Hello Everyone,

Okay, lots of short stuff for you today:

Last day of the giveaway for the Apostles' Gospel

Thank you for those who have downloaded it already. The response was every bit as large as I hoped for. Feel free to give me feedback. A good place for that is the Facebook page linked below. You can reply to this email as well.

Get The Apostles' Gospel for free

Last day of 99 cents for In the Beginning Was the Logos

This is an incredible deal for a 400-page book that one Welsh evangelist and apologist said should be required reading in church history modules in seminaries. The reviews continue to be outstanding. Even people who disagree with me on my conclusions express their appreciation for the deep research and easy-to-understand, fun-to-read history.

I actually won't get a chance to change the price back to $4.99 until tomorrow evening, so you have an extra 18 hours or so to download the Kindle version before the price goes up.

Get In the Beginning Was the Logos for 99 cents

Evangelism in the Early Church

My last few emails have been mostly announcements. I like to put my favorite passages from the early Christians in these newsletters.

This one is from Justin Martyr's Apology, written around A.D. 155. It's addressed to the emperor, and Justin is describing how most Christians were converted in those days:

"He has exhorted us to lead all men, by patience and gentleness, from shame and the love of evil. And this indeed is proved in the case of many who once were of your way of thinking, but have changed their violent and tyrannical disposition, being overcome either by the constancy which they have witnessed in their neighbors’ lives, or by the extraordinary forbearance they have observed in their fellow travelers when defrauded, or by the honesty of those with whom they have transacted business."--See more at: https://www.christian-history.org/evangelism-quotes.html

Note that they were depending on crusades, nor even on witnessing to their neighbors. They made their lives a witness, and it made an impact on the world around them.

That works better when we're walking in real love and unity. There is great power in unity (Jn. 17:20-13).

Studying Church History for Yourself

I regularly recommend "The Christian Classic Ethereal Library." They preserve all sorts of ancient Christian writings. I've got a couple history books that I've gotten from their site that were written three or four hundred years ago.

Of course, you can also read the Ante-Nicene Fathers series and the two series of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers. That means you get Eusebius' 4th century church history, and three church histories from the 5th century. Even just perusing those can be remarkably edifying and let you sniff the fragrance of the pre-Nicene church.

You can start on their site at http://www.ccel.org/fathers. That gets you to the three series I just mentioned.

Of course, for some of the shorter, earlier writings, we have them updated to more modern English at https://www.christian-history.org/early-christian-writings.html.

It's not reading long works from the past that matters. Just looking over some of those writings, reading a few paragraphs here and there, will allow you to begin to "feel" what it was like in the primitive days of the church.

Few who do can get that feel out of their heart. It's addicting.

Writing Contest

Writing contest rules are here:

https://www.christian-history.org/writing-contest-2013.html

Entry is free! Prizes are listed

If you know friends who are writers, spread the word. As a writer myself, I know there are not many free writing contests.

If you like what we're doing, please like our Facebook page. We have only recently been trying to keep it up well, but we'd love for it to be a place where people discuss their love for the great stories that made us who we are.

https://www.facebook.com/christian.history.for.everyman