Dr. David Irving explains why studying church history matters. The Bible itself is a history of God’s people, and it also calls us to remember his faithfulness, learn from past sins, and follow examples of faith.
The following is a transcript of the video above.
Why study church history?
Why study church history? Students might ask that question, especially as they look forward to biblical exegesis, systematic theology, and preaching classes, and wonder, ‘Why do I need to learn about the history of the church?’ Well, there are two big answers to that question, both of which come from the Bible. The first is what the Bible is, and the second is what the Bible says.
What the Bible Is
In part, the Bible is the history of the church, the history of the people of God, from Adam to the end of that history and the return of Jesus Christ. And large portions of both Testaments, Old and New, are filled with the history of the people of God – Israel and Judah in the Old Testament, of the growth of the Church in the Gospels, and then in the Book of Acts. The Bible itself is a history of the church, and we should study not only the church history contained in Scripture, but also the history of the people of God after Scripture.
What the Bible Says
A second reason is what the Bible says. The Bible calls us in many places to consider and to reflect upon the history of God’s people. And we would do that for any number of reasons. For example, in the Psalms, God’s people are often called to remember the Lord’s works so that they can see His faithfulness in the past and rely on Him in the present. There’s present encouragement from studying the history of the church. A second reason to study church history from the Scripture is to learn from the sins and errors of past believers. Paul instructed the Corinthian Church to remember the unfaithfulness of the wilderness generation and not to desire evil as they had. And so, there are examples from church history that we can mark and say, ‘May God keep me from falling where they fell.’ And then third, we should study church history to learn from examples of faithfulness. We see this, for instance, in the Book of Hebrews, where the author of Hebrews, after giving us the hall of faith in Hebrews 11, calls us to consider their faith and their outcome of life and to imitate that faith. And so we study church history to learn from examples of faithfulness, that we might live faithfully for God in our day as well. “The Bible itself is a history of the church, and we should study not only the church history contained in Scripture, but also the history of the people of God after Scripture.”
