Reviews and Endorsements

“Augustine as Mentor builds on sound scholarship and research”

“Augustine as Mentor builds on sound scholarship and research. Smither not only displays his own familiarity with a multitude of secondary works but more impressively his extensive working knowledge of the voluminous Augustinian corpus from the Latin sources. The volume’s style is straight forward, systematic and well organized. No fluff is found here. Often using [...]

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Augustine as Mentor “an important book”

The relationship that Augustine established with others engaged with him in pastoral ministry has fascinated scholars for decades. Now a new perspective is brought to the question by this book. It looks at how Augustine was the mentor of his disciples and, indeed, how this relationship was for more common in the early church than [...]

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Endorsement of Edward Smither’s Augustine as Mentor

The church today is becoming ever more aware of its need to look to the ancient fathers for wisdom. Christian leaders who wish to draw on patristic insights need to read Ed Smither’s useful study of Augustine as a spiritual mentor. Smither investigates ancient practice with the expertise of a scholar and the heart of [...]

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Augustine as Mentor “an excellent sourcebook of applied theology”

Works on the subjects of mentoring and disciple-making have blossomed in recent years, but rarely are such practices linked to similar expressions in the early Christian centuries. Few topics are more central to ministry and few scholars are more qualified than Augustine, who enacted this process in the lives of others. Smither, an exceptional church [...]

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