Best Church History Books: 12 Christian Classics, Free to Read
If you want one book of church history that reads like a story, start with J. H. Merle d'Aubigné's History of the Reformation in Europe in the Time of Calvin, Volume 1. It follows little Geneva's fight for freedom against a duke and a bishop, then moves to France and the first evangelicals there. If you want something you can finish tonight, read Frank E. Gaebelein's Down Through the Ages, an hour-long story of how the Bible came into English.
The old Christian historians didn't write church history as a list of dates or a museum of quarrels. They wrote it as the story of what God has done. Jonathan Edwards called it the history of the work of redemption: God gathering a people through every age, keeping His church alive through persecution and corruption, and reviving it again and again by His Word and Spirit. That is why their histories are full of martyrs, preachers and ordinary believers. They wanted readers to see that the same Christ who called Peter is still building His church, and to take courage from those who went before.
Upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
Matthew 16:18
Here are twelve of the best church history books in TheWay Library, arranged roughly in the order of the history they tell.
The whole story
1. A History of the Work of Redemption, by Jonathan Edwards
Edwards preached this as one connected series of sermons to his congregation. He divides all history into three periods: from the fall to Christ's coming, Christ's life and death, and from His resurrection to the end of the world, with the spread of the gospel, the fall of pagan Rome, the rise and fall of Antichrist, and the Reformation along the way.
God has always, ever since the first erecting of the church of the redeemed after the fall, had such a church in the world.
A History of the Work of Redemption, introduction
It is the best book here for seeing church history as one story. See Jonathan Edwards' books. Read A History of the Work of Redemption.
The first church
2. The Life of St. Paul, by James Stalker
A short Bible-class handbook on the man who carried the gospel to the Gentiles: his upbringing in Tarsus and under Gamaliel, his conversion, his gospel, the world he traveled, his three missionary tours, his letters and character, and the great controversy over the law settled at Jerusalem. About three hours. See James Stalker's books. Read The Life of St. Paul.
3. The Literature and History of New Testament Times, by J. Gresham Machen
Fifty-two lessons for teachers on the Roman, Greek and Jewish world of the New Testament, the first church in Jerusalem, Paul's missions, the Gospels and epistles, and what the first Christians believed and did.
There is a tendency in the modern Church to neglect the study of Bible history. Such neglect will inevitably result in a loss of power.
The Literature and History of New Testament Times, introduction
Read The Literature and History of New Testament Times.
The Reformation
4. History of the Reformation in the Time of Calvin, by J. H. Merle d'Aubigné
Merle d'Aubigné was the great Protestant historian of the nineteenth century, and he wrote like a novelist. Volume 1 of this eight-volume series tells of Geneva's patriots, Berthelier the "martyr of liberty," and the alliance with Berne and Fribourg, then turns to France, Margaret of Navarre and the first martyrs.
Liberty has never been firmly established except among a people where the Word of God reigns.
History of the Reformation in the Time of Calvin, Vol. 1, chapter 5
The other seven volumes are in the library too. His earlier history of the Reformation in Germany and Switzerland survives here only in incomplete copies. See our guide to Merle d'Aubigné's books. Read Volume 1.
5. John Knox: His Ideas and Ideals, by James Stalker
The Scottish Reformer's life, from priest to galley slave to exile in Geneva to the preacher who faced Mary Queen of Scots, followed by chapters on what he believed and built: the Scots Confession, the Book of Common Order, and the Book of Discipline with its plan for a school in every parish.
It is the poignant and intolerable sense of sin that makes the soul cling to the cross of Christ.
John Knox: His Ideas and Ideals, chapter 6
Read John Knox: His Ideas and Ideals.
6. Bishops and Clergy of Other Days, by J. C. Ryle
Ryle's lives of English churchmen: Hooper and Latimer, burned under Queen Mary; Samuel Ward, the Ipswich preacher silenced by Archbishop Laud; Richard Baxter; and William Gurnall, author of The Christian in Complete Armour. Ryle wrote to show what the English Reformers and Puritans actually taught, and he tells their stories with fire. See who J. C. Ryle was. Read Bishops and Clergy of Other Days.
7. The Exiles of Lucerna, by John R. Macduff
The Waldenses of the Alpine valleys held to the gospel for centuries before the Reformation. In 1686 the Duke of Savoy ordered them to submit to Rome or die. Macduff tells what followed, the massacre, the winter flight to Geneva, and Henri Arnaud leading the exiles home over the mountains, as a historical story with a few invented characters to carry it. A good choice for older children too.
Only be faithful to your God, and he will be faithful to you.
The Exiles of Lucerna, chapter 1
The English Bible
8. Down Through the Ages, by Frank E. Gaebelein
An hour-long history of the Bible in English: how the text was preserved, the early versions, Caedmon and Bede, Wyclif, Tyndale's martyrdom, and the making of the King James Version in 1611.
The people had tasted the water of life; no other fountain could quench their thirst.
Down Through the Ages, chapter 7
Awakening and the modern church
9. The Log College, by Archibald Alexander
The story of the simple school where William Tennent trained young preachers in colonial Pennsylvania, and of the men who came out of it, Gilbert Tennent, Samuel Blair, Samuel Finley and others, during the Great Awakening. Many of them describe revivals in their own words. See who Archibald Alexander was. Read The Log College.
10. Thomas Chalmers, by William Garden Blaikie
A short life of the Scottish preacher who came to living faith in a country parish, packed out Glasgow churches, worked to care for the city's poor, and in 1843 led hundreds of ministers out of the established Church of Scotland to form the Free Church, a moment known as the Disruption.
The will of God now became an imperative rule to him, and every energy was bent towards bringing his own heart and life into conformity to it.
Thomas Chalmers
See who Thomas Chalmers was. Read Thomas Chalmers.
11. The New Acts of the Apostles, by Arthur T. Pierson
Lectures arguing that the hundred years of modern missions since William Carey are new chapters of the book of Acts: new pentecosts in Burma and India, open doors, pioneers and martyrs, and answers to prayer. It's history told by a man who believed it was still being written. Read The New Acts of the Apostles.
12. Facts and Men, by J. C. Ryle
Ryle's longer history of the English church from 1553 to 1683, with lives of the Marian martyrs, Laud, Baxter and Gurnall. The scan has some errors, but one paper alone makes it worth reading: "Why Were Our Reformers Burned?" Ryle argues that the martyrs under Queen Mary died chiefly for denying that Christ's body and blood are present in the bread and wine of the Mass.
There are certain facts in history which the world tries hard to forget and ignore.
Facts and Men, chapter 1
More history in the library
Much of the best church history is biography, and our other guides cover it. Foxe's Book of Martyrs, Augustine's Confessions, Ryle's Light from Old Times and Fitchett's Wesley and His Century are in the best Christian biographies. Edwards' Faithful Narrative and the stories of the great awakenings are in Christian books on revival. The missionary century is in the best missionary biographies, and the Puritans in the best Puritan books. For the doctrine at the center of the Reformation, see the best books on justification.
More by these authors: J. H. Merle d'Aubigné, Jonathan Edwards, J. C. Ryle and James Stalker.