External Resources: Church History

Below is a short catalog of some webpages citing church writings through the ages stating that signs and wonders were contemporary to them.


The Early Church:

• "Signs and Wonders: The Charismatic Power of Early Christianity", by Chris Armstrong on christianitytoday.org
• "Signs and Wonders in the Early Post-Apostolic Era", by Frank A. DeCenso Jr. on CBN.com
• "The Charismata in Church History", by Scott Lencke on Continuationism.com
• "Signs and Wonders in the Early Catholic Church 90-451 and their Implications for the Twenty-First Century", by Nigel Scotland on EarlyChurch.org.uk (originally published in European Journal of Theology 10.2 [2001]: 155-167.)
An interesting part of Scotland's conclusion is that "vibrant moves of the Holy Spirit and the practice of Spiritual gifts do not in general flourish in structured establishment religious communities." He also notes that "where signs and wonders are in evidence there is a greater likelihood that the church will be expanding and redeeming the culture as was the case in the first four hundred years of Christianity.."
• "Healing in The Patristic Period (100-600)", on The Voice of Healing (voiceofhealing.info)
• St. Augustine's City of God, book XXII, chapter 8 lists various healing miracles Augustine attests to have witnessed personally or have firsthand knowledge of. An audio version is available from LibriVox on Youtube here with the recounting of specific miracles beginning at just about the third minute. 

Medieval Accounts:

• "Healing in the Medieval Period (600-1400)", on The Voice of Healing (voiceofhealing.info)

The Reformation:

• "Healing in the Reformation Period (1400-1700)", on The Voice of Healing (voiceofhealing.info)

Post-Reformation signs and wonders:

• "Healing in the 18th and 19th Centuries", on The Voice of Healing (voiceofhealing.info)
• The German pastor, Johann Blumhardt had a flourishing though contentious healing ministry from 1844 to 1880.
• Contemporary reports and experiences of healing were sufficient in 1885 to result in the International Conference on Divine Healing and True Holiness, held in London. The "report" from the conference can be purchased through Amazon here.
• A 1913 report from Confidence magazine of a woman who was blind, deaf, and bedridden with tuberculosis for five years, then healed after an angelic visitation. The article, "London's Modern Miracle," is on page 71 (page 7 of the PDF).
• Andrew Murray's testimony of healing from the preface to the book Divine Healing. Murray lived from 1828 to 1917. A biography giving more specifics of the healing can be found here on HealingAndRevival.com.
• "The Healing Revival 1947-1958 - An Overview", on The Voice of Healing (voiceofhealing.info)
• A site that purports to be "a testimony of the healing move of God throughout the ages," but primarily focuses on the 1800 onward: Healing and Revival
• Audio of David Johannes du Plessis (7 February 1905 – 2 February 1987) speaking on the early days of the Pentecostal Church and why healings and miracles have become less common in Charismatic churches (for more David du Plessis, see this page.)

Surveying signs and wonders from the early church until current times:

• "Miracles in Church History", by William Young on BiblicalStudies.org.uk (surveying into the 1980's)
• Pages on The Voice of Healing website are listed above, but I mention them again here to make note of the fact that they cover the full sweep from the early church until now.
• Professor Craig Keener, author of the book "Miracles: The Credibility of the New Testament Accounts," discusses miracles that occurred in church history as well as today in this video: "Miracles in Church History and Today." Only the last quarter of an hour of the video are on historical miracles (primarily focused on healings), so the video link is queued to where Keener begins that topic. However, the rest of the video is fascinating, informative, scholarly, and well worth watching.
• A series of four articles by Sam Storm delineating the continuation of the spiritual gifts throughout church history. While not restricted to healing, the articles provide an excellent survey which itself provides additional context to any discussion relating to divine healing:
• Spiritual Gifts in Church History (1)
• Spiritual Gifts in Church History (2)
• Spiritual Gifts in Church History (3)
• Spiritual Gifts in Church History (4)

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