Classic Christian Books You Can Read For Free

Classic Christian Books You Can Read For Free - Christ.net.au

This new page contains links to classic Christian books that you can read or download for free. I'll add a lot more over the summer.

A classic is an outstanding example of a particular style; something of lasting worth or with a timeless quality; of the first or highest quality, class, or rank — something that exemplifies its class.

The Bible

The most classic Christian book of all is the Holy Bible. You can read nine public domain versions of it here on this website. You can read many other versions at BibleGateway and Bible Hub.

Interlinear Bible starting from Genesis 1. The Old Testament was originally written in Hebrew. Note that Hebrew is read "backwards" horizontally, from right to left across the page, in the opposite direction to English. In interlinear Hebrew-English Bibles, each Hebrew word is read from right to left, and each letter within each word is also read from right to left. Like ordinary Hebrew text. But both the English translation and the transliteration (which is the Hebrew pronunciation written in English letters) have the words for each Hebrew word arranged from right to left (like Hebrew), but the English letters within each word (or word group) are read in the usual English direction from left to right. This can be a bit confusing at first.

Interlinear Bible starting from Matthew 1. The New Testament was originally written in Koine (common) Greek. Greek is read in the same direction as English, from left to right.

The Book of Common Prayer

One of the most classic Christian books is the Book of Common Prayer. It's probably the most classic, and historically the most widely read Protestant Christian book other than the Bible itself. It was originally published in 1549 not long after the Church of England (a.k.a. the Anglican Church) broke away from the Roman Catholic Church in what became known as the Protestant Reformation.

You can read the U.S. 1892 Version of The Book of Common Prayer here in PDF format.

This was the first version I found that I liked and had a decent set of bookmarks in the PDF. Pages 14 and 15 (referring to the page numbers printed onto the document pages themselves, and which correspond to pages 23 and 24 of the PDF) were in the wrong order, so I swapped them around. Also I corrected the alignment of a few of the bookmarks, and added a couple more, and set it to display the bookmark panel automatically when you open the document. I got the original version from here. It's copyright-free provided you leave the first page in the document, so you can download it and/or print it freely.

Among other things, the Book of Common Prayer contains a lot of prayers. Which is not that surprising considering its name. You can pray them yourself, either using the same words as the book, or changing them into your own words (such as using more modern language, and also if you're praying alone you can change the second person "we" and "us" to first person "I" and "me"). You can find the prayers using the bookmarked table of contents in the PDF — many of the headings mention prayers.

The Writings of Richard and Sabina Wurmbrand

These include "Tortured for Christ" which has been translated into 65 languages.

You can read and download a large collection of books here on Michael Wurmbrand's website. Michael is Richard and Sabina's only child, and is still active in ministry work towards persecuted Christians. You can support this work here.

John Wesley's Journal

John Wesley rode 250,000 miles on horseback (which equals 400,000 kilometers, and ten times around the world at the equator) to preach 40,000 sermons. The Anglican church rejected him, though he still considered himself an Anglican priest until his death. Banned from Anglican churches, he started preaching outside in the open air — sometimes to audiences in the tens of thousands, and mostly made up from the English working classes.

Wesley started charities that gave food, clothing, and medical aid to the poor. I've heard that he was personally responsible for the conversion of one percent of the entire nation of England. The French Revolution began near the end of Wesley's life, and some people say his influence was a major reason why there was no similar revolution in England.

PDF of single-volume abridged version. I got this from here, and the PDF says it originates from here.

Volume 1 of 4, photographic version published 1903

Volume 2 of 4, photographic version published 1903

Volume 3 of 4, photographic version published 1903

Volume 3 of 4, photographic version published 1903

More to follow soon...

Cover image by Sergiu Vălenaș / Unsplash.

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