“[The] evangelical spirit has always been at the forefront of renewal and reform in the church throughout her history. It was the spirit that motivated the earliest missionaries—Stephen, Philip, Peter, Paul, and Barnabas. It moved Martin of Tours to go to southern Gaul, Patrick to evangelize Ireland, and Columbia to evangelize Spain. It characterized the founders of monasticism . . . It is implicit in the great medieval movements of reform . . . and the leaders of the nineteenth-century missionary movement.”
—Robert E. Webber, Common Roots: The Original Call to an Ancient-Future Faith (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2009), p 42
[Image: Detail from “St. Martin” by Jan Brueghel the Elder (16th century)]