The Bible no more knows a separate class of heroes than it does of saints. Because of Jesus Christ, every Christian is extraordinary and attains to glory. Yet grace so shines in some (as in the portraits of Hebrews 11), that it lightens the path of many. As A.W. Tozer wrote, ‘Next to the Holy Scriptures, the greatest aid to the life of faith may be Christian biographies.’

Iain Murray has already written on a number of Christians he especially admires. A few of them return to these pages, but with focus on their thought – George Whitefield on Christian unity, for example. Most space, however, is given to little-known figures, including Robert Kalley and William Hewitson who shared in ‘the greatest happening in modern missions’, and to Charles and Mary Colcock Jones who took much-loved slaves with them to heaven.

There is much new research in these pages, and reminders of how much is missed by those who fail to read of the work of God in history. Christians who know what Christ did yesterday are energized to trust and serve him today.