I am about to tell you something that might make some Christian publishing houses a little angry with me. But, that is just a risk I am going to have to take in writing this column. So here goes.

Did you know that you can access almost everything that John Calvin wrote on the Internet? For free? Well, you can. And not just Calvin, either, but also Augustine, Athanasius, Luther, and many more historical authors both famous and obscure. This is all available on this website: http://www.ccel.org/

the Christian Classics Ethereal Library, which is a service of Calvin College. Of course, I still prefer to read an actual physical book, but this website is a great resource for referencing and checking things out. So, maybe you don’t want to read all of The Institutes on this website (staring at a screen that often for that long would give me a headache), but, if you want to, you can! This website is quite helpful if you are sitting at work and need a Calvin fix, but somehow forgot to bring your copy of The Institutes with you.

Once on their home page, you can search their library by keyword, title, subject, or author. Once you find a book you want to read and click on it, you can choose what format you want to read it in. You can buy digital copies of it, or you can click “read online” to read it for free.

All of Calvin’s Commentaries, The Institutes, and other works by Calvin can be found here: http://www.ccel.org/c/calvin.

Works by the early Church Fathers (volumes and volumes of them!) are available here: http://www.ccel.org/fathers.html. Many works by Martin Luther are located here: http://www.ccel.org/ccel/luther.html.

I encourage you to just explore this website; there are so many gems available. This website also has recommended readings and great links to other resource sites. They also provide daily devotionals from Charles Spurgeon and others.

With all the junk that is on the Internet these days, it is encouraging to find sites like the Christian Classics Ethereal Library that provides access to such great reading material.