Posted on by

They Knew Their God Series
Does the series, They Knew Their God, written by Edwin and Lillian Harvey and published by Harvey Christian Publishers,present a standard of Christianity so high and so seemingly unattainable to most of us mortals, that it discourages rather than encourages the reader to get to know God in a more intimate way? We read in these six volumes of men and women who frequently spent half nights and whole nights in prayer, fasted regularly, sacrificed their own comforts in order to spread the Gospel, and considered suffering for Christ’s sake a pleasure rather than a cross. In the light of their devotion, our own seems painfully lacking. At other times, however, reading of these saints whets our appetite for more holiness, more purity, more zeal, and more love.


What then is the conclusion we must draw? Does this series, and books like them, do more harm than good. One answer might be that it depends on how we approach them. We must always remember that these saints were as human as we are. They are children of the Fall and as such faced the same temptations and struggled with the same fleshly lusts that war against the soul. We must remember that the biographers of these men and women of God were contemporary with them and thus found it almost impossible to write of misunderstandings, mistakes and failures which dog every Christian’s footsteps.
And so, my answer would be that we benefit greatly from reading books such as the They Knew Their God series if we wish to be encouraged to grow in grace but we must remember that the most important thing is to be compelled by a burning hunger for righteousness and for Christ’s love. We must not seek to copy these saints except in their love for Christ. We must let Him show us how to release that love in our own lives in order for it to grow and be flamed into an unquenchable fire.
This series can be found on Harvey Christian Publishers’ Online Christian Bookstore.

Continue reading...

Leave a Reply