The Narrow Path Ministries

Is anybody aware of any good audio teachings on church history that would be available on the Internet?

I have listened to Steve's series on church history, and it was very good. I would be interested in something similar to that. If possible, I would be interested in even more teaching on the first 3 - 4 centuries of the church.

Thanks.

Mark, this site has a lot of links to Church history lectures. It's from the Reformed perspective.

http://www.monergism.com/thethreshold/a ... story.html

Steve

Thank you anothersteve, there does seem to be quite a bit on that site that I am looking for. That looks to be a good resource.

I too would have a hesitation about the Reformed aspect of it, not so much because I don't like listening to people of Reformed Theology, because I do. It would be more because I would be wondering how much of an accurate history of non-Calvinists would I be getting.

An example would be this church history map from spurgeon.com.

Accoring to this map, it is almost as if the Reformers sprung directly from the early church fathers, and the Reformers are the source from which all church history should be judged.

It would be more because I would be wondering how much of an accurate history of non-Calvinists would I be getting.

I agree, it's very hard to put aside our bias. For example, when certain people discuss Charles Finney from a Reformed position you'd think he was Satan incarnate. They have "sources" that claim that just a few years after his "revivals" that 90% of his "converts" were utterly godless people. On the other hand, people who like Charles Finney have "sources" that show a staggering 95% of the converts were faithfully following Christ years later. With starkly different accounts it's hard to know who to believe. My suspicion is that the truth is likely somewhere in the middle. He was not as evil and unsuccessful nor as saintly and successful as some would portray...just a flawed, and undeservedly blessed, man like all of us.

You seem to have a grasp of what Reformed Theology is all about. If you listen to these lectures with the understanding that they may accentuate certain things and leave out others then you should be OK. Obviously, you'll likely need to listen with a grain of salt whenever a non-Calvinistic theologian is mentioned!

I think that pure objectivity is impossible from a human perspective (paradoxically, I think that realization is the first step to objectivity). I appreciate any teacher, like Steve Gregg, who genuinely recognizes this!

Steve

Mark & Steve,

I saw this thread and did a fairly exhaustive google search. I came up with the monergism site and Sermon Audio, By Topic (then click "Church History").

But like monergism, SermonAudio is very Calvinistic and, therefore, pretty biased. I don't know how much the bias "shows" in these lectures as I haven't heard any of them. I get SA's weekly newsletter mainly for the news (and they have good coverage of key stories, imo). Monergism does have good stuff (like some N.T. Wright lectures, etc.) but you have to look around their site to find it.

As far as I know, Steve Gregg has the most comprehensive free lectures about Church History on the web....wtg Steve G.!
Rick

Hi Mark,

fyi...I stumbled across a site which contains lectures on the early church....here's the link to the EC lectures

http://www.biblicaltraining.org/class.php?id=56

you need to register but it's free

Go buy the book "Crossing the Tiber". You may not like it because it is about a Protestant (Baptist) pastor who starts to read about the earliest Christain history (first three centuries). Unfortunately, he becomes Catholic after reading about Christian history.

The great thing about the book is that this book is greatly foot noted. The top third of the page is author text and the other two thirds is footnotes to support his text (something the reader can go and re-confirm.

CROSSING THE TIBER / Stephen K. Ray
Evangelical Protestants Discover the Historical Church
Ignatius Press

I think Catholic Answers.com has it if you dare go on that site. Christ's Peace.

Catholic Steve

David Bercot's site: http://www.earlychurch.com has some great audio teachings, although they're not free.

PR