The Acts of the Apostles—or more in keeping with the author's intent, the Acts of the Ascended Lord—is part two of Luke's story of "all that Jesus began to do and teach." In it he recounts the expansion of the church as its witness spread from Jerusalem to all of Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth. While at least forty early church authors commented on Acts, the works ...

The Gospel of John was beloved by the early church, much as it is today, for its spiritual insight and clear declaration of Jesus' divinity. Clement of Alexandria indeed declared it the "spiritual Gospel." Early disputers with heretics such as Cerinthus and the Ebionites drew on the Gospel of John to refute their heretical notions and uphold the full deity of Christ, and this Gospel ...

The Gospel of John was beloved by the early church, much as it is today, for its spiritual insight and clear declaration of Jesus' divinity. Clement of Alexandria indeed declared it the "spiritual Gospel." Early disputers with heretics such as Cerinthus and the Ebionites drew on the Gospel of John to refute their heretical notions and uphold the full deity of Christ, and this Gospel ...

For the church fathers the Gospels did not serve as resources for individual analysis and academic study. They were read and heard and interpreted within the worshiping community. They served as sources for pastoral counsel and admonition for those who were committed to the Way. Although Matthew and John were generally the preferred Gospels, Luke, because of his particular interests ...

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The early church valued the Gospel of Mark for its preservation of the apostolic voice and gospel narrative of Peter. Yet the early church fathers very rarely produced sustained commentary on Mark. This brisk-paced and robust little Gospel, so much enjoyed by modern readers, was overshadowed in the minds of the fathers by the magisterial ...

The Gospel of Matthew stands out as a favorite biblical text among patristic commentators. The patristic commentary tradition on Matthew begins with Origen's pioneering twenty-five-volume commentary on the First Gospel in the mid-third century. In the Latin-speaking West, where commentaries did not appear until about a century later, the first commentary on Matthew was written by ...

While the canonical status of the Greek and Latin Old Testament texts commented on within this volume has been understood differently within Protestant, Roman Catholic, and Orthodox traditions, their longstanding use within the Christian churches makes them worthy of careful study and reflection. As noted in the Anglican Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion, Jerome says that the church ...

"And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, [the risen Jesus] interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself" (Lk 24:27). The church fathers mined the Old Testament throughout for prophetic utterances regarding the Messiah, but few books yielded as much messianic ore as the Twelve Prophets, sometimes known as the Minor Prophets because of the relative ...