Reading the Old Testament with the Ancient Church: Exploring the Formation of Early Christian Thought (Evangelical Ressourcement: Ancient Sources for the Church's Future) - Softcover

The contemporary church dismisses Christianity's foundational Scriptures at its own peril. However, the teachings of the Old Testament are less and less at the center of congregational preaching and conversation. The early church fathers--visionaries such as Augustine, Origen, and Tertullian--embraced the Hebrew Scriptures, allowing the Old Testament to play a central role in the formation of their beliefs. As today's Christians struggle to relate to concepts such as the Jewish law and the prophets, pastors and laypersons benefit from looking through the lenses of these thoughtful pioneers. This latest volume in the Evangelical Ressourcement series helps the Old Covenant to come alive.

The Evangelical Ressourcement series is grounded in the belief that there is a wealth of theological, exegetical, and spiritual resources from the patristic era that is relevant for the Christian church today and into the future. Amid the current resurgence in interest in the early church, this series aims to help church thinkers and leaders reappropriate these ancient understandings of Christian belief and practice and apply them to ministry in the twenty-first century. Reading the Old Testament with the Ancient Church is the fourth volume in the series. The series editor is D. H. Williams.

"Ron Heine has written this book for a wide variety of readers: pastors, New Testament and patristics scholars, and general lay readers. This is a very helpful introduction to the ways the ancient Christian writers viewed the Scriptures. Heine comes to the subject with a significant grasp of both primary sources and contemporary scholarship. The argument is illuminating and inspiring."
--Thomas C. Oden, general editor, Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture

"Heine's overview of the uses of and attitudes toward Jewish Scripture in the ancient church is offered as a corrective to a very common neglect of and lack of appreciation for this topic among lay and leadership audiences in evangelical churches. His lucid prose is eminently readable and his concise summaries include a wide array of authors from Christian late antiquity. This handy volume seems well designed for its audience, who will benefit greatly from Heine's scholarship on this topic."
--Michael A. Williams, University of Washington

"This book fills a gap in the history of biblical interpretation. The work is comprehensive in scope, yet it provides carefully crafted, succinct treatments of major patristic writers that reflect close, informed reading of the primary sources. Only someone who has lived with these patristic authors and pored over their writings could produce such a lively, sympathetic treatment. Both specialist and nonspecialist readers will benefit from this richly detailed exposition."
--Carl R. Holladay, Candler School of Theology

"Ronald Heine brings together two contemporary interests: renewed attention to the Old Testament as Christian Scripture and rediscovery of the church fathers. He offers the reading of the Old Testament with the church fathers as guidance for the contemporary church's use of the whole Bible. The early church's example is a call to do more than understand the text; it is a call to live in and to mold life by the text. I recommend this excellent book to a wide readership."
--Everett Ferguson, Abilene Christian University