Sermons & Devotionals by Short Biographies

George Whitefield was born in Gloucester, England, the son of a saloon operator. He was converted to Christ in 1733 and shortly afterwards entered Oxford Univer-sity, where he fellowshipped with the Wesley brothers, John and Charles. His ministry began with his preaching in jails to the prisoners an... Read More

Gladys Aylward was born in London in 1904 (or a few years earlier). She worked for several years as a parlormaid, and then attended a revival meeting at which the preacher spoke of dedicating one's life to the service of God. Gladys responded to the message, and soon after became convinced that she ... Read More

Gregory of Nyssa (c330-c395), his brother Basil the Great, and Basil's best friend Gregory of Nazianzus, are known collectively as the Cappadocian Fathers. They were a major force in the triumph of the Athanasian position at the Council of Constantinople in 381. Gregory of Nyssa tends to be overshad... Read More

There is a traditional list of eight great Doctors (Teachers, Theologians) of the ancient Church. It lists four Western (Latin) Doctors -- Ambrose of Milan, Augustine of Hippo, Jerome of Strido, and Gregory the Great (Pope Gregory I) -- and four Eastern (Greek) Doctors -- Athanasius of Alexandria, J... Read More

Only two popes, Leo I and Gregory I, have been given the popular title of "the Great." Both served during difficult times of barbarian invasions in Italy; and during Gregory's term of office, Rome was also faced with famine and epidemics. Gregory was born around 540, of a politically influential fam... Read More

Griffith Jones 1683 - 1761 All who thank God for the 18th century revival long to see its flames leap across two centuries and set ablaze today's frozen church and wooden-hearted society. Hoping to gain information and inspiration from our foreparents' awakening in Britain, we immerse ourselves in t... Read More

Griffith Jones 1683 - 1761 All who thank God for the 18th century revival long to see its flames leap across two centuries and set ablaze today's frozen church and wooden-hearted society. Hoping to gain information and inspiration from our foreparents' awakening in Britain, we immerse ourselves in t... Read More

Hans Nielsen Hauge was born in 1771 in rural Norway, about fifty miles from Oslo. He had little formal education, but was a skilled carpenter and repairman, and was thus economically secure. He was reared in a devout home, and as a young man he did much religious reading, and was deeply worried that... Read More

Born: June 28, 1604, Lobenstein, Germany. Died: October 6, 1651, Königsberg, Germany. Albert start­ed his ca­reer as a mu­si­cian under Schütz in Dres­den in the early 1620’s, then stu­died law in Leip­zig for three years. Mov­ing to Kö­nigs­berg around 1630, he played the or­gan in that ci­ty’s ca­... Read More

Born: January 10, 1877, Birm­ing­ham, Eng­land. Died: March 1, 1969, Birm­ing­ham, Eng­land. Buried: Lodge Hill Cem­e­te­ry, Birm­ing­ham, Eng­land. Pseu­do­nyms Mrs. Charles M. Al­ex­an­der Mrs. C. M. Alex­an­der An heir­ess to the Cad­bury choc­o­late for­tune, Al­ex­and­er attended university and... Read More

Born: October 7, 1810, Blooms­bu­ry, Mid­dle­sex, Eng­land. Died: Jan­u­ary 12, 1871, Can­ter­bu­ry, Kent, Eng­land. For his own ep­i­taph, he wrote: “The inn of a pil­grim tra­vel­ing to Je­ru­sa­lem.” Buried: St. Mar­tin’s, Can­ter­bu­ry, Kent, Eng­land. Alford wrote the following in his Bible at ... Read More

Henry Melchior Muhlenberg is the principal organizer of American Lutheranism. He was born in Einbeck, Germany, in 1711, and studied at Goettingen and at Halle. Lutherans in America at that time were found in a few scattered communities, of various national backgrounds, with no central organization, ... Read More

"Listen: there was once a king sitting on his throne. Around Him stood great and wonderfully beautiful columns ornamented with ivory, bearing the banners of the king with great honor. Then it pleased the king to raise a small feather from the ground, and he commanded it to fly. The feather flew, not... Read More

After the Apostles, Ignatius was the second bishop of Antioch in Syria. His predecessor, of whom little is known, was named Euodius. Whether he knew any of the Apostles directly is uncertain. Little is known of his life except for the very end of it. Early in the second century (perhaps around 107 A... Read More

Irenaeus (pronounced eye-ren-EE-S) was probably born around 125. As a young man in Smyrna (near Ephesus, in what is now western Turkey) he heard the preaching of Polycarp, who as a young man had heard the preaching of the Apostle John. Afterward, probably while still a young man, Polycarp moved west... Read More

In the years immediately after the Protestant Reformation, non-Roman Churches in the West were divided on the question of hymns. The Lutherans and Moravians immediately began to develop a rich tradition of hymns in the vernacular. Most of those in the Calvinist tradition, on the other hand, maintain... Read More

A mother's prayer: reminiscent of Augustine of Hippo, John Newton and many others, Hudson Tayor's mother prayed and prayed that her son's heart be touched and he become a Christian. One day whle his mother was out of town, a teenaged Hudson was rooting around the grounds of the family home when he f... Read More

was a German religious mystic from the town of Goerlitz (Zgorzelec in Polish) in Silesia, on the Polish side of the Oder river just across from eastern Germany. A cobbler by profession, he was an autodidact much influenced by Paracelsus, the Kabbala, astrology, alchemy, and the Hermetic tradition (P... Read More

Born: June 24, 1734, Gayle, Wensleydale, Yorkshire, England. Died: October 31, 1804. Allen was ed­u­cat­ed with a view to tak­ing Ho­ly Or­ders, first with two dif­fer­ent cler­gy­men at dif­fer­ent times, and then for one year at St. John’s Col­lege, Cam­bridge. Leav­ing Cam­bridge in 1752, he be­c... Read More

Born: 1864, Freestone County, Texas. Died: August 1, 1937, Georgetown, Texas. Acuff was a well known sing­er and song writ­er among the Church­es of Christ in Tex­as. He wrote sev­er­al pop­u­lar Gos­pel songs, oft­en led the sing­ing for pro­tract­ed meet­ings, and helped com­pile hymn­als for the ... Read More