Tuesday, January 13, 2015

After Acts, by Bryan Liftin

First of all I want to thank Moody Publishers for making an advance copy of this book available to me for review. The book will be released on February 1, 2015, you can pre-order it on Amazon, Barnes & Noble or from Westminster Books.

In this thesis you will find a treatment on the lives of nine notable figures from the New Testament. They are;

Matthew
Mark
Luke
John
Mary, the mother of Jesus
Thomas
James
Peter
Paul

There is also a chapter devoted to “The other Apostles.”

The book is well written and very well researched using the Nicene Fathers, Anti-Nicene and early day historians such as Eusebius. This book is a bit more of a scholarly textbook type discussion than it is a simple read for laypeople. While I don’t think the average layperson would care much for the book that doesn’t mean they wouldn’t benefit from reading it, there are truths here they will find interesting. For the Theologian or Scholar I would think that much of what is written here you have already read or studied, but it gives a good concise summary in one book.

Thus I would suggest that the book is written for Pastor’s and Lay-Professional’s who want a treatment on the life of the Apostles after Christ’s ascension. It will delve into many of the details that are needed to be assured that the writings of the four Gospels are truly penned by the men who are claimed to have written them.

It will also give us details on some of the aspects of their travels and the churches that they started and or visited on their journeys. It gives a small bit of detail on the end of life of these men, but not as much as I thought it would. Probably Fox’s book of Martyr’s is a better treatment for that.

This book will wet your appetite for more study on the lives of the Apostles and the early church. If you enjoy it you will find yourself wanting to delve into early church history and working through more documents to gain more information.

Liftin does a great job of pulling together all the resources and putting them into a volume that will enhance your understanding of the early church.


Enjoy!

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