“Why would twenty-first century Christians—who can read the Bible for themselves and attend Bible-believing churches—need to study Church History?”

7. Learning church history will complete a balanced faith.

When I was a kid, throwing together what experts described as a healthy meal was easy. We had it down to the four food groups: grains, meats, dairy, and fruits & vegetables. We knew that to have a balanced diet, we should never have too much of one group . . . or too little of another. If we turned our noses up at our turnip greens, mommy could always point at the fourth food group as a model of balance. We knew that balance was the key—a balance achieved through moderation and variety.

The same is true of the Christian faith. Believe it or not, a believer can overdose on just one aspect of an otherwise well-balanced Christianity. Too much Bible study alone can lead to an over-confidence in one’s own personal reading and a head of Bible trivia that fails to move from the head . . . to the heart . . . to the hands. Too much academic theology can produce a dogmatic know-it-all with a lot of passion but no compassion. Too much exposure to practical how-to manuals for the Christian life can create shallow pragmatists who wave to and fro with every wind of doctrine or latest idiosyncratic interpretation of Scripture. These disciplines—each one good and necessary—all need to be pursued together without embracing one and neglecting the others.

However, the three food groups described above—Scripture, theology, and practical living—aren’t enough. To keep even these things in proper balance, believers need historical perspective. Knowing the history of interpretation will help us balance our own personal reading. Grasping the history of doctrinal development, controversy, and consensus will balance our own doctrinal confession. And learning how believers of the past lived their faith in a variety of unique cultural contexts can inform us as we try to live our Christian lives in the twenty-first century.

Like a four-legged table, a complete and balanced faith must draw on biblical, theological, practical, and historical sources. These stabilizing elements of Christian knowledge and wisdom must be applied with moderation and variety—neither overindulging in one or two, nor neglecting the precious input of another. However, because evangelicals have often forsaken their history and forgotten wisdom from the past, their table has become wobbly, lopsided, and easily turned. We need to labor hard to restore the insights of history to balance the Christian faith.

“Why would twenty-first century Christians—who can read the Bible for themselves and attend Bible-believing churches—need to study Church History?”

6. Learning church history will capture the interest of outsiders.

Several years ago, a childhood friend of mine contacted me with some questions about the history of the early church. He had read some non-Christian fiction as well as seen programs that presented a distorted view of early Christianity. He knew I had spent over a decade and a half studying church history, so he had direct access to somebody who could help him think through his questions. Sadly, too many outsiders with a genuine interest in the history of the church have no place to turn but the internet, which is a treacherous ocean of ignorance obscuring a handful of sunken treasures of truth.

Thankfully, I was able to respond to all of my friend’s questions in a way that continued to intrigue him, keep his attention, and save him from being carried out to sea by persuasive currents of misinformation. Throughout our discussions, my friend eagerly asked for more and more. I recommended a couple books on the history of the early church, including Oskar Skarsaune’s excellent treatment of the first few centuries, In the Shadow of the Temple.

Within a few months, that friend of mine had read through Skarsaune and, by reading church history, became more curious about the unique claims of the historical Christian faith. He experienced a personal conversion to Christ, joined a believing church, got involved in its ministries, and continued growing in his faith. Last year he succumbed to cancer, having trusted in his Savior to the bitter end. Today that friend of mine is an immovable member of the body of Christ because church history captured his interest.

Yes, some people get bored when you mention history. Others become fearful or distrusting. Still others find it quaint and interesting, but unimportant. Yet several outsiders will be drawn to the claims of Christianity through a discussion of its historical roots and development. Many people today are interested in history in general and in religious history in particular—at least enough people to support a “History Channel” and push historical fiction and non-fiction up the New York Times bestsellers list. I’ve discovered that some skeptical, suspicious, or cautious outsiders will be far more open to discussing the history of the church than looking up verses in the Bible, conversing about competing religions, or weighing the claims of the gospel.

Many outsiders are fascinated by the neglected neighborhoods of Christian history rarely visited except by the most committed. The fact is, now more than ever we have an eager crowd of tourists wanting to know more. As the true heirs of church history, we have a choice: we can either let outsiders mangle our own story in ways that lead people away from the God of history . . . or we can be trained to serve as the tour guides of our own forgotten past.

“Why would twenty-first century Christians—who can read the Bible for themselves and attend Bible-believing churches—need to study Church History?”

5. Learning church history will counter the claims of critics.  

Prior to the eruption of World War II, between 1925 and 1935 a frantic France fortified the long border it shared with Germany. The “Maginot Line”—named after the man who conceived the idea—included a network of bunkers, forts, tunnels, and fortifications for thousands of soldiers. For all practical purposes, the Maginot Line was impenetrable. The French army had prepared to fend off a frontal assault by the Germans —and history proved that the defenses were successful.

But the Germans didn’t bother to penetrate the Maginot Line.

They went around it!

Because of a treaty with Belgium (which stood between France and Germany), the French had not anticipated that the Nazis would simply roll through Belgium to circumvent the Maginot Line. But they did. The Germans found the weakest point in France’s defense and exploited it. They found, as it were, an unguarded back door.

In its brief history as a distinct Protestant movement, evangelicalism spent over a century building up its fortifications first against the destructive skepticism of modernist liberalism and more recently against postmodern cynicism. To hold the line, they set guards on the borders of biblical inerrancy and secured the doctrines that directly related to the Protestant message of salvation by grace through faith. At the same time they sent forth an army of evangelists, missionaries, apologists, and teachers to take new ground. But in the process of fortifying the obvious points of direct attacks, they neglected their heritage in the ancient and Reformation eras.

The result? In the last few decades clever critics and sneaky scholars have switched their assaults from attacks on the Bible, theology, and personal faith to an all-out assault on the Achilles’ heel of evangelicalism: the history of Christianity. Their attacks have left evangelicals scrambling to defend a history they had forgotten and saints they had forsaken.

A line from the first thirty seconds of the movie Braveheart expresses summarizes the critics’ view of church history: “History is written by those who have hanged heroes.” These scholars say the early church fathers changed the real human Jesus from a controversial rabbi and idealistic martyr into a risen Savior and God who bears no resemblance to the historical Jesus. They claim the early catholic Christians browbeat those who opposed their agenda, selected Christian writings that agreed with their positions, and then rewrote history to make it look like theirs had been the original view of Jesus and the apostles. All other views were then unfairly declared to be “heretical.”

It all boils down to this: Did the early church fathers after the apostles preserve and defend the faith or did they pervert and destroy it? Did the Protestant Reformers restore Christianity to a condition similar to the early church, or did they create a new religion from scratch? Are the early fathers and later Reformers “heroes” or “villains”? Who are those people that we implicitly trust to have accepted the right Scriptures and rejected the wrong ones? How do we know they could discern the difference between correct teachings about Jesus and false doctrines? Most evangelicals have no idea how to respond to these questions in order to deflect the attacks and contend for the faith.

The time has come for evangelicals to refortify this vulnerable target, so when critics launch their inevitable attacks, we won’t lose the battle on our own soil. We need to strengthen our levee, so when the storms of controversy rise, we won’t be flooded with needless doubts. And we need to inspect our historical foundations, so we can adorn this two-thousand-year-old temple of the church with gold, silver, and precious stones instead of wood, hay, and straw (1 Cor. 3:12–13). Only by studying church history will we be adequately equipped to counter the claims of these critics.

“Why would twenty-first century Christians—who can read the Bible for themselves and attend Bible-believing churches—need to study Church History?”

4. Learning church history will connect us to a rich legacy.

Picture Christianity throughout its history as a giant tree that has continually grown for numerous generations. Some of its branches have gone one way, some another. Some are more in line with their roots in the apostolic church and the straight trunk of the first few centuries. We might call this trunk the “ancient catholic church” as opposed to later developments in the Western (Roman) Catholic and Eastern Orthodox traditions. Other branches, unworthy of a place on the tree, have withered and fallen off.

Now picture your local church’s place on this massive tree. Your own church is but a tiny leaf, hanging from a small twig, shooting from a thin branch, attached to a large limb, connected to a thick bough, growing from a massive trunk. The diverse Christian churches and denominations today (the various branches of the tree) are not necessarily united to each other through visible, institutional unity. However, every generation has been connected to the apostolic and ancient church by legitimately receiving its core beliefs and practices.

For example, every believer who has been baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit was baptized by somebody who had also been baptized by a predecessor. This line of baptism, though it may have taken various forms throughout history, connects present-day believers to the church of the first century. The same may be said of ministry ordination. Those ministers today who have been tried, tested, and approved by other ordained ministers stand in a long and ancient line of those who had been themselves ordained by the “laying on of hands,” a practice that reaches back to the apostles themselves. Today’s Christians are also connected to the rich legacy of their ancient heritage by receiving—intact and unadulterated—the apostolic and prophetic Scriptures as well as the core message of the faith. Many participate further through orders of worship, hymns, liturgies, and denominational structures, which were passed down from previous generations.

By learning church history, Christians can connect to their own tradition actively, consciously, and critically. They can seek out their spiritual ancestors, experiencing familiarity and a feeling of kinship with the people of faith who preserved Scripture, took a stand for the gospel, reformed church practice, and glorified God with their words and works. They can see their own particular traditions in light of a broader spectrum of emphases and practices, understanding their own church’s attitudes and actions in light of its history. By re-establishing an active and conscious connection to their rich legacy, they will also be equipped to sort through the positive, negative, and neutral aspects of their beliefs and practices, led by more than personal preference or thoughtless traditionalism.

Connecting to a rich legacy of the faith will therefore add a previously unknown depth to personal faith and corporate worship. It has the power to shape the identity of both individual believers and local churches. This identity will help us to transcend our own lonely and seemingly insignificant place on the greater tree, making us aware that we are all part of something far bigger than ourselves.

“Why would twenty-first century Christians—who can read the Bible for themselves and attend Bible-believing churches—need to study Church History?”

3. Learning church history will conserve the faith for the future.

The Lord’s brother, Jude, urged Christians “to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 1:3). The Greek verb translated “delivered” refers to a sacred trust or tradition. Paul described this tradition as he handed it down to the Corinthians: “Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand. . . . For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received” (1 Cor. 15:1, 3). Jude used the same language as Paul did for receiving the tradition and sending it forward to the future. In this case the things “received” and “handed down” were the central truths of the Christian faith.

Paul also wrote letters to his younger disciple, Timothy, for the purpose of encouraging the next generation to faithfully convey the core Christian tradition into the future. Paul wrote, “Continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it” (2 Tim. 3:14). He also said, “What you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also” (2 Tim. 2:2). By observing what our spiritual forefathers fought to preserve and pass on, we come to understand and appreciate the need to continue the pattern established by 2 Timothy 2:2. By looking back, Christians today can learn how to conserve and convey the timeless message through time-tested methods.

Today the Christian church is facing numerous serious crises directly related to their inability to make disciples who are passing the faith on to the next generation. To put it bluntly: Christians today are dropping the baton but still running the race! According to a 2006 Barna Group study, 40 to 50 percent of kids who were “equipped” in church youth groups walk away from the faith or the church in their college years. Study after study shows that evangelicalism itself is shrinking in America. Mega church and multi-site ministries mask the problem, as far too many of those big box churches grow in number by primarily by syphoning believers from elsewhere and systematically weakening smaller churches . . . not by converting the lost or restoring the un-churched. This kind of model of ministry is simply unsustainable. In many respects, American Christians are simply failing to pass the faith on to the next generation. Unless this trend is halted, the disaster could be epic.

The incredible challenges we’re facing today aren’t new. Pluralism, cynicism, paganism, immorality, political corruption, war, persecution, social unrest, atheism, skepticism, and me-theism—the early church thrived in that kind of culture. But today we’re doing all we can to simply survive. As we look back at the history of the church, the pre-modern models and methods of evangelism, catechetical instruction, initiation, and life-long discipleship can help us re-think how we face the current challenges in our increasingly post-modern, post-Christian world. It’s not too late. By learning church history we can rediscover and restore wise and effective ways to conserve the faith for the future.