{"id":611,"date":"2015-03-23T12:00:14","date_gmt":"2015-03-23T12:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/?p=611"},"modified":"2015-02-26T05:12:56","modified_gmt":"2015-02-26T05:12:56","slug":"bible-resource-spotlight-30-events-that-shaped-the-church","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/2015\/03\/bible-resource-spotlight-30-events-that-shaped-the-church.html","title":{"rendered":"Bible Resource Spotlight: 30 Events That Shaped the Church"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Reader Appeal: Bible Students, Pastors, Pew-Sitters<\/p>\n<p>Genre: Christian History<\/p>\n<p>FBSN Rating: A<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s rare to find a book that could appeal to both a Bible Study Nerd and the average pew-sitter, but Alton Gansky has made one anyway.<\/p>\n<p><em>30 Events that Shaped the Church<\/em> takes a unique approach to Christian history. Instead of giving a broad overview of thousands of years between us and them, he spotlights specific moments in our shared past, choosing only the ones that he sees as having the most influence on our belief and experience today. That\u2019s interesting, if only for the concept. Thankfully, Gansky (a former pastor and now a prolific novelist) is a superb writer as well. Add to that his well-researched information and a critical-thinker\u2019s eye, and you\u2019ve got a book that works.<\/p>\n<p>Gansky chooses some of the standard moments you\u2019d expect: Pentecost (when the church was officially born), the Council of Jerusalem (when we realized Christianity wasn\u2019t just a Jewish sect), Titus\u2019 destruction of the Jerusalem temple (which caused Christianity to spread into the entire world), and even the first Council of Nicaea (which solidified and preserved basic Christian doctrine for us today). These chapters are worth reading, but might not be new for those who have studied church history with any sincerity.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s Gansky\u2019s unexpected choices of key events in our history that make this book stand out: the declaration of papal supremacy in 1302; John Smyth baptizing himself in 1609; Bishop Ussher\u2019s attempt in 1650 to date the age of the Earth; the writing of the Bill of Rights in 1789; the Jesus Movement in the 1960s and 1970s, and even the rise of new atheism that we are experiencing today. These events aren\u2019t the ones professors spend a lot of time teaching about in seminary, so it\u2019s refreshing to explore them here. And, while you may or may not agree with everything Gansky says, he certainly will make you think.<\/p>\n<p>Like I said, it\u2019s rare to find a book that appeals to both nerds and normals alike, but this could be one. Check it out for yourself, and afterward share it with a friend. Who knows what great conversations you\u2019ll have as a result?<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/bakerpublishinggroup.com\/books\/30-events-that-shaped-the-church\/347470\" target=\"_blank\"><em>30 Events That Shaped the Church<\/em> <\/a>by Alton Gansky<\/p>\n<p>(Baker Books)<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u2126\u2126\u2126<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"About: Bible Study Nerds\" href=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/about-for-bible-study-nerds.html\">About: For Bible Study Nerds\u2122<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a title=\"About: Mike Nappa\" href=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/about-mike-nappa.html\">About: Mike Nappa<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Copyright \u00a9 2014 to present by\u00a0<a title=\"Nappaland Communications Inc. official website\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nappaland.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Nappaland Communications Inc<\/a>. All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Reader Appeal: Bible Students, Pastors, Pew-Sitters Genre: Christian History FBSN Rating: A &nbsp; It\u2019s rare to find a book that could appeal to both a Bible Study Nerd and the average pew-sitter, but Alton Gansky has made one anyway. 30 Events that Shaped the Church takes a unique approach to Christian history. Instead of giving&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":571,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[101],"tags":[268,267],"class_list":["post-611","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bible-resource-spotlight","tag-alton-gansky","tag-christian-history"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Bible Resource Spotlight: 30 Events That Shaped the Church - For Bible Study Nerds<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, nofollow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Bible Resource Spotlight: 30 Events That Shaped the Church - For Bible Study Nerds\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Reader Appeal: Bible Students, Pastors, Pew-Sitters Genre: Christian History FBSN Rating: A &nbsp; It\u2019s rare to find a book that could appeal to both a Bible Study Nerd and the average pew-sitter, but Alton Gansky has made one anyway. 30 Events that Shaped the Church takes a unique approach to Christian history. Instead of giving&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/2015\/03\/bible-resource-spotlight-30-events-that-shaped-the-church.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"For Bible Study Nerds\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2015-03-23T12:00:14+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2015-02-26T05:12:56+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Mike Nappa\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Bible Resource Spotlight: 30 Events That Shaped the Church - For Bible Study Nerds","robots":{"index":"noindex","follow":"nofollow"},"og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Bible Resource Spotlight: 30 Events That Shaped the Church - For Bible Study Nerds","og_description":"Reader Appeal: Bible Students, Pastors, Pew-Sitters Genre: Christian History FBSN Rating: A &nbsp; It\u2019s rare to find a book that could appeal to both a Bible Study Nerd and the average pew-sitter, but Alton Gansky has made one anyway. 30 Events that Shaped the Church takes a unique approach to Christian history. Instead of giving&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/2015\/03\/bible-resource-spotlight-30-events-that-shaped-the-church.html","og_site_name":"For Bible Study Nerds","article_published_time":"2015-03-23T12:00:14+00:00","article_modified_time":"2015-02-26T05:12:56+00:00","author":"Mike Nappa","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/2015\/03\/bible-resource-spotlight-30-events-that-shaped-the-church.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/2015\/03\/bible-resource-spotlight-30-events-that-shaped-the-church.html","name":"Bible Resource Spotlight: 30 Events That Shaped the Church - For Bible Study Nerds","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/#website"},"datePublished":"2015-03-23T12:00:14+00:00","dateModified":"2015-02-26T05:12:56+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/#\/schema\/person\/a0ce37903172885871b0c504c6694575"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/2015\/03\/bible-resource-spotlight-30-events-that-shaped-the-church.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/2015\/03\/bible-resource-spotlight-30-events-that-shaped-the-church.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/2015\/03\/bible-resource-spotlight-30-events-that-shaped-the-church.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Bible Resource Spotlight: 30 Events That Shaped the Church"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/","name":"For Bible Study Nerds","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Mike Nappa","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/#\/schema\/person\/a0ce37903172885871b0c504c6694575","name":"Mike Nappa","description":"Mike Nappa is an entertainment journalist at FamilyFans.com, a bestselling author\u2014and a notorious Bible Study Nerd. He's a former youth pastor who shepherded kids on staff at Chuck Swindoll's church in Southern California\u2014and he's a bestselling and award-winning author with more than a million copies of his books sold worldwide. Plus, he holds a degree in Christian Education with an emphasis in Bible Theology. So, you know, he\u2019s got that going for him. Mike is also a pop culture dork who watches too much TV, reads too many comic books, utters too many bad words, laughs at all the wrong jokes, and often gets in trouble because he says whatever he happens to be thinking at the moment\u2014like quoting an R-rated movie in the middle of a sermon. Yeah, he\u2019s a mess (just like you!), but he kind of likes it that way. Most of all, Mike Nappa loves Jesus, and he figures that covers over a multitude of sins. Learn more at nappaland.com\/mikenappa.","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.biblestudynerds.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/author\/mnappa"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/611","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/571"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=611"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/611\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":617,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/611\/revisions\/617"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}