Matthew Henry: Born in Persecution, Still Shaping Christianity

Religious Historian YouTube Channel ^ | March 26, 2026 | Religious Historian Channel

[Texan4Life]

Matthew Henry was born two months after his father was expelled from the church. He wrote the most influential Bible commentary of all time and never finished it.

In this investigative documentary, we reveal the full story of the nonconformist pastor who, born into the religious persecution of seventeenth-century England, produced eight million words of biblical exposition in a small garden study in Chester. From the Great Ejection of 1662 and the Act of Uniformity that silenced two thousand preachers, to the Glorious Revolution and the Toleration Act that opened a window of freedom, the life of Matthew Henry spans the most turbulent moments in the history of Protestant Christianity. His work shaped the preaching of George Whitefield, the hymns of Charles Wesley, the theology of Jonathan Edwards, and the sermons of Charles Spurgeon. Three hundred years later, the commentary is still read daily by millions around the world a legacy the institutional church could not preserve, but the written word did.

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TOPICS: History; Mainline Protestant
KEYWORDS:

[Texan4Life]

I learned much from this investigative documentary.

[Psalm 73]

Henry’s Bible commentary is on my short list of helps I use on a regular basis. Excellent for putting together studies.