hostile society, and under increasingly oppressive governments. Also, most of our Bible-believing “churches” are compromised, deceived, and thoroughly bewitched worldly ideas and behaviors. This was much the case for the first Baptists in the American colonies, who were living in an ostensibly free society, and yet were severely suppressed and mistreated by the so-called “Christian” governments over them. Much can be learned by today’s western believers from their zeal, courage, love, and wisdom.

of the first Baptists in New England, during the mid- to late- 1600s. He starts with the Baptists’ origin in Holland and England, and then focuses on the exemplary life of a Baptist believer named Obadiah Holmes. Although he didn’t plant the first Baptist assembly in America, nor found a colony, like Roger Williams, Holmes was one of the most influential and persecuted Baptists in New England during the mid 1600s. An uneducated tradesman like John Bunyan, he grew up in a Puritan context, fled to New England to escape the Anglican government, but then came to the convictions of believer’s baptism, believers’ membership of the church, and the separation of church and state. He did much preaching of the gospel in the New England area, suffered at the hands of Puritan authorities, and for more than 20 years served as an overseer of an assembly in Rhode Island. Much can be learned from his and his Baptist friends’ lives, as well as from his Testimony about his Faith, and about his congregation, written several years before his death. His zeal, love, courage, and boldness serve as an example for all believers today, especially those who hold to Baptistic beliefs derived from the New Testament.

Hand in History Students group, where you can get into deeper discussions about

history and our response to it.

Holmes by Edwin S. Gaustad

English Baptist Movements by Dan Nelson

ed. Mark Sidwell