written by Tim Harris
Have you ever had a message burning within you that you had to share but didn’t know where to begin?
Yeah, that’s me right now.
I have wrestled so hard with where to begin that I’ve fallen into analysis paralysis and the message is just sitting there percolating.
Frustrated at myself, I decided to just start writing.
Get some thoughts down. Fix the broken pieces later. Who knows, perhaps if I just let go, maybe GOD will answer my longtime prayers in this regard by making the words simply fall into place.
Exhale. Here goes.
...
In mid-2013, I began a journey. At the time, I thought I had a good grasp of what the journey would entail:
- Where I was headed.
- What steps were involved.
- About how long it would take to get there.
- What the general outcome was likely to be.
I was wrong.
I’ve told part of this story before, but I’ll give a quick recap here.
Our church was studying through the entire New Testament in chronological order using The Daily Bible. As we were inching closer to the book of Revelation, I became increasingly nervous because I had not conducted a recent personal study of the letter and didn’t have firm convictions about eschatology (i.e., matters pertaining to death, the judgment, Jesus' second coming, the resurrection, etc.).
I thought:
“How can I help teach the church about 'the end times' and the book of Revelation if I haven’t fully studied and reached my own conclusions?”
So I began to study Revelation.
Why 'American Christianity' is Failing (And How We Can Fix It) [part 1]
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- Written by Tim Harris
You can feel it, can’t you?
You know it’s true. The evidence is all around us.
“American Christianity” is failing.
We can all sense it.
Turn on the TV. Browse the news online. Scroll through your Facebook timeline. Just visit a public school or university.
America is becoming an increasingly secular nation, one with less and less tolerance for Christian beliefs and practices.
What is going on? Why is this happening? Why is American Christianity falling apart?
And more importantly, what can we do to turn things around?
I’m not going to sugar coat it. The situation is not good. America has asked for this and now we’ve gotten what we asked for.
But thankfully, as Christians, our circumstances do not define us, nor do they dictate our joy.
Our circumstances do provide us opportunity, however. And with opportunity comes hope.
We can turn this around. You and me. We can make a difference. We can do this!
I’m gonna show you how.
First, let's define the problem.
What Does GOD Want from Me?
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- Written by Tim Harris
I am a big fan of simple and logical—that which is easy to understand and just makes sense.
Paul said, "But knowledge puffs up while love builds up." (1 Cor. 8:1b)
I want to build up.
A couple of weeks prior to this post, I wrote three related posts:
These posts are intended to lay a logical foundation that I aim to build upon, beginning with this post.
If someone asked you, "What does GOD want from me?" what would you tell them?
It's a simple question.
In fact, it's so basic, we rarely even discuss it in these terms (in my experience, at least). Where would you begin to answer this question?
I believe the answer to this question is comprised of three fundamental truths.
