The Spreading Flame: The Rise and Progress of Christianity from Its First Beginnings to Eighth-Century England
Overview
This story of the early Christian church—from its infancy to the conversion of the English in about A.D. 800—pictures a church that is an unquenchable spiritual force organized for tribulation. Its spiritual resources are never stronger than in times of seeming disaster. Bruce gives the reader a feel for the evangelistic fervor of the Apostles and the early Christians in a narrative filled with solid, well-reasoned, richly researched facts. The book is divided into three sections: “The Dawn of Christianity” deals with the Church from its infancy to the fall of Jerusalem in A.D. 70, “The Growing Day,” which continues to the accession of Constantine in A.D. 313, and “Light in the West,” which covers Christianity in Rome and its spread to the British Isles.
Top Highlights
“Our gospels are the transcript of the apostles’ preaching and teaching.46 And that is why they are not biographies, for the primitive Christian message was not concerned with the biographical interest of Jesus’ life, but with certain outstanding events through which the salvation of God was made available to men and women.” (Page 35)
“If all Israel kept the whole law perfectly for one day only, it was believed, Messiah would come” (Page 30)
“Lucas (Anglicized as Luke) became a member of the church at Antioch,203 and to him historians of early Christianity owe a quite special debt.” (Page 91)
“Christianity appeared on earth when the time was ripe for” (Page 24)
- Title: The Spreading Flame: The Rise and Progress of Christianity from Its First Beginnings to Eighth-Century England
- Author: F. F. Bruce
- Publisher: Kingsley Books
- Print Publication Date: 2017
- Logos Release Date: 2018
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Logos Research Edition
- Subject: Church history
- ISBNs: 9781912149117, 1912149117
- Resource ID: LLS:SPRDNGFLMRSD800
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2022-09-30T03:05:59Z
F. F. Bruce (1910-1990) was known worldwide as the "dean of evangelical scholarship"—a reputation earned by a lifetime of scholarship, teaching, and writing. Trained in classics at the University of Aberdeen and Cambridge University, he taught at the Universities of Edinburgh, Leeds, and Sheffield before serving for nearly twenty years as the Rylands Professor of Biblical Criticism and Exegesis at the University of Manchester in England. During his distinguished career, he wrote many outstanding commentaries and books, including Paul, Apostle of the Heart Set Free; Israel and the Nations; New Testament History; The Books and the Parchments: How We Got Our English Bible; Jesus and Christian Origins Outside the New Testament; and The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable? He also served as general editor of The New International Commentary on the New Testament.