Why Church History?

Some Christian believers felt that church history is not important. What's important is what the Bible says. While I hold strongly to the supreme importance of the Bible, I must confess that church history is also very weighty and important in Christians' living. On retrospect, when I recount my time in seminary, I felt I learnt theology more from church history than systematic theology, although on hindsight, I wish I could study church history deeper and not just surface-scratching.

The Bible reveals to us what took place since the beginning of world and God's redemptive work through man's history after fall. 2000 years later, no matter how glamorous this world appears to be, God's people are to always remember we are living in the backdrop of Genesis-Revelation.  2 Timothy 3:16-17 reminded us, " All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work." In fact, there is no other religion / faith in this world that possess utmost privilege like Christians, who are personally directed by God in all things through His very own revelation. There is also no other religion in this world that knows exactly how to reach out to god, but we Christians know we can reach the throne of God by prayers, because our Lord Jesus personally taught us how to pray. Indeed, it will be foolish for Christian believers to not hold onto the Word of God as lifeline - for what hope do we have, what lasting benefits can we receive, if we do not hold fast to the living Word of God?

What about church history? 

Some argue that because Bible is all-sufficient, we do not need to care about church history. However, acknowledging the all-sufficiency of Bible does not mean we have to reject church history. They are not contradictory. The Bible is about man's history - history is important and has precious teaching values. When we dive into church history, we will be greatly humbled by it as we saw how God's bride, the church, has always been suffering internal woes and external afflictions of all kinds . Yet, the sovereign God who binds His people by His covenant, has always been working through the church history and raised up people who truly know His will to turn the church back to Him. Without looking at church history, we are risking ourselves to forget the biblical history remains valid and active today, because we see no continuation after apostles' death.

Indeed, there were many happenings over the last 2000 years that contributed to where, what, and who we are today. One big lesson I learnt from reading church history is God's sovereignty. Nothing could happen to the follower of Christ or in history, that is out of His reach. This includes the persecutions of God’s people because of their faith, the presence of false teachings, failing political powers and invasions that distracted the church from obeying their calling in Christ, corruption in church, and the divisions that occurred in God’s body (church) – all these are permissible by God and under His scrutiny because He is sovereign. Despite all these weaknesses and problems that infected the church after Christ’s ascension, the gospel continues to spread far and wide, entering new boundaries years after years, reaching places where Christ’s name has never been heard, and churches built. This shows that God is sovereign in carrying out His will despite man's depravation and wickedness;  it also shows that the sovereign God works through all circumstances and conditions to accomplish His good purpose so that He will receive the glory, and no man can boast about their own abilities in this. 

From church history, one will see that God is always refining His own church for His glory. God is the one who initiated reformation through people and circumstances. When people were lukewarm and absorbed in their own personal motives, God worked through chains of events to bring forth spiritual awakening in His body. Through the problems and hardships that afflicted the church, God had used them to purify His body by pushing the church to restore her identity as salt and light of the world. When the church leaders were weak and consumed by power fight, resulting in the Word of God not holistically preached and spiritual famine in His church, God in His providence raised up people like Martin Luther and John Calvin to bring forth the reformation movement. All these were taking place in God's time. Subsequently, the reformation also raised important leaders who worked towards solid and grounded preaching of the Word so that the laity could understand the revelation of God, and helped God's people to grow in knowledge and faith. Through these, God also refined the Catholic Church by bringing them to introspect on the divisions that occurred and the oppositions they faced, so that they would humble and seek God’s counsel. In God’s wise planning, God worked through Catholic’s counter-reformation to bring His good news to remote regions nonetheless – echoing the fact that God’s work will not be stopped by human’s folly or wrong-doings. Instead, God disciplines those He loves, and He also works for the good of those who loves Him, who have been called according to His purpose (Romans 8:28). God works through means and coordinates all events to bring history to its decreed goals. Sometimes we do not seem to see God, but God is there, placing each person in exactly the right place "for such as time as this" (Est 4:14, Eccl 3:1-11).

The church history also revealed to us that the work of devil through church history was aggressive yet subtle at the same time, and it could come from external as well as internal within the Church. Thus it is important to discern its work through the faithful study of the Word of God. The devil’s purpose has always been to create divisions in church and influence people such that they will depart from Truth and become vulnerable to Satan’s schemes. For example, the aggressive attacks on God’s people can come in the form of persecutions like that during post-Apostolic era, but it can also come in the form of heresies, corruption of church leaders, or liberalism that plague mankind today. Yet, the purpose of attacks has always been anti-Christ, stop the complete Word of God from being preached, and weaken the power of God in peoples' lives. Knowing this, it also warns us to be watchful of Satan's attack. For Satan is cunning and often masquerades as angels of light, we need to constantly introspect if the way we do church has been polluted by man-centered motives. We need to also check ourselves if our faith has been lukewarm and lacking the flame of God, causing us to lose the heart to do the work of an evangelist or be equipped in the Word of God? This constant introspection is important to believers who are living in a relativistic and pluralistic world today, and unless the Word of God is faithfully expounded, the darkness in the hearts can hardly be exposed and be corrected.

Finally, from church history, I learnt that the only reason the world continues and still exist today is none other than for God’s redemptive plan to be carried out, until the last elect is saved. God could wipe out the world when the papacy was extremely corrupted and failed to reflect the holiness of God, when the church was lukewarm and hardened; yet God did not do so but in His power, rise up another force such as Reformation and also Pietism for instance, so as to bring people spiritually alive again. With each renewal, we witnessed new doors of evangelism opened and new people uncovered and redeemed. Therefore, the reason that this world continues to exist is so that Christ lives in the hearts of His people and jointly fulfils the Great Commission (Matthew 28:18-20). Unless we align our purpose of life with God’s purpose, we will be vulnerable to devil’s scheme and lose out on God’s grace. 

We have every reason to study church history. Knowing these are important because what happened in the past serve as lessons for us, so that we grow wisdom from learning them and deter ourselves from falling into the same trap knowing the consequences that may ensue; at the same time, it also encourages us to continue to equip ourselves in the gospel truth through radical discipleship (grounding on the Word) so that we can also be workers whom God use to advance His Kingdom. 

Today, we stand on the shoulders of these giants of great faith. The clarity of gospel teachings we have now are crystallized through the faithfulness and blood shed of these clouds of witness. If we abandon our church history, we will lose out on seeing the hands of God in these 2000 years, how sad is that? When we are disillusioned by our present situations that look grim and thinking this is worst of times, a look back to church history enables us to remember that God's people have always faced extremely dark times, only to experience revival in the years that followed. 

As we look at our spiritual ancestors from Biblical history and church history, we know -- it is possible to live by faith, by the grace of God.

This is extracted from segments of the church history assignment which I wrote many years ago, posting here because it is an important milestone for 2022.