A selection from a letter by John Calvin to the brethren of France who had faced persecution for Christ. The letter was written in November, 1559:
It has been said of old that the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church. If it is a seed from which we derive our origin in Jesus Christ, it should also be a shower to water us that we may grow and make progress, even so as to die well. For if this blood is precious in the sight of God, it ought not to be unprofitable for us; thus we see that St. Paul boasts that his bonds have contributed to the advancement of the gospel and expects that in his death the name of Jesus Christ will be exalted.
Letters from John Calvin: Selected from the Bonnet Edition, the Banner of Truth, 1980, pp. 223-24.
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Moody Stuart said, "Ruth Bryan's letters are remarkably like those of Samuel Rutherford's, closely resembling them in most winning, unwearied, and gloriously endless eulogy of the King in His beauty." Joel Beeke says, "Ruth Bryan stands in a class of great female devotional writers, such as Anne Dutton and Mary Winslow, whose Christ-centered correspondence has helped hundreds of God's people drink more deeply of the wells of salvation."
by Charles Haddon Spurgeon
About Me
Why Life & Letters?
Before e-mails, telephones and text-messaging, people wrote letters to one another. Letters are personal and thoughtful. We can be thankful that biographers have letters to and from the people they write about from generations gone by, for modern forms of commu-nication leave us in want. Letters have a quality about them not found in e-mails. Historian and biographer, David McCullough, says, “I think often of how little we will leave about ourselves and our time in our own words. Maybe some of the e-mail will survive, but I doubt it. How will future gen-erations ever come to know us? Historians and biographers a hundred or three hundred years hence will have almost nothing of a personal kind to work with. Our story, consequently, will be a lot less interesting, less human, per-haps even impossible to write.”
It is a shame that few of us today craft letters to our children and friends. Letter writing is a lost art. I hope this blog will inspire others to write letters. Letters are valuable. C. H. Spurgeon said, “A man’s private letters often let you into the secrets of the heart.
Most of what appears here are selections taken from letters of Evangelical Christians. There will also be occasional reviews of books of letters.
It is a shame that few of us today craft letters to our children and friends. Letter writing is a lost art. I hope this blog will inspire others to write letters. Letters are valuable. C. H. Spurgeon said, “A man’s private letters often let you into the secrets of the heart.
Most of what appears here are selections taken from letters of Evangelical Christians. There will also be occasional reviews of books of letters.
Articulate, Thoughtful, and Well-Composed Letters
"In the nineteenth century, many biographers wrote books titled The Life and Letters of So-and-So. While this was not always an eloquent way of writing history, it speaks volumes about our cultural distance; if restricted to composing a narrative of someone’s life around his written correspondence today, we wouldn’t be able to write biographies, because people write too few letters to constitute the substance of a book. Further, if you read those nineteenth-century letters, you cannot fail to notice how articulate, thoughtful, and well composed they commonly are. A culture that was accustomed to thoughtful, well-composed letters produced remarkable significant letters, even among fairly common people. Today, we have become a culture of telephone babblers, unskilled at the most basic questions of composition…"
Why Johnny Can’t Preach: The Media Have Shaped the Messengers, by T. David Gordon, Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing, 2009, pp. 66-67.
Why Johnny Can’t Preach: The Media Have Shaped the Messengers, by T. David Gordon, Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing, 2009, pp. 66-67.
A Wonderful Book of Letters: "The Marvelous Riches of Savoring Christ: The Letters of Ruth Bryan"
Moody Stuart said, "Ruth Bryan's letters are remarkably like those of Samuel Rutherford's, closely resembling them in most winning, unwearied, and gloriously endless eulogy of the King in His beauty." Joel Beeke says, "Ruth Bryan stands in a class of great female devotional writers, such as Anne Dutton and Mary Winslow, whose Christ-centered correspondence has helped hundreds of God's people drink more deeply of the wells of salvation."
A Sample Letter
by Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Life & Letters Blogroll
- Benjamin Beddome
- Between Two Worlds
- Biblical Preaching
- Church Matters 9Marks Blog
- Denny Burk
- Desiring God
- Dr. Mohler's Blog
- Expository Thoughts
- Founders Ministries Blog
- Illumination
- Of First Importance
- Oversight of Souls
- Provocations and Paintings
- Pyromaniacs
- Redeeming the Time
- Riddleblog
- Sharper Iron
- Unashamed Workman
Some Good Web Sites
- Alfred Place Baptist Church
- All By Grace
- Audubon Press
- Banner of Truth
- Christian Communicators Worldwide
- Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service
- Don Currin Ministries
- F.I.R.E.
- Go Teach Sunday School Literature
- Grace Life Pulpit
- Midwest Center for Theological Studies
- Modern Reformation Magazine Online
- Particular Baptist Press
- Phil Johnsons Bookmarks
- Solid Ground Christian Books
- Sound of Grace
- The Association of Reformed Baptist Churches of America
- The Center for Biblical Spirituality
- The John Newton Project
- The Spurgeon Archive
- William Carey
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