Review: Awakening Faith: Daily Devotions from the Early
Church
James Stuart Bell with Patrick J. Kelly
Zondervan
2013
Who knew? I certainly
didn’t. What a rich legacy those of the
early church have left for us! And it’s
been all but lost to the majority of the believers in modern times. Lots of reasons for that loss, but this isn’t
the place for listing them.
What it is the place for is to appreciate what Bell and
Kelly, along with all those that make this sort of work happen, have done for
us. The introduction explains a little
about the Church Fathers and what some of their concerns were, how they
understood their life and times, and some of the encouragement they offered. A short biographical sketch of each of them
is included at the end of the book. I
found that very helpful in placing them in their respective time frame. Polycarp was very early and Maximus the
Confessor about 500 years later. One of them even had contact with Attila the
Hun---in a positive sort of way.
Although I have not read every entry, I can say that this is
definitely a worthwhile book to buy and savor.
I have decided to use it as a devotional for myself. (Thank you, Zondervan and Booksneeze.) The depth
and breadth of these writings is so different from what I’ve seen anywhere else. And I’ve looked and read a lot lately.
Only thing that might have been nice would have been to
include from which of the volumes the devotional reading was drawn since there
are an entire shelf full of the writings of the Church Fathers, but that’s just
the school girl part of me talking. That
in no way detracts from what was written.
Yes, I do recommend this devotional book without
reservation.
This book was provided to me by the publisher via Booksneeze
in exchange for this review.
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