Chronological Humility
History is often caricatured as a boring recitation of figures, facts, and dates. Everyone knows the popular quip philosopher George Santayana made in 1905: “Those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it.” My favorite is by Henry Ford: “History is more or less bunk. It is tradition. We don’t want tradition…”
History Teaches
Is that true? Well, it seems that even Ford himself changed his mind later in life. History is not a worthless pursuit, nor is it helpful simply to make sure we do not make the same mistakes as former generations. There is much to be gleaned from the past, especially when we recognize that God is Lord of all history.
Indeed, the Christian faith itself is based on history. The theologian J. Gresham Machen, in his 1923 work Christianity and Liberalism, helpfully explains that Scripture itself contains both history and doctrine. Take 1 Corinthians 15:3, which tells us that “Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures.” Christ died—that’s history; for our sins—that’s doctrine. God takes care not only to preserve the knowledge of the event but also the meaning.
Our faith is a historical faith: God has dealt with real people in real places. What stories of grace and triumph or sin and repentance can we see through the history of the church? Perhaps some believers find it scary to explore church history; after all, it requires stepping outside of the Bible, God’s inspired explanation of his workings. “What about the crusades? What about all the superstitions? What about false beliefs creeping in?” These are good questions, but they should not deter us from studying church history and being edified and challenged by it. History is not authoritative, but it is helpful.
C.S. Lewis coined the term chronological snobbery, which he defined as the “uncritical acceptance of the intellectual climate common to our own age and the assumption that whatever has gone out of date is on that account discredited.” According to this definition we may have many snobs today, where the common mantra is that whatever is new must be better than what came before. But for Christians this does not compute. In a time when the Bible has been cast aside with its exclusive truth claims, we do not change but stick to our old book, which tells us of the Ancient of Days. In fact, it would seem that trouble comes when God’s people forget his mighty works from the past, a point Iain Murray makes from Judges 2:10-11: “And all that generation [those who conquered the land] also were gathered to their fathers. And there arose another generation after them who did not know the LORD or the work that he had done for Israel. And the people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the LORD…” We are not chronological snobs. Instead, we should show chronological humility as we learn of God’s faithfulness to his people throughout time.
Do we want our kids to know about God’s faithfulness to us at GBC? How the Lord provided a building for us and cared for us? Telling the next generation of this story would show them just how true the testimony of Scripture is when it tells us that God is for his people. We would be foolish not to pass along this story to our children! In a similar way, we would be missing out if we were to pass up on our “extended” church family history.
Sunday School
With Scripture as our guide, let's study church history this fall together and glean all that we can! We’ll be looking at the time right after the close of the New Testament up until the Reformation in the 1500s. This is a lot of ground to cover over 9 weeks, but this also means our study will be full. What did the early Christians do when they gathered in the first century? How did they view society at large? What key events happened to shape the church? Who were prominent figures? What is the Nicene Creed? Who cares if the Visgoths sacked Rome? What’s with all the monks?
This article is a shameless advertisement for our upcoming Sunday School. I hope you’ll come and partake in the discussion beginning on Sunday, September 24th. There is much to be learned from the early church and the Middle Ages, and we (Joey & Josh) are excited to share with you.