The Importance of the Early Church

What we should know about early Christianity:

The old adage about ‘not knowing history dooms you to repeating its mistakes’ is certainly true for Christians. Church history is vitally important, and to ignore it – especially the opening centuries of the young church – will get believers into all sorts of strife. We dare not be ignorant about our own Christian past and beginnings.

There are of course tens of thousands of church history books that exist. Many are devoted to the early church, the early creeds, the church fathers, and so on. This is a select list of just 33 titles, mainly from newer authors. For the most part I have not featured books in multi-volume church history sets, whether by a single author or multiple authors.

Here I simply want to make the reader aware of some of these select titles and spur you on with a few choice quotes. So after listing these 33 books, I will offer some quotes from four volumes.

Bercot, David, ed., A Dictionary of the Early Christian Beliefs. Hendrickson, 1998, 2019.
Boer, Harry, A Short History of the Early Church. Eerdmans, 1990.
Bray, Gerald, How the Church Fathers Read the Bible: A Short Introduction. Lexham Press, 2022.
Bray, Gerald, Reading the Bible with Ten Church Fathers: How to Interpret, Teach, and Preach Like the Early Christians. Baker, 2026.
Bruce, F. F., The Spreading Flame. 1961.
Chadwick, Henry, The Early Church. Penguin, 1967.
Davidson, Ivor, The Birth of the Church. Baker, 2005.
Edwards James, From Christ to Christianity: How the Jesus Movement Became the Church in Less Than a Century. Baker, 2021.
Edwards, Perry, Introduction to Early Church History: The First 500 Years. Wipf and Stock, 2023.
Ferguson, Everett, Backgrounds of Early Christianity, 3^rd ed. Eerdmans, 2003.
Ferguson, Everett, Baptism in the Early Church: History, Theology, and Liturgy in the First Five Centuries. Eerdmans, 2013.
Frend, William H C, Martyrdom and Persecution in the Early Church. James Clarke, 1965, 2008.
Frend, William H C, The Rise of Christianity. Fortress Press, 1984.
Gonzalez, Justo, Worship in the Early Church. Westminster John Knox Press, 2022.
Guy, Laurie, Introducing Early Christianity. IVP, 2004.
Hall, Christopher, Learning Theology with the Church Fathers. IVP, 2002.
Hall, Christopher, Living Wisely with the Church Fathers. IVP, 2017.
Hall, Christopher, Reading Scripture with Church Fathers. IVP, 1998.
Hall, Christopher, Worshiping with the Church Fathers. IVP, 2009.
Hall, Stuart, Doctrine and Practice in the Early Church, 2nd ed. Cascade Books, 1991, 2011.
Haykin, Michael, Rediscovering the Church Fathers. Crossway, 2011.
Hurtado, Larry, From Christ to Christianity: How the Jesus Movement Became the Church in Less Than a Century. Eerdmans, 2000.
Hurtado, Larry, Destroyer of the Gods: Early Christian Distinctiveness in the Roman World. Baylor University Press, 2016.
Kruger, Michael, Christianity at the Crossroads: How the Second Century Shaped the Future of the Church. SPCK, 2017.
Litfin, Bryan, Early Christian Martyr Stories. Baker, 2014.
Litfin, Bryan, Getting to Know the Church Fathers, 2nd ed. Baker, 2007, 2016.
Litfin, Bryan, Wisdom from the Ancients: 30 Forgotten Lessons from the Early Church. Harvest House, 2022.
Martin, Ralph P., Worship in the Early Church. Eerdmans, 1975.
McGowen, Andrew, Ancient Christian Worship: Early Church Practices in Social, Historical, and Theological Perspective. Baker, 2014.
Presley, Stephen, Biblical Theology in the Life of the Early Church: Recovering an Ancient Vision. Baker, 2025.
Presley, Stephen, Cultural Sanctification: Engaging the World like the Early Church. Eerdmans, 2024.
Stark, Rodney, The Rise of Christianity. Harper, 1997.
Winn, Robert, Christianity in the Roman Empire. Hendrickson, 2018.

Quotes

In his Introduction, Perry Edwards offers six reasons why we must supplement the reading of Scripture with the study of early church history. He prefaces those reasons this way (xiii):

It has been rightly said, “The recording of history is to tell the story of the human family.” If we apply this definition to the Christian church, we could say that “the recording of (church) history is to tell the story of the (Christian) family” Just as a person needs to understand the history of the world if he is to comprehend the present state of the world, the Christian must understand the church’s history if they are to comprehend the present state of the church. While it is true, as Christians, that the Bible is our final source of faith and practice, it is impossible to understand Christian theology and Christian experience if we are ignorant of our Christian heritage. Several years ago, a man told me that he sold his entire library and was only going to read the Bible from that point on. He told me that he didn’t need anything but the Bible and that other books would only influence his understanding of the Bible’s teaching. While I appreciate the man’s sentiment, there are several reasons why I strongly disagree with his decision….

In the opening chapter of his 2026 volume Gerald Bray asks why the fathers are so important. He reminds us that they were not inspired like the authors of Scripture were, and they could sometimes contradict one another. Then he goes on to say this (p. 15):

But to dismiss the church fathers as obsolete and therefore irrelevant to our modern concerns is going too far. We accept the authority of the Scriptures, which are even older and equally ancient in terms of modern society and culture, and the church fathers were much closer to the world of the prophets and apostles than we are. They may not have understood them completely, but chances are they had a better perspective than we have today because they shared much the same mentality and assumptions.

 

The fathers are also responsible for the broad outline of Christian doctrine that we teach and preach today. They were the ones who worked out what it means to say that Jesus Christ is fully God and fully human. They were the ones who came up with the right way to express the relationship between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit as a Trinity of divine persons who nevertheless are only one God. Every major Christian church is committed to these formulations of biblical teaching, whether they recognize that or not, and those who do not agree, like Jehovah’s Witnesses, for example, are not regarded as Christian denominations by anyone except themselves. The line between orthodoxy and heresy is drawn according to the way the church fathers defined it, and that principle is applied in practice by everyone from the Eastern Orthodox churches at one end of the spectrum to the Plymouth Brethren or the Churches of Christ at the other end.

Bryan Litfin (2022), looks at the importance and development of books and libraries in church history, and offers some key reasons for this (pp. 94-95):

We would be remiss if we didn’t mention the fourth and most basic reason the early Christians valued books. It is a theological reason—one that is at the core of Christianity. John the apostle summed it up when his Gospel announced, “In the beginning was the Word” (John 1:1). Think about the profundity of this statement. The essence of God is to possess a message within himself. In the Holy Trinity, the Father is the speaker, the Son is the spoken word, and the Spirit is the breath by which the speaker speaks. The universe came into existence through a divine word: “And God said, let there be light’ (Genesis 1:3). It is the Father’s nature to speak forth saving words (Psalm 107:20; 119:105; Hebrews 4:12). It is the Son’s nature to be the Word made flesh (John 1:14; Hebrews 1:1-2). And it is the Spirit’s nature to illumine human minds into the meaning of what God has spoken (John 16:13; 1 Corinthians 2:13-14).

 

The ancient church had a pastoral office that few churches still have today. This person was called a lector, literally, a reader. His job was to stand up in church and read the Scriptures aloud. The lections weren’t just short snippets of the Bible, but large portions drawn from both Testaments. Such readings took a long time to proclaim. Sometimes the accounts of martyrs or other holy people were read aloud as well.

 

We might wonder: Isn’t this a waste of time? Why not just read a summary and get on to the real business of life application? Don’t we come to church for the practical takeaways that can help us live better? Although we might suppose so today, the ancient church didn’t think that way. They knew the Word of God was living and active, sharper than a soldier’s sword. It was a text worth sitting in for a long time, receiving it like refreshing streams of water, like sweet honeycombs, like medicine for the soul. When you really believe in the power of words, you gravitate toward written documents. They’re the best way to get God’s truth into as many hands—and hearts—as possible. The ancients remind us that to be a lover of God is to be a lover of books.

Lastly, Stephen Presley (2024), says this (pp. 25-26):

The early church had no Christendom to support the public lives of the faithful, so these ancient Christians, especially in the first few centuries, understood how important liturgical acts like baptism were. They dug deep roots to withstand, and even thrive, amid the swirling winds of pagan culture. For this reason, catechesis and liturgy are the starting places for our discussion of cultural sanctification. These constituted the double doors of the entrance to the Christian home. When new converts walked through these doors, they were greeted by a faithful community committed to Christian doctrine and virtue.

 

For us, too, a Christian vision of cultural sanctification must begin with crafting Christian identity through catechesis (or discipleship) and liturgy (or worship). If Christians do not know the basic contours of Christian doctrine and morality, how can we expect them to live Christianly in a pagan world? Unfortunately, much current literature on cultural engagement begins with discussions of methods rather than formation. We are often concerned with how to respond to culture without considering the very basis upon which that response must proceed. Methods are essential, but without the right Christian assumptions informing them, we will be tossed about and finally prove ineffectual.

 

Early Christian identity proceeded from the two key practices of catechesis and liturgy. Catechesis entailed a long period of examination to form new believers in the contours of the church’s doctrine and morality. This regular and extended time of discipleship ensured that the right teachings were passed on, and the right ordering of worship ensured that these convictions would be maintained. The church called its people to a distinct set of theological convictions and a different liturgical life with its own rhythms that shaped their lives in contrast to the surrounding world where the activities of the state were always mingled with religion. Like two threads, catechesis and liturgy were woven together to cultivate a Christian identity and prepare new converts to live Christianly in the world.

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