Wednesday, July 19, 2006

Classic Literature of Christian Theologians

One of my professors at Colorado Christian University is an avid reader and collector of classic literature of Christian theologians and authors. He has a personal library filled with volumes of books. It is through him that I have come to love reading the thoughts of these great thinkers.

It began when my professor suggested I read J. Gresham Machen’s book, “Christianity & Liberalism”. This was published in 1923 but seems so relevant today. My professor told me he reads it once a year to stay grounded. The first time I read it I had to read each chapter twice in order to understand what the author was saying. But, as with any good habit, the more I read, the easier it became.

Recently a kindly widow came to our University and asked if we would be interested in her late husband’s books. I eagerly said, “of course.” After she brought in eight boxes the first person I called was my professor. He and I went through the books one by one. My professor knew of many of the authors; as he read them off he would hand them to me with his commentary of the author.

One of the books was “He that is Spiritual” by Lewis Sperry Chafer published in 1918. I have only begun to read this new found treasure, and have begun to take diligent notes. It is available today in paperback through Christianbooks.com.

Over the next few days or weeks, my hope is to make some of these notes and thoughts available to you through this blog. And as I do, hopefully stimulate thought and conversation. When I have completed this book, I will move on to another and do the same.

Until then…these are my words.

2 comments:

  1. Hi, I found a treasure last year in an old book about the apostle Paul. Reading it helped me with some research I was doing. The nice thing about being an author is knowing your book will live on for years. Congratulations on your find, and look forward to reading more.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks for the note. I had all but forgotten about this blog. Your message has inspired me to begin blogging again. -jim

    ReplyDelete