2,000 Years of Christ's Power - Volume 1: The Age of the Early Church Fathers

By: Nick Needham

Narrated by: Peter Matthess

Length: 13 hrs and 32 mins

Publisher's Summary

Every generation has an uncanny tendency to view themselves as more enlightened than those that have gone before. The Church certainly has made mistakes all through history - and yet, no insights which we possess would be possible without the efforts, and even some of the mistakes, of our ancestors. The first volume of 2,000 Years of Christ's Power covers the period from the 1st Century AD to the start of the Middle Ages. From the works of Saint Augustine of Hippo to the first apologetic ever penned, this time in history established the foundations of what we take for granted today.

©2016 Christian Focus Publications (P)2021 Christian Focus Publications

CAN'T RECOMMEND A BETTER BOOK ON CHURCH HISTORY!

This is probably the best book I've read on Church History covering the 1st-7th centuries.

Very thorough and easy to grasp making it accessible to anyone who would like to learn more about the history of the Christian Church.

Decent book marred by production issues

The good:
This is a decent, popular-level church history book. It presents a good overview of the history with the uncommon perspective of a Reformed Baptist. The author whets the listener's appetite for reading the Church Fathers by providing excerpts at the end of each chapter.

The bad:
The production quality of this book was a huge disappointment in two ways.
1) Several times there were poor cuts in the recording that resulted in repeated phrases or sentences as either the narrator wished to re-state a line or there was a poor splice between files in the initial recording.
2) The narrator was never provided a pronunciation guide, and didn't think to ask for help. For instance "Dionysius the Areopagite" is consistently mispronounced as "Die-on-see-us the Areopajite"--missing a syllable in the first part and incorrectly softening the 'g' in the second. These mistakes are not in the original text of the book. Of the two production issues, this one is by far more painful.

Looking forward to the next 4.

Excellent history. I would love to have the rest of the volumes on Audible. Hopefully Vol.5 will have been written by then.

The narrator's pronunciations take a little getting used to. He apparently has no familiarity with Greek letters or words with Greek roots. Otherwise he is extremely good.

Easy to follow

I loved it. Some of the points are obviously more interesting than others but this is Church history, it wouldn't be honest to just pick the "fun" parts.
This is a great listen for any lay or learned person. I have so much appreciation for this book!

Highly recommended

informative, enlightening, and spiritually uplifting as well as worth having a physical copy of the book.

Highly recommend

Thoroughly informative, concise, well researched. This volume introduces the reader to all the important early church fathers and some lesser known ones as well. It explains the theological and historical significance of major historical debates.

More!! Thank you for this work.

Looking forward to the next one. This book keeps a good pace while covering a lot of ground. I definitely recommend this to anyone interested in developing their knowledge of the works of God (church history).

Nothing else like it

Awesome book, detailed and easy to read/listen to. Hopefully the other volumes come out soon in Audible.

Very interesting

A well written narrative of the early Church history, covering all the controversies and heresies, the well known Church figures and many lessor one. The reader was clear in diction, and easy to follow, albeit he pronounces some of the names a little different from what I have previously heard . However, who is to say how they were originally pronounced. This is the kind of audiobook that I would need to listen to again to refresh my memory as to the details of the various events.

Clearly narrated

Needham’s books on Church History will give you such a good grounding, and will form the basis of your understanding about God’s hand throughout history. Needham helpfully includes excerpts from the writings of some of the major figures he discusses. This really helps to wet your appetite to go off and read these other works. The audio tape is beautifully narrated and I would highly recommend getting a copy of book and tape and following along. This is a good way to cover the material, particularly as many of the names and places in Needham’s first volume can be challenging to pronounce and read through.