In The Early Church at Work and Worship, Everett Ferguson provides his readers with a clear historical and literary examination of the nature of the church. He analyzes historical documents to determine the images used by ancient theologians and authors in referencing the church. These two volumes focus on rituals of intensification or rites of passage that serve as the markers and the sacraments of the Church. Volume one centers on ministry, ordination, covenant, and canon and relies on early church sources and the fathers for source material. Volume two focuses on catechesis, baptism, eschatology, and martyrdom, heavily depending on patristic authors such as Origen and Clement of Alexandria.
For more study of the early church, check out Eerdmans Studies in Early Christianity (9 vols.).
These essays, spanning four decades of Ferguson’s scholarship, sum up major discussions of ministry and canon in early Christianity. Especially useful for exploring the terminology surrounding ordination, these essays are vintage Ferguson.
—Elizabeth A. Clark, professor of religion, Duke University
Everett Ferguson is Distinguished Scholar in Residence at Abilene Christian University. He is author of Backgrounds of Early Christianity, Baptism in the Early Church: History, Theology, and Liturgy in the First Five Centuries, The Church of Christ: A Biblical Ecclesiology for Today, and Church History, vol. 1: From Christ to Pre-Reformation. Ferguson received the Distinguished Service Award from the North American Patristics Society and the Vestigia Award for Excellence in Early Christian Studies and Service to the Church from the Wheaton Center for Early Christian Studies.