In this article the author looks at the importance of history in the Bible, and discusses why it is important to give illustrations from church history in preaching

Source: The Banner of Truth, 1987. 4 pages.

The Use of Church History in Preaching

Traditionally, the four foundational subjects studied at any theological college have been the Old Testament, New Testament, Theology, and Church History. Furthermore, the Churches of the Reformation have traditionally centred on the importance of preaching in equipping the pastor to feed and lead the flock of God. This is as it should be — the apostle Paul declared that he came not to baptize but to preach the gospel (1 Corinthians 1:17) and that it was through the message preached that sinners would be saved (1 Corinthians 1:21). Without a preacher, sinners simply will not hear the gospel (Romans 10:14). It is therefore not surprising that Paul could exhort young Timothy to be diligent in his study of the Scriptures that he might 'rightly divide' or 'correctly handle' the word of truth (2 Timothy 2:15). Only when this was done would Timothy be able to obey the charge to,

Preach the word and Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching.2 Timothy 4:2

There is usually no difficulty in seeing the relevance of Old Testa­ment, New Testament, and Theology in the training of a preacher. Any preacher who dares to step into a pulpit clearly requires a sound grasp of both Testaments together with an adequate theological basis, so that he can interpret the biblical texts in a faithful way. However, the study of Church History may not seem to possess the obvious justification that inheres in the other three subjects. One might be tempted to ask, 'Why study Church History, for what use could it have in preaching God's word?'

In order to begin to answer that question, one needs to recognize that the Bible itself frequently makes its message clearer by appealing to history. Perhaps the most oft-quoted text is Psalm 44:1,

We have heard with our ears, O God, our fathers have told us, what deeds You did in their days, in days of old.

But Psalm 44 is not alone in this regard. Psalm 77 raises the question as to whether God has cast off His people, but then the Psalmist recalled great episodes in Israel's past which gave him hope for the future (note the change of direction in vv. 10-12). Psalm 78 also recounts God's wondrous acts in Israel's past, despite Israel's rebellion and ingratitude.

Many other examples could be cited — Psalm 95 calls on Israel to worship the Lord, and warns against any hardness of heart, such as was evidenced in the wilderness as Israel made her way towards the Pro­mised Land; Psalm 106 records Israel's rebellious acts in history and contrasts these with God's long-suffering grace; and Psalm 136 refers to God's mercy illustrated in the way He treated Israel in bygone days.

The prophets made a similar use of Israel's earlier history in order to rebuke and encourage their contemporaries. In the eighth century B.C. Hosea referred to the corruption which prevailed, especially amongst religious leaders, as in the days of Gibeah (Hosea 9:9). To us, this ref­erence sounds somewhat obscure, but Hosea expected his hearers to pick up the allusion to Judges 19:22. Hosea went on to contrast God's loving redemption of Israel in calling His people out of Egypt with Israel's response in sacrificing to the Baals (Hosea 11:1-2). A little over a century later, Jeremiah was to make potent use of the disparity between Israel's earlier covenant faithfulness and her later idolatry (Jeremiah 2:2ff). Jeremiah's younger contemporary, Ezekiel, also delivered an historical oration which highlighted Israel's rebellion against the God of the cove­nant (Ezekiel 20:1-32).

It is thus quite in keeping with these Old Testament precedents that the same appeal to history is found in the New Testament. Stephen's address to the council in Acts 7 is virtually a history lesson. Stephen spoke of the patriarchal period (vv 2-16), the period under Moses and the reception of the law (vv 17-43), and also to the tabernacle and the temple (vv 44-50). The application which follows in verses 51-53 is based firmly upon the historical account of verses 2-50.

In 1 Corinthians 10:1-10 Paul points to the sacramental blessings which Israel of old had received from Christ (vv 1-4), but abused through their idolatry, immorality and murmuring (vv 5-10). In verse 11 Paul tells the Gentile Christians at Corinth that these historical examples were recorded 'for our admonition, on whom the ends of the ages have come'. The whole biblical approach to the use of history is in harmony with Paul's summary in Romans 15:4,

For whatever things were written before were written for our learning, that we through the patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope.

There is thus overwhelming biblical precedent for appealing to history in order to illustrate theological or moral truths.

But there is a need now to establish a continuity between the history that is recorded in the Bible and the history that is recorded elsewhere. Both histories exist on the same plane; both are speaking of real people and real events. Admittedly, there are most significant discontinuities — God has not worked through prophets and apostles since biblical times, and extra-biblical history is not recorded by holy men of God as they are moved by the Holy Spirit. Nevertheless, there is much validity in Thomas Carlyle's assertion that Church History should be seen as 'a sort of continued Holy Writ'.1This is not meant in the sense that Chris­tian historians write the history of the Church in the same way that Luke wrote the Acts of the Apostles. Rather, it is meant in the sense that Christian historians need to use principles derived from Scripture to write about events that actually happened and people that actually lived.

One of the most widespread perversions of the faith today is what Francis Schaeffer called an 'upper storey' religion. According to this approach, faith is separated from its historical basis, and so becomes an optimistic leap without verification or communicable content.2The Bible is portrayed as a book about spiritual values, like Aesop's Fables, far removed from the actuality of science or history. Hence faith is seen as a kind of mysticism divorced from the world of facts and events. Rudolf Bultmann, for example, wanted to retain what he regarded as the gospel message but reject its historical basis. In the pulpit, Bultmann would preach the fallenness of man, but not the historical fall of Adam in the Garden of Eden. He would proclaim the Easter faith, but not Christ physically risen from the dead. In fact, Bultmann con­sidered that 'the historical problem is scarcely relevant to Christian belief in the resurrection'. 3

The consequences of such an approach is that there is a general feel­ing in the community that the Bible is not about history, and that the Christian faith has little to do with the real world. But God must be seen as the God of history — the God who protected Judah from the Assyrians in 701 B.C. and the God who preserved Western Europe from the Nazis in 1939-45; the God who sent the Babylonians into Jerusalem in 587 B.C. and the God who has chastened His backsliding covenant people many times during the course of history.

Thus it will be that one of the major uses of Church History in preaching is that it will provide illustrations and parallels which will show that just as the Bible is concerned with history, so also the God of the Bible continues to concern Himself with history. Some examples may be given. About the year 622 B.C. the book of the law was found in the temple, and King Josiah was greatly used of God in turning the nation from idols and to the living God. True worship, according to God's revealed Word, was restored. The Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century provides many parallels to Josiah's reformation — both were founded upon a rediscovery of God's inerrant Word, both sought to eradicate idolatry, and both sought to reinstitute true religion after a long period of decay and superstition.

The vision of revival in Ezekiel 37:1-14 might be illustrated by the evangelical awakening of the eighteenth century, as God's word and Spirit gave new life to a people who were spiritually dead. As a counter­poise to that, one might point to the collapsing Roman Empire as an illustration of the process of accelerating degradation, culminating in homosexuality, which Paul portrays in Romans 1:18-32. For that matter, our own tottering civilization will provide enough sad parallels. The use of such illustrations will reinforce in the minds of Christians the fact that God is the God of history, the One who acted in biblical times, who has acted since, and who acts today. Faith and fact will thus go hand-in-hand, unlike the case in neo-orthodoxy where there is a tragic separation.

Naturally, there are pitfalls of which the preacher must be aware if he is going to refer to Church History in proclaiming the Word of God. One of the most obvious is today's ignorance of history. As one of the senses in which the word 'history' may be used, C. S. Lewis referred to 'that vague, composite picture of the past which floats, rather hazily, in the mind of the ordinary educated man'4More amusingly, Sellar and Yeatman have por­trayed history as 'Memorable History', for history is 'what you can remem­ber'.5 To a significant extent, sociology has supplanted history in universit­ies and schools. In Oxford in the 1920s over 30% of undergraduates were reading history, but forty years later this percentage had almost halved.6

Names like Jonathan Edwards, John Calvin, Anselm, and Augustine can mean much to the preacher but little to many seated in the congre­gation. The preacher may be waxing eloquent on Martin Luther, and all the time some of his congregation think he is speaking of Martin Luther King. I recall bewildering one Bible College student in Vanuatu who, admittedly armed with a defective grasp of English, could not work out what Augustine had to do with a hippopotamus! If a preacher is going to refer to historical characters and events, he needs to take the time to explain them simply and in enough detail, so that a person with no background in history will be able to follow what is being said. In all his works, whether biblical, theological or historical, J. C. Ryle was a master of forceful simplicity. Any preacher would be well advised to study his essays on historical subjects.7

Contrary to prevailing opinion, even in historical circles, it is appro­priate to give some dates, so that people can begin to sort out an order of events in their minds. The modern distaste for dates is part of the reason for the vagueness that pertains to most people's grasp of history. Luther, Calvin, Wesley and Spurgeon all belong to some indefinite past, and few have much understanding of how they fit into the flow of history.

Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones never tired of telling us that 'there is nothing next to the Bible which is more encouraging than to familiarize oneself with the great history of the church'.8To the Doctor's eloquent testi­mony might be added that of Philip Schaff:

History is, and must ever continue to be, next to God's Word, the richest foundation of wisdom, and the surest guide to all successful practical activity.9

The Christian preacher has every reason to delve into church history and to share the fruit of his labours with his congregation. It will encourage him, it will help to train his people to think historically, and it will provide many apt and helpful illustrations of biblical truth. Provided he avoids the pit­falls noted above, the preacher may indeed 'declare His deeds among the people' (Psalm 9:11). Bolingbroke used to say that history is 'philosophy teaching by example'. The Christian can do better — history is theology teaching by example.

Endnotes🔗

  1. ^ T. Carlyle 'History as Biography' in E Stern (ed) Varieties of History from Voltaire to the Present, MacMillan and Co, London, reprinted 1970, p 98. 
  2. ^ e.g. F. Schaeffer The God Who is There, Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1970, pp 52-3, 78-9. 
  3. ^ R. Bultmann 'New Testament and Mythology' in H. W. Bartsch (ed) Kerygma and Myth, vol 1, S.P.C.K., London, 1957, p 42.
  4. ^ C. S. Lewis 'Historicism' in C. T. McIntire (ed) God, History, and Historians, Oxford University Press, New York, 1977, p 230. 
  5. ^ W. C. Sellar and R. J. Yeatman 1066 and All That, Methuen, 1930, reprinted 1975, p 5. 
  6. ^ R. W. Southern 'The Contemporary Study of History' in 14. Stern op. cit. p 405.
  7. ^ e.g. Five English Reformers and Christian Leaders of the 18th Century, both reprinted by the Banner of Truth.
  8. ^ e.g. Joy Unspeakable, Kingsway Publications, Eastbourne, 1984, p 124. 
  9. ^ Cited in Mark Noll et al Christianity in America: A Handbook, Lion, Herts, 1983, p xix.

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