The Early Church at Work and Worship

"These essays, spanning four decades of Ferguson's scholarship, sum up major discussions of ministry and canon in early Christianity. Especially useful for exploring the terminology surrounding ordination, these essays are vintage Ferguson." -Elizabeth A. Clark, Professor of Religion, Duke University "Over the years, Everett Ferguson has been a distinguished and prolific contributor to the study of early Christianity, and especially its liturgical practices. It is therefore gratifying to see some of his output collected in these two volumes [...] Characteristic of Professor Ferguson's traditional method of scholarship has been to subject the works of individual patristic authors or particular documents to extremely detailed study of wording, and to accompany his arguments with clear quotation of the sources on which they are based, making them easy to follow [...] It will form a useful addition to the bookshelves of anyone interested in serious study of these areas of early Christianity." -Paul Bradshaw, Modern Believing, 56.3, July 2015 "This volume contains much insight and common sense in a field beset by rival theories." -Liviu Barbu, The Expository Times, Vol. 127 No. 6, March 2016 "Ferguson's careful and dispassionate weighing of the evidence on both the canon in general and on some of those other writings is a pleasure to read and points decisively to an emerging canon from the second century with gradually solidifying identity, based almost entirely on what the church used and respected." -Ken Booth, Anglican and Episcopal History, September 2016