Three Reasons to Care About Church History
Potentially one of the most understudied and undervalued topics within American Evangelicalism today is the history of the church. The rich history of God working through his people throughout the millennia through His people, combating heresies, creating institutions, and spreading the gospel. It is my belief that through the study of the history of the church, every Christian’s faith will not only be deeply impacted but also motivated through the enchanting scene that is church history. In what follows, I will argue three reasons why you personally should care about church history.
1. Church History Helps Us Understand Scripture
One of the fascinating things that we see throughout the history of the church is that the doctrines we hold dearest to our hearts, and the heresies we keep as far away as possible, can be held by us because the titans of the faith before us have formulated them and defended them on our behalf! For example, a phrase you’ll hear around Orchard Hill frequently is that “Jesus died the death we deserved, and through faith in Him we can now have life,” this doctrine, formally known as Penal Substitutionary Atonement.
Now, while this doctrine is evident throughout Scripture and was not created throughout church history (Isaiah 53, 2 Corinthians 5:21, 1 Peter 2:24, 1 Peter 3:18), this phrase we use to describe it can be credited in part to Anselm of Canterbury, an Italian-born theologian in the 11th Century. In his work Cur de Homo (Why God became man), he lays the foundation for what would be later known as the doctrine of Penal Substitutionary Atonement, he claims that the Father “wished the death of the Son in the sense that it was not his will that the world should be saved by any means, as I have said, other than that a man should perform an action of this magnitude.” (1)
Now, while this doctrine can be clearly defended from Scripture and by Scripture alone, when we recognize that our common beliefs are believed and have been defended because of those Christians before us, we are opened up to a rich history of intellectual thought and meaningful scholarship of Christian brothers and sisters.
2. Church History Connects Us To Our Extended Family
One of the most powerful doctrines in the New Testament is the doctrine of adoption. That through faith in Christ we are moved from enemies and strangers of God (Romans 8:7) to sons and daughters (Ephesians 1:5). But when we take this doctrine and extrapolate it, this means that all Christians, throughout all times, are now connected as family, not by a human bloodline, but by the blood shed on the cross of Christ. That means that the person we sit next to at church is just as much a sibling in Christ as Augustine of Hippo, who lived in the 4th century!
So, when we study church history, we’re not only just learning from brilliant theologians and scholars, but we’re also learning from brilliant brothers and sisters! While simple, this beautiful fact of our adoption into Christ is a reminder that as believers, we are connected to something so much more lovely and profound than just ourselves. That we don’t only have a rich heritage, but we have a rich “family” heritage in Christ.
3. Church History Reminds Us That God Will Prevail
As I write this, it marks the 508th anniversary of the beginning of the Reformation. A time in which corruption seeped throughout the church, running rampant with the clergy’s abuse of power, leveraging indulgences to fund wars and kingdoms, all on the back of the common believer. Yet even in this darkest time, God raised up leaders to call for a return to go back to Scripture and back to what the early church taught.
While this is one example, there have been countless moments throughout church history where the persecution of Christians seemed bleak. Yet when we look back, we know that God has prevailed and His gospel has endured throughout the most trying of times. A look through the history of the church helps us to fully realize Christ’s words in Matthew 16, that the gates of hell will not prevail against His church (Matthew 16:18).
A book I’m currently reading is Confessions by Augustine of Hippo. Augustine is known as one of the most important theologians in all of history, forming much of Western Christian thought. In this book, Augustine lays out his life before meeting Christ, struggling with things such as lust, the desire to fit in, and false beliefs about Christ. Yet in these common struggles that believers nearly 1800 years later can easily relate to, we can be reminded that our God is one who has worked through His people for thousands of years and will continue to do so.
Sources
(1) Why God Became Man, trans. by Janet Fairweather, in Anselm of Canterbury. The Major Works, 260-356. Book 1, Chapter 9.
