Books

I just finished reading two books. The first one is "Fox's book of Martyrs: a history of the lives, sufferings and triumphant deaths of of the early Christian and the protestant martyrs" It actually took me about a year to read this book. It has a selection of short stories and descriptions of the lives and deaths of Christians. It starts with the martyrs death of Stephen (in Acts) and it ended with a description of the life of Adoniram Judson (early 1800's)
And in between the (sometimes very gruesome) stories of martyrs all over Europe. I was intrigued by the following quote: "After the Bible itself, no book so profoundly influenced early Protestant sentiment as the Book of Martyrs. Even in our time it is still a living force. It is more than a record of persecution. It is an arsenal of controversy, a storehouse of romance, as well a source of edification."

The second book is called " The creation of a student movement to evangelize the world: A history and analysis of the early stages of the Student Volunteer Movement for Foreign Missions". Long titles....
This short book describes the start of the Student Volunteer Movement in the 1880's in the colleges in the United States. It is amazing to see how a group students could change the missions movement in the USA and the world by being obedient to Gods call. Their motto with had great urgency: "The evangelization of the world in this generation"

It is always good to read the history, so that we not forget.