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D.A. LaGue

In 1741, a Colonial minister confronted the established clergy with this piercing question; ‘Do you a minister of Christ; know Christ in your own heart?’ He would go on to infuse new life into the pulpits of colonial America, challenging ministers to move from dead orthodoxy to living reality.

Gilbert Tennent was born on February 5th, 1703, in Northern Ireland. Gilbert’s father, William Tennent, came to the colonies in 1718 and gained recognition as a gifted Presbyterian pastor and teacher. Concerned about the growing number of Presbyterians and the lack of competent pastors, William Tennent established a small school for training ministers in a log cabin on the farm he owned in Bucks County. During the following decade, many Presbyterian ministers were educated in this ‘Log College,’ which became the forerunner of Princeton Seminary. Continue Reading »

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D.A. LaGue

As a group of African-Americans knelt for morning prayers in 1787, ushers tapped them on the shoulder and demanded that they move to the balcony so as not to mingle with white members. Outraged, they refused to comply and walked out of the church service. Within this group was a former slave that would become the first African American Episcopal priest in the newly formed United States of America.

Absalom Jones was born a slave in Sussex, Delaware, on November 6th, 1746. As a small child, he served as a house servant. By doing additional jobs, he saved enough money to buy a primer, a spelling book, and a New Testament and taught himself to read. In 1762, his family was split apart as his mother, five brothers and sister were sold to different masters. Jones was taken from rural Delaware to the urban setting of Philadelphia. Continue Reading »

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D.A. LaGue

A Sunday school teacher full of energy and contagious enthusiasm would stamp an indelible mark on twentieth-century Christian education and motivate hundreds of young adults to become pastors, teachers and missionaries around the world.

Dr. Henrietta Mears, was born in Fargo, North Dakota, in 1890, the youngest of seven children.  From an early age she struggled with her eyesight and doctors told her mother that she would be blind by the age of thirty.  However, Mears was convinced God had a purpose for her life so she read, studied and memorized large portions of Scripture in case her eyesight failed.  Against the advice of her physicians, she enrolled in classes at the University of Minnesota.  She graduated with honors with her eyesight still intact due to her determination to keep reading to a minimum through memorization. Continue Reading »

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D.A. LaGue

Can a man be a Christian and a politician?  This question plagued a rising member of the English parliament in 1785, as the young politician contemplated how he should live out his newfound faith.

William Wilberforce was born in 1759 in Hull, England.  He was raised in a wealthy home, educated at Cambridge and won his first seat in Parliament at 21 years of age.  Although small in appearance and plagued with physical difficulties, he was a gifted and persuasive speaker and was soon known as ‘the nightingale of the House of Commons.’  By the age of 24, he was already a powerful force in the British government. Continue Reading »

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D.A. LaGue

In 155 A.D., an eighty-six year old man was brought out to the jeers of a crowded Roman arena.  As he was about to be nailed to a pyre and burned at the stake, he told the soldiers, ‘Leave me as I am.  The one who gives me the strength to endure the fire will also give me strength to stay quite still on the pyre, even without the precaution of your nails.’ Continue Reading »

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D.A. LaGue

 

In 1841, a young scholar sent a letter to his fiancée, ‘I am confronted with a sacred task,’ he wrote, ‘the struggle to regain the original form of the New Testament.’

Lobegott Tischendorf was born in 1815 and was one of the most prolific publishers of Biblical Greek manuscripts in the 19th century. Between 1841 and 1872, he prepared eight editions of the Greek New Testament and twenty two volumes of Biblical manuscripts; he eventually would publish more than 150 books and articles relating to biblical criticism. Continue Reading »

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D.A. LaGue 

In 367 A.D. a Bishop of the church in Alexandria, Egypt was forced to live in exile for defending his belief – that Jesus of Nazareth was not only fully man, but also, fully God. His firm stance against the pervasive Arian heresy that taught that Jesus Christ was merely a created being would earn him the title of Athanasius contra mundum; Athanasius “against the world.”

Athanasius was born in Alexandria, Egypt around 297 A.D.. A small man with dark skin, Athanasius committed himself to the Christian ministry and attended the catechetical school of Alexandria. An intelligent and enthusiastic student, he wrote an influential work at the time entitled, On the Incarnation of the Word. Continue Reading »

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D.A. LaGue

In 1734, Jonathan Edwards, theologian and colonial pastor in Northampton Massachusetts, found his congregation in an ‘unusual ruffle,’ over the doctrine of justification by faith alone. Edwards is considered by many to be the greatest theologian in American history and has been described as the most brilliant thinker this continent has ever produced. Continue Reading »