It is not altogether common I read contemporaries. But when it comes to vetted historians, Bob Godfrey is rock-solid. His books consistently, especially about Reformation history, are gems.

Godfrey has a scholar’s mind, no doubt about that, but he has not lost his love for the church. He understands that most Christians will never pick up a book of serious theology or church history (to our shame) but he loves the true church nevertheless, and he writes books that, if folks would only read and heed them, edify the body.

Today after work I read his An Unexpected Journey, about how a Reformed congregation loved him, taught him, was patient with him, and taught him the great biblical doctrines of grace wherein he discovered God had gripped him. That was–now–many, many moons ago.

And now, decades later, Godfrey has become of the last seventy-five years’ best church historians.

Tolle, lege.

It was similar for me. I grew up in the visible church. But I learned the true church only after I met the woman who would become my wife. I knew how to “do church” from an early age. But when I was loved, taught, discipled, and saw genuine commitment to Scripture and to the gathering of the called-out body of believers, church became not a theological concept, but a people of which I became a part. Hence, my affinity for Godfrey’s book.