![]() ![]() Six months before I was born, my dad helped launch an extension of Talbot Theological Seminary on the campus of Grace Community Church. I grew up in the home of a church elder and seminary professor. Perhaps I’m drawn to those stories because they are similar to my own experience. Hodge who followed in the footsteps of his father, Charles. Some of my favorite testimonies are of those who grew up in the church-like Jonathan Edwards, a pastor’s son who came to saving faith as a teenager or A. John Calvin summarized his salvation experience in a simple sentence: “God by a sudden conversion subdued and brought my mind to a teachable frame, which was more hardened in such matters than might have been expected from one at my early period of life.” Church history weaves together all of these powerful stories of divine grace (both the visibly dramatic and the seemingly subtle) to create a beautiful tapestry testifying to the glory, power, and mercy of God. Other conversion stories are not as outwardly dramatic, but they are nonetheless equally profound. Still more, like Luther, desperately sought to earn salvation through their own self-righteous works, finally discovering the gospel of grace and finding the gates of heaven flung open.Ĭountless stories could be told-from John Bunyan (the reprobate soldier) to John Newton (the slave-trader)-of dramatic conversions in which God’s grace suddenly and visibly arrested the sinner, like Saul on the road to Damascus. Others, like Augustine, lived in wanton rebellion and immorality, until they were tracked down by the Hound of Heaven. Some, like Athenagoras, came to saving faith while trying to disprove Christianity. ![]() One thing that strikes me is that the circumstances surrounding each conversion are always different, and yet the profound truth of the gospel is always the same. Hearing how the gospel of God’s grace has transformed the lives of so many throughout the centuries never gets old. It’s one of my favorite aspects of studying church history. ![]()
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