best christian biography books

Best Christian Biographies

Dive into faith and inspiration with the most recommended christian biographies, hailed by top book blogs and publications for their powerful storytelling and spiritual depth..

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21 Best Christian Biographies Every Christian Should Read

Reading Christian biographies is important because they inspire us to persevere, keep being faithful, and serve God. They leave us with the thought, “If she can do that, I can, too.”

At least that’s what they’ve done for me.

Even more than that however, Christian biographies are a written testimony of God’s grace. When we read about the things He has done for our forefathers, we can’t help but grow in faith, knowing He can do the same for us. 

Do you ever feel like the struggles you face are so great, no one could have ever overcome such obstacles before? It’s true that Christians often face hard times and we certainly have burdens. But we can face them with courage, knowing that God will give us strength. Many times I have been encouraged by the story of a Christian who faced seemingly insurmountable odds, yet still did great things for Christ.

Many great Christians had difficult lives. Many of them faced terrible losses and tragedies. But they fought on and served faithfully.

Whether you need to grow your faith, or you need some inspiration for service, you can find encouragement through reading Christian biographies. 

Below are 21 encouraging Christian biography books (aff) I believe every Christian needs to read. These stories will inspire you, convict you, and ultimately, point your heart towards our great God!

My Personal Favorite Top 5 Christian Biographies

The heavenly man: the remarkable true story of chinese christian brother yun by brother yun with paul hattaway.

Brother Yun is a modern day hero. Originally a poor boy from the province of Henan, God used him in such a mighty way, even though he faced much persecution and even imprisonment. He became a great testimony and witness in China, and now around the world. This is a MUST READ!

Through Gates of Splendor by Elisabeth Elliot

In 1956 five young missionaries were killed while trying to establish a relationship with an Indian tribe in Ecuador. Elisabeth Elliot was the wife of one of the missionaries. She writes the story of how she and her husband, Jim, came to the mission, and the events that led up to their death. This book will inspire you to be sold out for Christ!

George Muller 

George Muller and his wife gave up everything in order to open an orphanage in Bristol, England. He never asked anyone for money and trusted God to meet their needs. He witnessed many miracles as God always provided, sometimes at the very last minute possible! This book will challenge your trust in God and stretch your faith in the best of ways.

Tortured for Christ by Rev. Richard Wurmbrand

Richard Wurmband was tortured for his faith for many years. His life is a representation of faith, and how God is near those who suffer for Him. It’s a powerful, and honestly, a painful, reminder that Christians are still being persecuted for their faith today. 

A Present Help by Mare Monson

Your faith will be so encouraged when you read this Christian autobiography about Marie Monson, a Norwegian missionary in China. She tells amazing stories of God’s protection when soldiers attacked her village, but spared her life. And after you read her account of being captured by pirates–who listened to her share the Gospel–you’ll know for sure that God is a very present help in trouble. This one woman was a catalyst for revival… but you’ve probably never even heard of her. Powerful. 

Best Christian Biographies: Classics

Dwight Lyman Moody was set on becoming a wealthy businessman, but God had other plans! He used D.L. Moody in many powerful ways, beginning with his Sunday School, and then around the world. He preached many revivals, and saw thousands of souls saved. His ministry even continues today through his books, sermons, schools, and teachings. 

George Whitefied

George Whitefield lived and preached in a time when many preachers were timid in their sermons. But his fiery preaching started a revival in the British Isles, that eventually led to the Great Awakening in America. 

Jonathan Edwards

While nothing like George Whitefield, Jonathan Edwards was instrumental in spreading the Great Awakening in America. He is considered by many to be “America’s Greatest Theologian.” His sermon “Sinners in the Hands of An Angry God” helped to start one of the greatest revivals in history. 

Oswald Chambers: Abandoned to God by David McCasland

Oswald Chambers is the author of one of the most popular Christian books of our day, My Utmost for His Highest. Read the story of the remarkable man who began his life in Scotland, but traveled around the world teaching the Bible. He was utterly devoted to God, and his life story is an astounding journey of faith and trust in God’s provision. 

The People’s Pilgrim: John Bunyan Biography by Peter Morden

The book Pilgrim’s Progress is the second most-printed book after the Bible. But Bunyan’s personal life was wrought with tragedy, including spending twelve years in prison for refusing to obtain a preaching license. His story can inspire today’s Christians as well.

Christian Biographies of Women Leaders

Gladys alyward: the little woman by christine hunter.

Gladys Alyward left her home in England to serve as a missionary in China. She had very little money and no mission board to support her. But she persevered serving God, and her story will challenge your own faith. 

A Chance to Die: The Legacy of  Amy Carmichael by Elisabeth Elliot

Amy Carmichael was an Irish missionary who served fifty-three years in India. She rescued girls who were taken as slaves and used in temple worship. Her life is a model of someone who devotedly gave all she had to the Lord. 

The Never Ending Legacy of Lottie Moon, Missionary to China by Julie McDonald

Lottie Moon was called “the most educated woman in the South.” Yet she left all that behind and ultimately gave her life serving in China. Now, her name is used to raise money for worldwide missions. 

Joni: An Unforgettable Story by Joni Erickson Tada

Joni Erickson Tada is a modern-day example of triumphing over devastating odds. Her life was changed when, as a young girl, she was paralyzed in a diving accident. She has used her disability to share how God reveals His love in our hard times. 

The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert: An English Professor’s Journey Into Christian Faith by Rosaria Butterfield

Rosaria Butterfield was a practicing lesbian and English professor. In her late 30’s she came to Christ and began to learn that any identity apart from Him is sinful. She wrote this book conveying her inner thoughts about the events that led to her conversion. 

The Hiding Place by Corrie ten Boom

The ten Boom family owned and operated a watch shop in Holland during the Nazi occupation. They hid Jews in their attic, and were subsequently arrested. Corrie and her sister, Betsy, were in their 50s, but were still sent to a prison camp in Germany. The Hiding Place is a moving account of God’s protection and how good triumphs over evil.

In the Presence of My Enemies by Gracia Brunham 

Missionaries Martin and Gracia Burnham were taken captive and held hostage in the Phillippine jungle for a year. They faced near starvation, constant exhaustion, frequent gun battles, coldhearted murder―and intense soul-searching about a God who sometimes seemed to have forgotten them. It’s a true story of faith, love and loss, and God’s mercy through it all. 

Other Amazing Christian Biographies

Praying hyde, apostle of prayer by e.g. carre.

Any Christian who wants to develop a deeper prayer life can do so by following the example of John Hyde. He was a powerful prayer warrior whose prayers still influence us today. 

John and Betty Stam by Kathleen White

John Stam and Elizabeth (Betty) Scott traveled to China to serve in Hudson Taylor’s China Inland Mission. They were accused of sedition and killed while they were still young–27 and 28, respectively. Their courage in the face of death is a true testimony of martyrdom in the twentieth century.

For the Glory: The Untold and Inspiring Story of Eric Liddell, Hero of Chariots of Fire by Duncan Hamilton

Eric Liddell is the hero of Chariots of Fire, who refused to run on Sunday in the 1924 Paris Olympics. But he went on to become a missionary in China. He served there until WWII, when he was interned in a Japanese work camp. He continued to serve God and be a faithful witness there until his death. His story continues to inspire millions around the world. 

God’s Smuggler by Brother Andrew

Brother Andrew is a true hero of the faith who worked tirelessly to smuggle God’s Word into closed countries. He prayed for God’ protection, and the result is many miraculous missions carrying the Bible to people who otherwise wouldn’t have it. 

Christian Biographies for Children and Teens

Christian heroes: then and now.

Get your kids and teens involved in learning about great heroes of the faith with these books! Some titles include:

• Gladys Aylward: The Adventure of a Lifetime
• Nate Saint: On a Wing and a Prayer
• Hudson Taylor: Deep in the Heart of China
• Amy Carmichael: Rescuer of Precious Gems
• Corrie ten Boom: Keeper of Angels Den
• Eric Liddell: Something Greater Than Gold
• William Carey: Obliged to Go
• George Muller: The Guardian of Bristol’s Orphans
• Jim Elliot: One Great Purpose
• Mary Slessor: Forward into Calabar

These great books are also available in box sets. 

Lessons in Faith and Service

Reading these Christian autobiographies serves to remind us of the great Christian heritage we have been given. So many of our forefathers have paid the ultimate sacrifice, but God was still faithful with mercy and grace. We can take these lessons and apply them in our own lives today.

What have you learned from Christian biographies? Do you have a favorite? We’d love to hear what you would add or a favorite lesson you’ve learned! Please share in the comments below!

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I highly recommend Marie Monville’s “One Light Still Shines.” Huge impact on me. I wept not only because of sorrow for the tragedy of the Amish schoolhouse shooting in 2006 but also because of being overwhelmed by the goodness of God and the power of love and forgiveness. Very powerful book written by the widow of the perpetrator. I found myself praying over and over, “Lord, please make my faith like this.”

Anything by or about Corrie Ten Boom, Kathryn Kuhlman, Brother Andrew and Jim and Elizabeth Elliott

I regularly read missionary biographies. The one I read the most is In the Arena by Isobel Kuhn. John and Isobel Kuhn were missionaries with China Inland Mission from late 1920s to the early 1940s. In the arena is Isobel’s autobiography. It is probably out of print.You might get used on line. I think you will enjoy it.

Another powerful biography, is “If I Perish”, by Esther Ahn Kim. I read it as a teenager. She had a powerful witness, both in Korea and Japan, during WW2. The way she prepared for prison and persecution under the Japanese, and her love for Japanese women while in prison had an impact that can still stir my heart, even after 50 years. I am swamped right now, editing my husbands book, (short devotionals) to be published by a non Christian publisher(!) in Japan, where we are missionaries. Today was a divine appointment, encouraging me to plod along, with a deadline in front of my face, reminding me what a powerful opportunity God has given us. ‘My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working.”John 5:17 Amen.

The Insanity of God and The Insanity of Obedience had a (by Nik Ripken) huge impact on my faith. I was encouraged by a friend to read it, but she warned, if I was comfortable in my faith NOT to read it. Needless to say, I read it and it was amazing.

Love the George Muller biography! Life-changing for me!

Hi Amy! Yes, I agree! Thanks for stopping by, great to “see” you! AJ

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Top Biography Recommendations from 12 Christian Historians

More by justin.

A while back I asked several historians for their top five biographies, representing the genre at its best, with a little explanation for each.

Here are their answers:

1. Malcolm Muggeridge, The Chronicle s of Wasted Time , 2 vols. (vol. 1, The Green Stick ; vol. 2, The Infernal Grove )

This is a great book, although what kind of great book is hard to say. Muggeridge presented this two-volume work as an autobiography, but the books are selective to the point of fiction and strongly back-loaded to reflect Muggeridge’s opinions as they had come to develop by the 1970s. Doubts as to genre notwithstanding, the volumes are as crisp an evisceration of the modern Zeitgeist as one could possibly hope to read. Muggeridge knew almost everyone of note in Britain and also in many other places of the world. As told here, his life was a perpetual series of disillusionments with the gods of the age (Fabianism, Marxist socialism, western affluence) and a progressive self-understanding of what it meant as a journalist extraordinaire, even in the most secular of centuries, to be haunted by God.

2. David Newsome, The Parting of Friends: The Wilberforces and Henry Manning . London: John Murray, 1966 (reprinted with this title by Eerdmans in 1993; the first American printing was by Harvard University Press in 1966 under the title The Wilberforces and Henry Manning ).

Newsome’s multiple biography is an old-fashioned kind of history about old-fashioned kind of people. His subjects lived in the luminous circle created by the household of William Wilberforce in the first half of the nineteenth century. This circle was made up of several of Wilberforce’s children, their friends and colleagues, and their sisters and sisters’ friends, themselves a remarkable group of Victorian women. The plot line is the story of the drift from the sturdy evangelicalism of the older Wilberforce to high church Anglicanism and then, for some under the guidance of John Henry Newman, to the Roman Catholic church. The poignancy of the story is the combination of intense fraternal devotion and painful ecclesiastical separation. When some in this circle remained Anglican, the result was broken relationships in homes, colleges (most were connected to Oxford), and the church. Newsome’s gift is to shape the treasure trove of letters left by the participants (they were scribbling away all the time) into a compelling narrative that, while it solves no problems of theology or church loyalty, nonetheless demonstrates the profound humanity of those who engaged those issues in that corner of Victorian England a century and a half ago.

3. George Marsden, Jonathan Edwards: A Life (Yale University Press, 2003).

Marsden succeeds in bringing biography to theology and theology to biography with unusual clarity about both the person and the times.

4. Roland Bainton, Here I Stand: A Life of Martin Luther

Newer scholarship has altered details (the book was first published in 1950), but it remains a captivating account of a life-changing person in a life-changing era.

5. Adrian Desmond and James Moore, Darwin: The Life of a Tormented Evolutionist

This biography offers scintillating history of science-with-culture for one of the most important thinkers of the modern period.

Runners Up  (some very close):

• Bruce Hindmarsh, John Newton and the English Evangelical Tradition: Between the Conversions of Wesley and Wilberforce
• Allen C. Guelzo, Abraham Lincoln: Redeemer President
• Richard Carwardine, Lincoln: A Life of Purpose and Power
• Heiko Oberman, Luther: Man Between God and Devil
• H.G. Haile, Luther: An Experiment in Biography
• E. Gordon Rupp, Luther’s Progress to the Diet of Worms
• Peter Brown, Augustine of Hippo
• G. K. Chesterton, Saint Thomas Aquinas—” The Dumb Ox”
• Edmund S. Morgan, The Gentle Puritan: A Life of Ezra Stiles
• John Pollock, Wilberforce

George Marsden

1. Peter Brown, Augustine of Hippo .

A classic work and a great exposition of the man and of his era.

2. Robert Caro, Master of the Senate: The Years of Lyndon Johnson .

Wonderful example of the art of great story telling.

3. Walter Lowrie, A Short Life of Kierkegaard .

Probably dated by now, but a great brief introduction to a most complex figure

4. James D. Bratt, Abraham Kuyper: Modern Calvinist, Christian Democrat .

A new biography. Wonderfully balanced account about a multifaceted thinker and leader still important for today.

5. Richard Westfall, Never at Rest: A Biography of Isaac Newton .

Excellent at presenting Newton’s thought in the context of its times.

Allen Guelzo

1. Perry Miller,  Jonathan Edwards  (1949).

Although lopsided in its effort to place Edwards in the stream of John Locke, Miller’s Edwards is a work of real literary genius.

2. Richard S. Westfall,  Never at Rest: A Biography of Isaac Newton  (1980).

A glowingly comprehensive and sympathetic biography of one of the greatest of scientific minds.

3. Peter Brown,  Augustine of Hippo  (1967).

A stupendously erudite re-creation, not only of Augustine, but of the entire world of late antiquity.

4. Edmund S. Morgan,  The Puritan Dilemma: The Story of John Winthrop  (1962).

A short but wickedly-well-written biography of the first governor of the Massachusetts Bay colony, done with surprising sympathy.

5. Henry D. Rack,  Reasonable Enthusiast: John Wesley and the Rise of Methodism  (1989).

No other single work on Wesley and 18th-century England captures the times and the man so well.

Carl Trueman

1. Simon Sebag Montefiore, The Young Stalin (Vintage, 2008).

A prequel to Montefiore’s Stalin: Court of the Red Tsar , this is a fascinating study of the early development of the later Soviet dictator and proof of the maxim that the child is father of the man, even when the man is named Joseph Stalin.

2. Michael Korda, Hero: The Life and Legend of Lawrence of Arabia (Harper Perennial, 2011).

The most readable of many biographies of T.E. Lawrencs, the ultimate intellectual man of action and a personal hero.

3. Sheridan Gilley, Newman and His Age (Darton, Longman and Todd, 2002).

Ian Ker’s is surely the definitive biography of John Henry Newman but I give this the edge as being more readable and as offering a fascinating portrait not simply of the most influential religious thinker of the nineteenth century but also of the era in which he lived.

4. D.G. Hart, Defending the Faith: J. Gresham Machen and the Crisis of Conservative Protestantism in Modern America (P & R Publishing, 2003).

An important study of a key figure in the fundamentalist-modernist debate which also helps to demonstrate why the simple polarities of liberal/conservative are incapable of capturing the nuances of what actually happened.

5. Heiko Oberman, Luther: Man Between God and Devil (Yale, 2006).

Oberman’s most brilliant, speculative, flawed, and thought-provoking book is a fascinating study of the Luther as a late medieval figure. Blending social history, textual study, theology, philosophy, and psychology in a fascinating mix, this is the book which transformed my own thinking about Luther.

Bruce Gordon

1. Peter Russell,  Prince Henry “the Navigator”: A Life  (Yale, 2001).  

Russell’s command of every detail, from ship construction to tribes in Senegal, is evident at every point in this beautifully written and compelling tale.

2. Claire Tomalin,  Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self  (2002).

The book captures the vivacity, wit, and debauchery of Pepys through a sympathetic account of his life in the fast-paced world of Restoration England.

3. George M. Marsden,  Jonathan Edwards: A Life  (2003).

From start to finish, pure elegance of prose and a magisterial command of Edward’s thought and character.

4. Rüdiger Safranski,  Nietzsche: A Philosophical Biography  (2002).

Focuses on a brilliant and tortured mind while telling the life of a remarkable man: a rare balance of narrative and philosophical discussion.

5. Jonathan Bate,  John Clare: A Biography  (2003).

An extraordinary nineteenth-century English poet from the laboring class who achieved brief fame in London before descending into the hell of mental illness.

Thomas Kidd

Thomas Kidd is distinguished professor of history at Baylor University.

He writes, “I am focusing on biographies from the colonial and Revolutionary eras of American history. I heartily agree with Mark Noll’s recommendation of my doctoral adviser George Marsden and his Jonathan Edwards biography, which would otherwise be at the top of my list. Since he’s already mentioned it, here’s the next five.”

1. David Hackett Fischer, Paul Revere’s Ride (Oxford University Press, 1994).

Fischer not only offers an evocative treatment of Revere and his world—which was more interesting than what Longfellow’s “ The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere ” told us—but one of the best books on the American Revolution, period.

2. Kenneth Silverman, The Life and Times of Cotton Mather (Harper and Row, 1984).

A Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of one of the most intense (some might say neurotic), prolific, and tragic of all the American Puritans. Reading this will help you understand why one of his opponents once firebombed Mather’s house!

3. Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, A Midwife’s Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard, Based on Her Diary, 1785-1812 (Knopf, 1990).

Another Pulitzer Prize-winner, Ulrich’s remarkable recreation of Ballard’s compelling life is perhaps the best American social history biography ever written.

4. John Demos, The Unredeemed Captive: A Family Story from Early America (Knopf, 1994).

This is a biography of the Williams family, especially of Eunice Williams, who fell victim to a 1704 Native American raid on Deerfield, Massachusetts. Demos tells the poignant story of how the seven year old Eunice grew up among the Mohawks, married an Indian man, accepted Catholicism, and never returned to the Puritan fold in spite of fervent appeals by generations of her family.

5. Catherine Brekus, Sarah Osborn’s World: The Rise of Evangelical Christianity in Early America (Yale University Press, 2013).

As I wrote in my review for The Gospel Coalition, Brekus’s extraordinary portrait of Osborn may be the best biography we have of an American evangelical woman.

John Fea is professor of American history and chair of the history department at Messiah College in Grantham, PA.

1. Debby Applegate, The Most Famous Man in America: The Biography of Henry Ward Beecher .

A vivid portrayal of 19th-century culture through the life of a member of one of the century’s most famous families.

2. Richard Bushman, Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling .

Bushman brings the founder of Mormonism to life with elegant prose and scholarly insight.

3. Robert Caro, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York .

Caro is known today for his biographies of Lyndon B. Johnson, but this earlier biography of the urban planner and landscape architect who “built” 20th century New York City reads like a novel.

4. George Marsden, Jonathan Edwards: A Life .

The best biography of Edwards ever written and a model for religious biography.

5. Eric Miller, Hope in a Scattering Time: A Life of Christopher Lasch .

Miller’s bio of late-twentieth century cultural critic and historian Christopher Lasch is one of the best intellectual biographies I have read.

Douglas Sweeney

Douglas Sweeney is professor and chairman of church history and history of Christian thought at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, as well as director of their Jonathan Edwards Center.

1. Roland Baiton, Here I Stand: A Life of Martin Luther .

It remains the most widely read bio of Luther for good reason. It is a wonderful read on the most important Protestant pastor in history.

2. Skevington Wood, The Burning Heart: John Wesley: Evangelist .

Readers can feel Wesley’s heart burning on almost every page.

3. Peter Brown, Augustine of Hippo: A Biography .

Brown has spent his career recreating the world of late antiquity. This biography places our most fecund doctor of the church in that context beautifully.

This is the definitive biography of our most important evangelical intellectual.

5. Alister McGrath, C. S. Lewis—A Life: Eccentric Genius, Reluctant Prophet .

This book makes great use of the recently released correspondence of Lewis, making this late-modern evangelical hero come to life (warts and all) for his fans.

Darryl Hart

1. Roland Bainton, Here I Stand: A Life of Martin Luther (1950). A colorful treatment of an even more colorful figure that captures the central dynamic of the Reformation, namely, how to be right with God.

2. Stewart Brown, Thomas Chalmers and the Godly Commonwealth in Scotland (1982). A scrupulously researched inquiry that situates a hero of Scottish Calvinism within the political, educational, and ecclesiastical complexities of nineteenth-century Scotland.

3. Harry S. Stout, The Divine Dramatist: George Whitefield and the Rise of Modern Evangelicalism (1991). A provocative account that looks past hagiography to capture the human (and sometimes unflattering) aspects of Protestantism’s greatest evangelist.

4. Terry Teachout, The Skeptic: A Life of H. L. Mencken (2002). Arguably the best biography of the infamous literary critic in part because the author, a music critic, takes into account the subject’s love of music.

5. Bruce Gordon, Calvin (2009). A smartly conceived narrative that allows Calvin’s “greatness” to emerge not from hindsight but from the accidents of sixteenth-century Europe.

Sean Michael Lucas

Sean Michael Lucas is senior minister at The First Presbyterian Church in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, and professor of church history at Reformed Theological Seminary in Jackson, Mississippi.

1. D. G. Hart, Defending the Faith: J. Gresham Machen and the Crisis of Conservative Protestantism in Modern America (Johns Hopkins, 1994; reprint, P&R).

2. Allen Guelzo, Abraham Lincoln: Redeemer President (Eerdmans, 1999).

3. Bruce Gordon, Calvin (Yale, 2009).

4. Harry S. Stout, A Divine Dramatist: George Whitefield and the Rise of Modern Evangelicalism (Eerdmans, 1991).

5. George Marsden, Jonathan Edwards: A Life (Yale, 2003).

“This is an odd list. I think the one common thread is that these are all intellectual biographies that pay attention to the way that their ideas or actions operated within their cultural systems. Another is that they all (except for Gordon) influenced the way I thought about biography when I went to write my Robert Lewis Dabney: A Southern Presbyterian Life (P&R, 2005).”

Michael Haykin

1. Iain Murray, Jonathan Edwards .

A biography of the remarkable American theologian that brings the reader face to face with Edwards’ God.

2. Faith Cook, William Grimshaw of Haworth .

A biography that I hold dear because it is a challenge to my wimpishness, something this Canadian Christian historian deeply laments. Grimshaw was a true radical.

3. Andrew Fuller, Memoirs of Samuel Pearce .

A classic biography that is focused on Pearce’ s piety, which cannot fail to impact the heart for good.

4. Courtney Anderson, To the Golden Shore .

A riveting missionary narrative of the life of Adoniram Judson.

5. Iain Murray, D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: The First Forty Years, 1899-1939 and D. Marty Lloyd Jones: The Fight of Faith, 1939-1981 .

The two-volume biography of Martyn Lloyd- Jones, the most powerful twentieth-century influence on my life.

Nathan Finn

1. Courtney Anderson, To the Golden Shore: The Life of Adoniram Judson (1956; reprint, Judson Press, 1987).

This is my all-time favorite biography. Anderson provides an appreciative, but realistic portrayal of an inspiring missionary pioneer.

2. Hugh Evan Hopkins, Charles Simeon of Cambridge (Eerdmans, 1977).

This is a winsome popular biography of a key pastor-theologian in late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth-century British evangelicalism. Required reading for pastors.

Marsden’s work is the gold standard for a scholarly biography that is at the same time sympathetic toward its subject. His A Short Life of Jonathan Edwards is also great.

4. Peter Brown, Augustine of Hippo , 2nd ed. (University of California Press, 2000).

Many church historians consider this to be the best scholarly biography of a major Christian leader, and I’m often inclined to agree. A close second to Mardsen’s biography of Edwards.

5. David McCullough, John Adams (Simon and Schuster, 2003).

McCullough is a master storyteller. If I ever write a biography, I hope it reads half as well as this excellent popular biography of America’s second president.

Justin Taylor is executive vice president for book publishing and publisher for books at Crossway. He blogs at Between Two Worlds and Evangelical History . You can follow him on Twitter .

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