Authors

Ryan Kelly is an associate professor of music at West Chester University of Pennsylvania, where he directs several choirs and teaches courses in conducting and choral music. An experienced church musician and organist, he is also director of music at Proclamation Presbyterian Church in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania.

Valerie Elliot Shepard is the only child of Jim and Elisabeth Elliot, missionaries to the Quichua and Auca Indians (now called “Waodani, which means “the people”) of the Amazon rain forest. Her father and four other men were speared to death in 1956 as they sought to reach the Aucas with the gospel. After Jim’s death, Elisabeth and Valerie continued to live with the Quichuas until they were invited to live with the tribe that had killed Jim. They ministered to the Aucas for two years as Elisabeth and another missionary, Rachel Saint, learned to speak the language and shared the story of Jesus with them. Many Aucas converted to Christ as a result.

Valerie returned with her mother to the United States in 1963 and married Walter Shepard. Walt and Valerie have eight children. They currently reside in Southport, North Carolina.

Esther Liu is a counselor and faculty member at the Christian Counseling & Educational Foundation (CCEF).

Stephen Charnock (1628–80) was an English Puritan thinker known for his practical preaching and ability to explain deep doctrinal concepts clearly and persuasively; he also had an interest in physics. He served as a pastor in Dublin, Ireland, for several years before political and religious upheaval resulted in his ejection from pulpit ministry in 1660, along with more than two thousand other nonconformists. Although forbidden to preach publicly, he continued to study and write for fifteen years. When government restrictions eased, he co-pastored a church in London with Thomas Watson from 1675 until his death. He left behind “considerable treatises on some of the most important points of religion” that were collected soon afterward and published posthumously.

James E. Adams (DMin, Westminster Seminary California) has been the pastor of Cornerstone Church in Mesa, Arizona, for more than thirty-five years and has taught theology for Reformed Baptist Seminary and in Latin America.

Jay E. Adams (1929–2020), a pioneer in biblical counseling, served as a pastor, church planter, denominational executive, seminary professor, author, and lecturer. He taught homiletics at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia and was the director of advanced studies at Westminster Seminary in California. He was the founder of the Christian Counseling & Educational Foundation (CCEF), the Association of Certified Biblical Counselors (formerly NANC), and the Institute for Nouthetic Studies (INS). Adams was the author of over one hundred books, including the best-selling Competent to Counsel, a book that launched the modern biblical counseling movement. He was a recipient of The Order of the Palmetto, the highest civilian honor awarded by the State of South Carolina.