If you think of history as boring, take about three minutes and scan through 131 Christians Everyone Should Know. Zero in on an article, and you may find you can’t read just one!

These sketches have been put together by the editors of Christian History magazine, who have an impressive track record for making history come alive every month for their readers.

Note the diversity in this volume: Menno Simons, a pacifist, and the Roman emperor Constantine, a general. Leaders of the Reformation—Luther, Calvin, Zwingli—and the Counter-Reformation—Ignatius Loyola and Teresa of Avila. Men and women. Teenagers such as Joan of Arc, and aged saints like Polycarp.

History isn’t just dates, statistics, and grand social movements. It’s people—people from many callings:

• Theologians—Athanasius and Jonathan Edwards

• Evangelists and Apologists—Justyn Martyr and Billy Graham

• Pastors and Preachers—John Chrysostom and Richard Baxter

• Musicians—Johann Sebastian Bach and George Frederic Handel

• Artists and Writers—Rembrandt and C. S. Lewis

• Poets—Dante and Fanny Crosby

• Denominational Founders—Richard Allen and Aimee Semple McPherson

• Movers and Shakers—Dominic and John Wycliffe

• Missionaries—Patrick and David Livingstone

• Inner Travelers—Brother Lawrence and Oswald Chambers

• Activists—Sojourner Truth and Lord Shaftesbury

• Rulers—Charlemagne and Henry VII

• Scholars and Scientists—Eusebius of Caesarea and Nicolas Copernicus

• Martyrs—Perpetua and Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Each personality sketch includes a timeline that gives the historical context in which that person lived. The book also contains a topical index that will help you find illustrations for teaching and preaching.

Some time spent with 131 Christians Everyone Should Know will forever enlarge your view of “the church as we see her spread through all time and space and rooted in eternity, terrible as an army with banners” (C. S. Lewis)—a spectacle that will inspire you to deeper thought and greater faithfulness.