This three-volume art curriculum set, Behold the Beauty, is designed to be used by teachers or homeschooling parents for kindergarten–6th grade. The ultimate objective of every lesson is exactly as the title implies: to behold the beauty of creation and to praise God in doing that. As students learn to more closely observe creation while rendering what they see in pencil, paint, or other artistic media, they will be trained to meet that objective. In serving that goal, the lessons teach how to use the elements of art, such as line, shape, and color, while introducing the principles of design, such as unity, variety, and focal point. Not only do students learn to behold the evidence of God’s glory all around them by these means, they also learn to make objects of beauty in order to communicate that glory to others. The curriculum is based on the infallible Scriptures, and the twelve lessons of each grade level comprise a thorough, biblical, and systematic art education.

Behold the Beauty was also written with practical considerations in mind: to assist instructors who have had little or no training in art. The lessons are clear and easy to use, requiring minimal supplies without compromising objectives.

The author, Connie Meyer, is a wife and mother of five children and is a 1982 graduate of Calvin College with a BA in art education. She has used the lessons with her children and has helped teachers teach art in their classrooms.

“This book has been a great introduction to art for my son. We’ve been using it for over a year now and have made many wonderful art projects. I even have his 2 yr. brother participate and he has fun. It teaches great art concepts and includes godly wisdom alongside.”

“This is a great book. There is a small amount of prep (little more than making sure you have the materials), and no special skills required. I have been working through this with my 6 year old (started when she was 5. Her little brother also tries to do the projects (and is successful for the most part). Highly recommended.”

For many, the term “ancient” implies drudgery and irrelevance. However, the outset of this book will dispel any such notions. The ancient age brims with interest, instruction and encouragement for today’s readers. This was an age of miracle-working apostles, fearless martyrs and stalwart church fathers; an age that preserved the Scriptures, drafted the early creeds and produced timeless Christian classics; an age when the church was buffeted by fierce waves of persecution and assailed by heresies of every sort. Through this volume and the ones that follow, the Lord Jesus Christ, the cornerstone of the church, sovereignly shepherded His beloved church by His Word and Spirit.

In this first volume of Christ and His Church Through the Ages, author and historian Herman Hanko tells the fascinating story of the early church during the first six centuries of the New Testament dispensation. He relates how Christ faithfully guided the church from the ministry of the apostles through the fall of the Roman Empire. Highlights of this history include the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, the spread of the gospel to the Gentiles, the persecution of the church under Roman emperors, the deliberations of the ecumenical councils and the battle for the truth of sovereign grace.

Through this and future volumes, students of church history and interested readers will surely grow in their love and appreciation for the saga of Christ’s church. They will find church history to be, as the author once affectionately described it, “the exciting adventure of the marvelous work of grace.”

Herman Hanko served as professor of church history at the Theological School of the Protestant Reformed Churches from 1965 until his retirement in 2001. He is the author of several books, including Portraits of Faithful Saints, Contending for the Faith and For Thy Truth’s Sake: A Doctrinal History of the Protestant Reformed Churches.

Dan Van Uffelen is a church history teacher at Covenant Christian High School in Walker, Michigan. He has taught church history for almost two decades.

[Reviewed by Prof. Douglas Kuiper, current professor of church history at the Protestant Reformed Seminary]

The RFPA website currently lists ten titles written by Herman Hanko, emeritus professor of Church History and New Testament Studies at the Protestant Reformed Theological Seminary. Publishing this survey of church history will add four more titles to those ten. These four may well be Hanko’s magnum opus.

The four volumes correspond to the four main eras of church history—ancient, medieval, Reformation and modern. The RFPA’s goal is to publish one volume per year for the next four years. Under review is the first volume, covering the first six centuries of church history. Three chapters cover the first period of ancient church history, the apostolic period (30–100). The material in this section is largely based on God’s revelation in Scripture.

Chapters four through ten cover the post-apostolic period (100–313). During this period the church was learning how to live, grow and develop in her doctrinal understanding without the guidance of the apostles. Society and the Roman government hated the church during this era. She battled against heresies that consisted of mixtures of Christian teachings and pagan philosophy, she had to recognize which books constituted the inspired Scriptures and she had to develop in her understanding of the Trinity. By God’s grace and under Christ’s direction, grow and develop she did.

Chapters eleven through nineteen cover the Nicene and post-Nicene period (313–590). During this time, the state stopped persecuting the church and began to favour her, to her weakening. The seeds of the Romish papacy were sown and began to sprout. Notable doctrinal controversies regarding the Trinity, Christ’s Person and natures, and the depravity of man’s nature also characterized this period. The church was working hard to develop in her understanding of the sovereign, irresistible character of God’s grace.

All of which is to say that this book highlights the main events and themes in the history of the church during her first six hundred years—exactly as you would expect it to do and as do many other books. So what makes this book different?

First, the work is intended for a wide public audience, not the narrow field of scholarship. Hanko is a scholar. He is well read in the field of church history and taught it at seminary level for thirty-six years. But his goal is that the members of the church, whether highly educated or not, know the basic points of church history.

Second, Hanko’s goal is to make the reading of church history an enjoyable undertaking: “I have consciously tried to make the book enjoyable and worth reading” (author’s Preface). Indeed, the book tells a story and flows like a story. It is a story—a true story, His (God’s) story.

Other surveys of church history are also intended for a wide audience and are entertaining reads. So the third, and fundamental, way in which this book is different is that it evaluates church history from a Reformed and biblical viewpoint. In Hanko’s words, “While the books that I read were all helpful in giving the facts of church history, some in considerable detail, I could not find one book that dealt with the history of Christ’s church from a biblical and, more specifically, a Reformed viewpoint” (Preface).

In this reviewer’s judgment, Hanko accomplishes all three goals and does so well. His writing style is engaging. His explanation of complex matters (Gnosticism, and the Trinitarian and Christological heresies, for example) is simple enough that the book could be used as a high-school textbook (in fact, the first edition was a limited edition release for that purpose). And Hanko’s evaluation of his material in light of Scripture is refreshing.

The book is full of church history facts, but the analysis of the historical events and themes is this book’s great value. Every historian has a bias, a perspective from which he views history. Some historians, trying to be objective, do not tip their hand as to what their bias is. Hanko tips his hand: history is the unfolding of God’s counsel, directed by the ascended Lord. It is the outworking of principles of history that Scripture tells us to expect—the signs of the times of our Lord’s return. It is the story of men and women who sometimes abided by scriptural principles and requirements, and other times failed to abide by them.

Hanko also leaves the reader with the clear impression that the history of the church long ago is relevant for us today. History’s themes repeat themselves and the heresies that the church battled then are fundamentally the same, though repackaged, as some of the heresies that the church faces today.

I thank my former professor for taking the time to write the book and look forward to the release of the next three volumes.

The contributions of the editor and reviser, Dan Van Uffelen, are also commendable. Dan lists the ten basic categories in which he revised the first edition. Dan’s work was significant and time-consuming. The addition of introductory essays, biographical sketches, sidebars, charts and pictures makes the book more enjoyable to read, and more suitable for a textbook. The addition of an index to the book is also welcome.

The subject matter is precious. The matter is presented at a level that many can read. RFPA subscribers will not only enjoy reading the book but likely recommend it to others interested in the church’s history. 

Medieval. Nowadays, this adjective is used to describe something antiquated, even cruel. In turn, many today see the Middle Ages as little more than a long period of decadence. This second volume of Christ and His Church Through the Ages shows us how history is more complicated than that.

It is true that the medieval age seems the most distressing age in the history of Christ’s church: the rise of the papacy, widespread false teachings and superstitions, the conquests of Islam, and countless battles and wars in the name of Christ. In this sense, these were the dark ages. But the medieval age is also the most fascinating age in the history of Christ’s church: the conversion of the barbarians, the Christianization of Europe, the blossoming of Christian education, the shining of many theological lights, and the labouring of pre-reformers such as John Wycliffe and Jan Hus. This was the age of faith.

Herman Hanko tells the story of how God, in His mysterious ways, made His church to be both a witness to the nations, and the cradle of civilization and culture. Despite much apparent evidence to the contrary, the Lord was preserving his church even in these strange and troubled times. Through it all, God was preparing the great Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century.

Through this and future volumes, students of church history and interested readers alike will surely grow in their love and appreciation for the saga of Christ’s church. They will find church history to be, as the author once affectionately described it, “the exciting adventure of the marvelous work of grace.”

Herman Hanko served as professor of church history at the Theological School of the Protestant Reformed Churches from 1965 until his retirement in 2001. He is the author of several books, including Portraits of Faithful Saints, Contending for the Faith and For Thy Truth’s Sake: A Doctrinal History of the Protestant Reformed Churches.

Dan Van Uffelen is a church history teacher at Covenant Christian High School in Walker, Michigan. He has taught church history for almost two decades.

This book is a teacher’s manual that is designed for use with children ages 4-6 and can easily be used in a homeschool situation. Often teachers express a lack of confidence in teaching art, considering themselves untrained or untalented in this area. This curriculum was proposed exactly for this purpose: to give teachers direction in this often-intimidating subject. The lessons do not assume prior knowledge of art, so the teachers can learn the elements and principles along with the students.

Behold the Beauty is a treatment of art education from a Reformed, Calvinistic viewpoint. The lessons teach the elements of art: line, shape, texture, colour, value, and form and include instruction in putting these elements together. For each grade, there are twelve lessons, which are divided into six main subheads: Objective, Supplies, Vocabulary, Introduction, Directions and Variations. The book also includes student worksheets which can be copied.

The author, Connie Meyer, is married and the mother of four children. She has had a lifelong passion for good art and has an art education degree from Calvin College. She has led teacher seminars on art education and is a frequent author of articles in the Beacon Lights magazine, a young adult magazine.

This book is a teacher’s manual designed for use with children ages 7-8 and can easily be used in a homeschool situation.

Behold the Beauty is a treatment of art education from a Reformed, Calvinistic viewpoint. The lessons teach the elements of art: line, shape, texture, colour, value and form, and include instruction in putting these elements together. There are 12 lessons for each grade, each lesson divided into six main subheads: Objective, Supplies, Vocabulary, Introduction, Directions and Variations. The book also includes student worksheets that can be copied.

The author, Connie Meyer, has an art education degree from Calvin College. She has led teacher seminars on art education and is a frequent author of articles in the Beacon Lights magazine, a young adult magazine.

This third volume in the three-volume art curriculum set, Behold the Beauty, is designed to be used by teachers or homeschooling parents for 4th–6th grade (ages 9-11). The ultimate objective of every lesson is exactly as the title implies: to behold the beauty of creation and so to praise the Triune God. As students learn to more closely observe creation while rendering what they see in pencil, paint or other artistic media, they will be trained to meet that objective. In serving that goal, the lessons teach how to use the elements of art, such as line, shape and colour, while introducing the principles of design, such as unity, variety and focal point. Not only do students learn to behold the evidence of God’s glory all around them by these means, they also learn to make objects of beauty in order to communicate that glory to others. The curriculum is based on the infallible Scriptures, and the twelve lessons of each grade level comprise a thorough, biblical and systematic art education.

Behold the Beauty was also written with practical considerations in mind: to assist instructors who have had little or no training in art. The lessons are clear and easy to use, requiring minimal supplies without compromising objectives.

The author, Connie Meyer, is a wife and mother of five children and is a 1982 graduate of Calvin College with a BA in art education. She has used the lessons with her children and has helped teachers teach art in their classrooms.