going to get started. And I want to begin by welcoming you all to the first class of the second quarter. Last quarter, Dr. McGraw led us in a study of systematic theology, framed by the Westminster larger catechism. And this reminds you kind of where we are in the curriculum. With the new summer school curriculum, we're going to have four cycles matching four quarters throughout the year. So systematic theology, And we're now moving into the second quarter, and that is church history. And over the course of several years, we're willing to get to ancient church, medieval, Reformation, and modern history. And we'll begin this quarter with ancient church history beginning at the beginning. And unless you think this is a harsh set way, there is a helpful link. What we've been talking about, systematic theology, when we remember that systematics is also called dogmatics. And a dogma is never simply a biblical truth, though it is now. It's also a biblical truth that's been So I think you'll find that what we've been doing on subsequent weeks will dovetail nicely with the study of development doctrine and the history of the church. And before we get started, I conscripted Hans to pass out any handouts to people who do not have them. Anyone not have a handout, and Hans will graciously give you one. Peter, did you get a handout? You did, great. All right, and with that in mind, anyone else comes in, I have more handouts at the end, you can pick up one at that point. But let's go ahead and get started. And to begin with, I'd like us to look at a passage of scripture that is directly related to the task at hand. doing of history and the passing of that history on the next generation. I'm gonna read Psalm 78 verses one to eight. If you have your copy of the scriptures, feel free to follow along. Psalm 78, beginning in verse one. Give ear, O my people, to my law. Incline your ears to the words of my mouth. I will open my mouth In a parable, I will utter dark sayings of old, which we have heard and known, and our fathers have told us. We will not hide them from their children, telling to the generation to come the praises of the Lord and his strength and his wonderful works that he has done. For he established a testimony in Jacob and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers that they should make them known to their children. that the generation to come might know them, the children who would be born, that they may arise and declare them to their children, that they may set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments, and may not be like their fathers, a stubborn and rebellious generation, a generation that did not set its heart aright, and whose spirit was not faithful to God. Grass withers, flower fades, word of our God endures forever. Let us open this quarter of Sunday school as well as this class with a word of prayer. Father, we confess that you are the God of history, that you speak, that you act in time and in space, and you have done so definitively in your son, the Lord Jesus, and by the power of his spirit. Lord, as we begin this study of church history, we ask that you would consecrate our efforts, that you would sanctify our hearts and our minds. We might pursue this knowledge aright, and in it, to see your providential hands and to be drawn to greater worship of you. Praying this in Jesus' name, Amen. Okay, before we get started, if you have a handout, go ahead and pull that out. I'm going to give us a little bit of a schedule overview. And if you look at the first page of the two-page handout, I've given you all the dates for the next 11 weeks. And essentially what we'll be doing is taking 10 of those weeks to deal with the issue of ancient church history. You'll notice on January 6th, Ian Hamilton will be here. and he will be bringing something particular and special of his own devising that will not be tied into this class. Beyond that, I'll be the teacher for this course, except for December 30th, where I'll be out of town preaching in Gastonia. And on that date, we'll have a substitute who is yet to be decided. I've thrown out some lines, and I'm waiting to hear back on who can fill in that spot, but someone We'll be picking up that topic. If you want to go ahead and glance over the topics, today will be an introductory lecture, sort of prologue to the narrative to come. Next week, picking up the growth and persecution of the early church, heresy and orthodoxy, church fathers before Nicaea, early church life. What was it like to worship as an early Christian? Skipping on to January 13th, Constantine and all the reactions to him. And then we'll pick up some church councils. Councils related to the Trinity, councils related to Christ. And we'll wrap it up with some people. Church fathers after Nicaea. Nicaea kind of being a watershed. Everything will tie up with Guston with a view to the medieval church and transitioning to the next section, which won't happen until the next cycle of this class next year. Beyond that, if you skip down to the very end, I have some resources. This is not exhaustive, this is just suggestive of some places to start. So as we're going through this material, if you have a desire for more, or you want some supplementary information, I've listed a few resources. One is Justo Gonzales. He's Cuban background, English is not his first language, and he has some theological issues. However, overall, his history is very readable, very accessible, a lively telling of the Christian story. As long as you keep in mind that he has some biases and prejudices, I think it's still a very useful resource. Beyond that, Harry R. Boer, who is a Dutch Missionary to Africa has written a very helpful, slim volume called A Short History of the Early Church. I think Erdman publishes it, it's very helpful, gives you a really fast overview of the main people, the events, the movements. And then finally, probably my favorite resource, And you should look into this for the simple fact that it's absolutely free from Covenant Theological Seminary. David Calhoun, all of his lectures on ancient, medieval, modern, reformation, church history, is all available online. Brought us. So check it out. He's a very able historian. He's reformed. He's very sympathetic to many of our beliefs and values. So with that in mind, we're going to go ahead and get started. And to begin, you want to flip over your two-page handout. I've given you a little bit of an outline with some blanks to fill in. You can fill those in as we go, or you can completely ignore it and just listen to the lecture and engage in the discussion. But it's really up to you. As far as what we're going to do, this morning, I want to give you a little bit of an agenda. We're going to deal, first of all, with church history in general, some preliminary questions and issues that arise when we ever take up the task of church history. And then second, I want us to look at our particular class, our study. How will we approach this class? What will be our method? What goals do we have? What are we trying to accomplish? So let's begin with church history in general. I want to make this very, very basic and bedrock and ask a very simple question, and that is, what is church history? Or even more basic, what is history? Although I'll be providing this lecture, I also hope that you all will feel very free to ask questions, to participate, to discuss, and so I'll throw it out to you all. What do you think history is? One answer recording of God's providential work in time and then applying that to the church any other definitions Anyone disagree, want to add to that? That's a helpful answer. Someone has said it would be his story. Yes, history is his story. The providential outworking of God's plan. I'm going to suggest there are three ways we can approach this question. On the one hand, history is very simply what happened. It's the past. If you want to really blow it up to the 50,000-foot level, it is every fact, every thing, every event, every thought, word, and deed that has ever taken place from the moment of creation up until the present, the sum total of the past. When we look at church history, it would be what happened in the church for the last 2,000 years. But in saying that, We don't have access to much of what's happened. In fact, the vast majority of what happens is lost, the dustbin of history. And so our brother, Dr. Bartosz, very helpfully pointed out that it is not simply what happened, but the record of what happened. And here we get into what we call primary, secondary, tertiary sources, records of events that have transpired. And really, for something to come down to us, there are multiple steps. An event must be observed by someone. Someone saw that battle take place. That person who observed it then has to remember it. And having remembered needs to write it down or pass it on orally or take a picture or have a video recording or some tangible way of preserving it. Not only that, but those records then have to survive and be preserved up until the present. And then beyond that, are they available? Are they usable? Are they believable? Are they credible? And do we have access to them? And then finally, a third component is really the interpretation of the record of what happened, where this is where the work of a church historian really begins. This is what church historians do. They interpret the records of what happened, and in this case, particularly in the church. And just to give you an example just more broadly of how this works, we know that George Washington took supper with a family called the Hamiltons in Hamilton Hill, Pennsylvania on September 18, 1784. How do I know that? Well, first of all, George Washington observed this meal. He was there. He participated. After he rode on with his troops, he recollected and reflected on that dinner. He took out his diary and he made an entry in which he said, I baited or I sucked with this family. And that diary was observed and kept. And so in the present, We have a good indication that's exactly what happened. George Washington had supper on that date. Pretty mundane facts, but you realize it comes to us in this way. What happened, the record, the interpretation of that record. A few other definitions that I think are helpful, particularly for our study. Huston Gonzales says this, it is a history of the deeds of the spirits in and through the men and women who have gone before us in the faith. More than that, it's the history of the deeds of the ascended Christ by his spirit through his church. David Calhoun calls it a family history, a Christian genealogy, where we're actually studying our spiritual ancestors. We're tracing our own spiritual family tree. So it's an intimate study, one that all Christians should enjoy. He says this study is centuries deep, and it's continents wide. It's the story of the church, the story of God's people. In some ways, you could almost call it the Third Testament. You have the Old Testament, you have the New Testament, they're inspired. Then you have, as it were, a Third Testament, the ongoing story of God's providential outworkings of his plan with his people. Just to make sure we're clear, this is really the study of the visible church. The invisible church is known to God. The visible church is known to us. If you look at the Westminster Larger Catechism, it says, unto this Catholic visible church, Christ hath given the ministry, oracles, and ordinances of God for the gathering and perfecting of the saints in this life to the end of the world. And really, that's what I want us to study. We're studying the visible church. how God has given this church the ministry, has given us ministers, preachers, writers, oracles, ordinances, and really for the gathering and perfecting of the saints. That will be the focus of our study. That's what church history is. But there are problems inherent in any historical inquiry. And I'm not going to ask you to list some. I'll just give you some. And this is actually from Calhoun. The first problem in studying church history is a problem of selection. So in ancient church history, we have roughly 500 years of people, events, thoughts, words, and deeds. And the church historian has to select out of that massive information what he or she thinks is important. So what are the really important events that we should study? What are the really important people we should study? And by default, we tend to study the history of great men. Great men who've left writings, or there are records of what they did. And because of that, a lot of people, unfortunately, get overlooked. For instance, women, children, and slaves who couldn't read or write, often we don't know what happened to them, or there's very little information. Beyond that, as church history kind of kickstarts and gets moving, especially into the Reformation period, we really focus, at least in our circles, on Europe. And that's understandable. Much happens in Europe. At the same time, even as Martin Luther is nailing his 95 theses on the door of Wittenberg, there's things going on in Latin America and Asia and Africa. And although our study will have to be focused, keep in mind that there are people who often get overlooked. And there are other countries in which things are happening. That's the first problem. How do we select the facts to study? A second problem is that of mixture and error. Church history is not pristine. It's actually quite messy. And once you start looking at it, With any sort of realism, you realize you can't really do hagiography, this idealistic, rose-colored-glasses view of our own tradition. Because once you get into it, you find things like the Crusades, the burning of heretics, you see Luther's view of the Jewish people. There's all sorts of oddities, eccentricities, and even sins we have to wrestle with and reconcile. There's mixture and error. Gonzales puts it this way, while this narrative is the history of the deeds of the spirit, it is the history of those deeds through sinners such as us. So remember that church history is full of mixture, error, good things, bad things, triumphs, tragedies, even with people whom we often respect. But Gonzales goes on to clarify that it has been through these sinners and that church and only through them that the biblical message has come to us. In other words, God has chosen his church to be the one who has faithfully, sometimes unfaithfully, but God has worked through it to preserve the faith and to pass it on to the next generation so that we have it today. Third problem is that of interpretation. And occasionally, this problem is very, very basic. What really happens? For a while, in historian circles, there was some debate over whether Zwingli was chaste or unchaste before his conversion to Christianity. And there was a question of whether this was just Roman Catholic propaganda or Reformation propaganda. And later, in the 19th century, a historian found a letter in Zwingli's own hand in which he confessed to unchastity and was repentant. And it was said that that historian, who was Protestant, was tempted to take that letter and put it in the candle and burn it up, so there'd be no record of Zwingli's sin. But he said, truth is important, and a Protestant faith will stand or fall not on the sinners who composed the church, but on Jesus Christ. So he kept the letter, and so we know what happened. Usually, though, it's relatively clear what happened. There are bigger questions. What does it mean? What is the significance of this event? I'll give you another example. You can find a map, a property map of Salem, Massachusetts today. If you look at that property map, you can find facts about who owned what acreage. It's very factual, very objective. However, when asked what is the significance of those facts, you can look at the Salem witch trials, and you'll see that some of the people who were put on trial and condemned were often the biggest landowners. There's a question. Were these people accused because one of their neighbors wanted to confiscate their property? So again, bare facts often are telling for larger questions of significance. I'm going to read a quote by a very able historian in the secular academy named Wilfred McClay. He says, there is an inverse proportionality between the importance of the questions and the precision of the answers. In other words, be able to list a property map of Salem, Massachusetts, that's a relatively insignificant question with a very precise answer. But asking what does that mean about the accusations of the witch trials, much more profound question and much harder to answer with precise data. A few examples would be questions of causation. We know that Rome fell 476, but why did it fall? Barbarian invaders, corruption in the government, bread and circuses, gladiatorial games, the church, the Christian witness. What are the factors that led to the downfall of Rome? And all of a sudden, attributing causation to one thing or another or a complex of things becomes very complicated. Same thing would be true of the Great Depression. What caused that massive deflationary move in the U.S. economy? Even more difficult would be questions of motivation. So JFK was assassinated. Why? Why did Oswald kill him? Well, we know, even if you had access to the murderer and you said, why did you kill so-and-so? He might lie to you. Or maybe he's unclear in his own mind just why he did it. Or maybe he changes his mind. Questions of motivation are very profound, very hard to answer with precision. Another question would be questions of evaluation. So right now, in even our own circles, there's somewhat of a debate on the legacy of Thomas Aquinas. Was Thomas Aquinas a terrible, bad theologian who basically gives us the Roman Catholic Church as it is today, and we should throw him out completely? Or is he a helpful precursor to Protestant scholastic method? And in many cases, there's a debate on what is the legacy of Thomas Aquinas. In this class, we'll be looking at the legacy of Constantine. Again, a very heated debate. Was he good for the church? Was he bad for the church? What mixture of the two? It's a profound question. It doesn't admit of precise data-driven answers. In summary, my historiography professor put it this way, history is inevitably incomplete and subjective to some degree. There's facts, but there's also the interpretation of facts. We should bear those problems in mind as we begin our study. And indeed, those problems in some people's minds are so difficult to overcome that there actually have been objections to the study of history in general and the study of church history in particular. Just to give you a few quotations, George Bernard Shaw said, we learn from history that we learn nothing from history. rather skeptical, cynical attitude. Ambrose Bierce in The Devil's Dictionary has an entry called History. And here's how he very playfully and ironically defines history. History is a noun, an account, mostly false, of events mostly unimportant, which are brought about by rulers, mostly knaves, and soldiers, mostly fools. A rather cynical account of history. And of course, Henry Ford, that great American entrepreneur famously said, history is a bummer. Well, problems, objections, burning question is, why should we study church history? What profits, what reward is there? And again, I wanna open up the floor to you all. Why do you think what we're doing this morning in this class for the next 10 weeks is important? Because if it's not, maybe we shouldn't be here. Yes, Brooke. So if you don't study church history, you don't know why you're doing what you're doing. You have no continuity with the past, where you've come from, where you are, where you're going. That's helpful. Yeah, for instance, if we have certain traditions, certain customs, where do they come from? Why do we do them the way we do them? I think a good reminder could be found by taking a concordance and looking out how many times God says, remember. Again and again and again. Going back, way back in the Old Testament even. Remember. There are a huge number of verses where it's part of God's command to us to remember. That means study history. Mr. Van Dors has helpfully pointed out that injunction, that imperative to remember, implies an understanding of the past and of history. Charlotte. I think the neatest thing is that he can work through such whack jobs as us, still bring about his will, and yet record for us all of our failures, he's glorified. He is absolutely glorified, and we can have hope. I like what, for those of you who didn't hear what Charlie said, that God is glorified through such whack jobs as us, I think was your exact words, that there's a messiness to the church, and yet somehow, God works through and has chosen the foolish things of this world to magnify his wisdom. And when we look at church history, how is it that this happens? How does it that the kingdom triumphs while we glorify God? Brooke? I think also, we read a lot of missionary stories in my family, but seeing what happened in the past with the missionaries gives us a great deal of perspective on your personal life. I'm experiencing this, look what God, like you said, look what God did, look what he did. Look how different the church is. Yes, missionary stories can be very inspiring. I think they can help us have some perspective on the gospel going out and kind of bring us back to an eternal perspective. And with that, there are times when you study church history and you think, wow, something to imitate, something to emulate, how inspiring. And sometimes you read it and you say, wow, what a lesson to learn. I don't want to do that. What a behavior to avoid. We really get both. We have a warts and all account of church history. I'm going to give you four kind of categories for why we should do this. This is not exhaustive. And I really am drawing this from James Gansevoort, who interestingly is the examiner on church history for licentiates in our presbytery. And Gansevoort lists four reasons. First, it enables us to understand the present. Helps us understand ourselves, other Christians, the trajectories of ideas. It gives us a sense of, again, identity, continuity both with the past and with the future. We find ourselves in the story God is telling, and we realize that even to understand the present, we have to understand the past. Second, it gives us perspective. When you are looking at even a granular level of the last 2,000 years of church history, it really does give you a sense of time and place, a sense of where we've come from, even in the development of doctrine. And that gives us an amazing sense of perspective. You realize where you fall in the family tree, where the Orthodox Presbyterian Church falls within American Presbyterianism. within Scottish Presbyterian legacy with the family of the Reformation and the Protestant Reformation and really the one holy apostolic and Catholic church all the way back to the apostles. It's this perspective on all these things. More than that, it, third, connects us to the full communion of the saints. When you realize, when you say the Apostles' Creed, you are joining your voice with voices of saints who've gone before us in different languages, different countries, different time periods, all the way back to the early church. It gives a sense of catholicity in a right sense. to our faith, that we stand on the shoulders of giants who've gone before us. It can be both sobering and inspiring as we study the communion of the saints in church history. Fourth reason, from Gansevoort, it shows us the providence of God at work. And again, this fourth point can be a little tricky because we realize that everything that happens is within God's providential plan. I always get a little bit cautious when I'm tempted to say this or that particular thing was providential, as if the other things were not. At the same time, I think we all know what it's like to see God's hand in a special way in our lives, the lives of others. So even as we do this, keep in mind that everything falls within God's plan. So it enables us to understand the present, gives us perspective, connects us to the full communion of the saints, shows us the providence of God at work. And to tie it to the last Sunday school class, We are reminded that really, to do theology at all, to do exegesis at all, would be irresponsible, apart from an understanding of church history. Theology doesn't fall from the heavens intact. It doesn't come to us in a vacuum. No, God has spoken to us in time, in space, in history. That's why we should do it, and there are many other reasons. I'm just gonna hit a few highlights. And to kind of wrap up that point, I'm gonna read you a quote from Martin Lloyd-Jones, an essay that he has called Can We Learn? From History. And if this doesn't make you enthusiastic and excited about our study, I think nothing else will. Here's what Lloyd-Jones says. It is always essential for us to supplement our reading of theology with the reading of church history. If we do not, we shall be in danger of becoming abstract, theoretical, and academic in our view of truth, and failing to relate it to the practicalities of life and daily living, we shall soon be in trouble. So to connect us to the practicalities of life and daily living, to the concrete history of those who've gone before us, church history is essential. Now, moving on from church history in general to our study in particular, I want to give you a little bit of an inkling of my approach as we look at this course. My approach will consist basically of these components. On the one hand, I want to tell history, roughly speaking, as a story with a plot and with characters, to give you guys a sense of the events as they transpired and the people who participated in those events, to realize that history really is a factual story, a plot, a narrative. Another thing I want to hopefully come across with is that this will be roughly in chronological order. Sometimes we'll have to, for the sake of looking at a doctrine or a person, move around on the chronology, but generally speaking, we'll move from A to B to C, from 100 to 500, moving in that chronological path. Another thing that I want to give myself freedom to do is to look at doctrinal and biographical excursions. As we get to, for instance, the councils, Council of Chalcedon, we should be able to take a step back and ask doctrinal or systematic theology questions about what transpired there. Or, biographically, to, for instance, take up Augustine with more focus and look at his life with more detail. Another thing, I've already mentioned this, is to be cautiously providential. to point out the hand of God in these events, but to realize that everything is in God's plan, but to have an eye to those special ways in which God has preserved, protected, and provided for his church. And with this approach, Robert Louis Dabney famously said that we are assisted by two angels, the angel of research and the angel of meditation. to search out all the facts, and then to meditate upon them, to reflect on them for their interpretation and their significance. So with the help of those two angels, we shall begin our study. But to begin our study, we have to know where to begin. That brings us to the scope of our class. Where does church history begin? Any ideas? Where should we start? Which do you prefer? Well, I like to look at church history from the beginning of creation, because there are extra-biblical references that give insight in terms of the history of mankind and God's church, the invisible church, as you mentioned earlier, or provisional church, throughout time. But formally, I think it's appropriate for us Well, Dr. Bartosz has raised a good question. Do we begin with, for instance, the close of the canon, or do we begin with creation? And to give you an indication of one approach, Heinrich Boeinger wrote a book called The Old Faith. And he claimed that church history began with Adam and Eve in the garden. They were the first ones who worshiped God. And Abraham called out, given a particular sign, identifying a particular people. Moses, that's even more clear with the nation of Israel. We could really go back to the very beginning. For the sake of our class, we're not gonna start with that. We'll leave that to the biblical studies people. On the other hand, we're gonna start with the death of the last apostles. And I have a rationale for doing that. If you look at Christianity, Christianity is a historical faith. And in the Bible, there is church history. Luke is a historian. He gathers materials, and he assimilates them, and he provides an orderly account of Christ's life. And the Acts of the Apostles really are the first work of what we could call church history. If you go to Acts 28, it doesn't really end. There's almost a dot, dot, dot ellipsis. And the point is that although Christ's work has been finished at the cross, there is an ongoing work the Great Commission from Acts 28 and following. And we are part of that history up until the present. And so for the sake of this class, we'll begin roughly around the year 8100, around the death of John, the last apostle, until the year 500. It's a bit arbitrary, but this roughly 500-a-year-or-so scope will extend from Early church, ancient church, up until what we call the medieval church, using Augustine roughly as a transitional figure. And that'll be, for the sake of this course, where we begin and where we end. That's our scope. Finally, let's talk a little bit about the goals of this class. And this is not one of the blank lines I gave you on your handout, but my big goal, if I had to say one thing, is I want this class to cultivate in us a historical consciousness. I was watching a TED talk a while back, and they were talking about changes in how people score on IQ tests. What they found is people are actually scoring higher, while at the same time becoming less and less conscious of where they stand in history. Their minds are working faster, partly because of technology and other devices that they're training their brains to function more quickly and to make calculations. But young people's sense of history, of having a mental timeline, is evaporating. They're actually becoming all historical. This is a great tragedy. As I said before, Christianity, our faith, is a uniquely historical religion. If Christ, was not raised. Your faith is in vain, and it's still in your sins. Theological significance hinges on historical facts. There's a theology of creation, but it's founded upon the fact that it actually took place in six normal days. We believe history is important. The Bible itself, the primary genre, is historical narrative. from Genesis to Revelation. Yes, there are other genres and sub-genres, but the main strand, the main line, is that successive series of covenant makings with the historical person of Christ at the center. So of all people, We should be interested in history and in church history. It's part of our story, part of who we are, our inheritance in the saints. So big goal, overarching one, is to cultivate a historical consciousness. But beyond that, five smaller goals, five smaller purposes. First, to become familiar with key people and events in the ancient church. So that when you hear Augustine, you have a hook you can hang your hat on. That when you hear the Constantinian settlement, your mind doesn't go blank, but you have something to refer to. When you hear the Council of Nicaea, you have a sense of what took place there, why it's important. That's the first reason. Second, to be able to place those people and events on a mental timeline. I'm not going to ask you to create a timeline or be able to provide all these dates, but roughly speaking, do you have a sense of before and after? Who came first, Irenaeus or Athanasius? What came first, the Council of Nicaea, the Council of Chalcedon? Just in general, an ingrained mental timeline of what happened and when relative to each other. A third reason, and this connects to the previous Sunday School class, to understand the development of doctrine. To realize that Jesus promised that he would lead his church into all truth by his spirit. And although there are no new truths, we have everything we need in the Bible, yet we realize that the terms we use, like Trinity, have a history to them. We realize that the way we even formulate the doctrine of the incarnation, One person in two natures, there's a history to that. It didn't fall out of the sky. God has very graciously led his church to refine, to clarify, and to deal with heresies and come to an even better understanding and articulation of the truth. Fourth, to apply the lessons of church history to your own life. To not just view this as a dry, arid, academic study in which rigor becomes rigor mortis, but rather to see this as a lively retelling of real people, real events that actually happened, that you are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses. And that should lead you to live your life differently. It would be wonderful if after one of these classes you would think, there's a sin I need to mortify. I need to repent of this behavior. Or you come out just celebrating the glory of God and his church. But that you take these and make them experimental to learn how to apply them to your life. Gonzales says the church is the intersection between the doing of history and the making of history. Because do you realize, even as you respond to what you're learning, there's a sense in which you're making history, because you're part of the ongoing work of the ascended Christ, by his spirit, through his church, from Pentecost, or you could even say from creation, all the way until now, until Jesus comes back. We are part of this story. Let's find ourselves in it. Of course, the final reason is really to see God's hand of providence, to study church history by faith, and to be led to glorify him, even as he studied. Any questions? And we begin ancient church history, Brooke. Sure, I can just repeat them all really quickly just to get them in our minds. The goals for this class, first, to become familiar with key people and events. Second, to be able to place those people and events on a mental timeline. In other words, have a sense of who came before whom, what came after what, to place them in a timeline. Third, to understand the development of doctrine. how the church has articulated and refined statement of the truth. Fourth, to apply the lessons of church history to your own life. In other words, make it practical. And then fifth, to see God's hand in Providence. So we might be led to worship, really. And that would be a good segue to think that after we've studied church history, it would in some measure prepare us for the worship service to come. Any other questions? Mr. Van Bors? I think it's very important to, when you read history, to look for men in whom you can have at least some degree of confidence, as you have, of course, Harry Bohr and David Calhoun. But I find that today there are tons of people who write history, but they tend to have a an iconoclastic viewpoint. They want to look for something they can prove is wrong, but they are the ones who've now shown how it's what's really right. So that's what gives them a great standing among scholars. So I think it's important that when we read history, which I think is wonderful, by the way, that we find people that we can have a good level of confidence in, knowing that No one's perfect, but still. Find relatively safe guides to feel that you're in good hands. And there are some people you read and you realize they have an axe to grind. I'll give an example of just in historiographical circles how this has moved. Early historians who looked at George Whitefield, it was almost completely positive. He was held up as this great evangelist, and it was really all very laudatory and inspiring, and there was much good work being done. The transition, as I've seen it, more recent historians have an ax to grind, especially resentful kind of ex-evangelicals. And so there's, I forget his name, I forget the name of the historian. I think it was the Divine Dramatist. And he takes George Whitefield and basically takes him to the past. He goes, I'm going to do a warts and all portrayal of Whitefield. And he really cuts him down. And you wonder, is it kind of this iconoclastic, I want to take a hero and just chop the legs out from under him? What's the motive? So I think there's actually two dangers. The one danger is actually hagiography, where we look at everybody as if they were these great paragons of virtue, and we're blind to their faults. For instance, in Whitfield's case, he really burned himself out with his preaching, and he was passionate about Jesus Christ. But from what I can tell, sometimes that was just the neglect of his family. And so we can learn something from this great man who was not perfect. He made some mistakes. But overall, to have an appreciation for him. And I think maybe the best way we can balance these is to begin, especially with Those who have come before us in the faith, who passed on the faith to us, to begin with a spirit of appreciation, what can I learn from this man who underwent great trials and did great feats. And then secondarily, to apply a spirit of, in a good sense, criticism, to be willing to look at them in the light of scripture and to see what can I emulate and what should I avoid? So, but begin with a spirit of charity and appreciation. And that's, I think overall, I think we should have a positive sense of what we've inherited and to be thankful for it. That's a great question. Dr. McGraw. I'm just going to say, I mean, one thing that gets thrown in the mix, and sometimes we've looked at as critical, is that instead of just approaching a historical figure and saying, what does this person teach, and what can I learn from it, we should approach it as being a stranger. So in other words, if you meet a stranger from another culture, another country, the first thing that you want to do is get to know them and understand them in their own culture, So for example, people love Rutherford's letters and really enjoy the devotion in them, but they would probably vigorously disagree with his political views that put him in prison in the first place. So there are historical questions That's very helpful. I'm glad we have you in this class as participants, since your expertise is historical theology. Dr. McGraw's point's very helpful. And just to think of an example, and this, I think, goes along with having a charitable spirit. Part of charity is wanting to understand someone in their own context, on their own terms, before jumping to criticism. I think Carl Truman has said that the past is a foreign country. It's like learning a new language with new customs, new cultures, where some things are alarming to us or just simply baffling to us. It takes some time to really set them in their context. And that's true, for instance, of Luther and the Jews, to understand that in the context of medieval Germany and religious versus ethnic Judaism. It's important to understand that with the burning of Cervidus and Calvin to really set that in its historical context and what actually transpired. In so many cases, I'm not going to get into any of those hot topics right now, but to start by understanding people in their own terms and getting to know them. It's a very useful metaphor for what we're doing. I was just going to say, we're studying history right now at school, and when we run into the church fathers, especially during this period, many times people have commented in the class, we wouldn't even let him go to church with us, because some of the things that they believed in and adhered to. But understanding them in their developmental phase, hashing out some of the great things that we take for granted, has really helped us to grow in our appreciation of these guys. Very, very powerful. Yes. That's helpful. C.S. Lewis once talked about the danger of presentism. And it's this elitist view that we've arrived, that the present and the future are championed over the past. And the funny thing is, is that what seems so obvious to us wasn't obvious to our forebears and probably won't always be obvious to those who come after us. We always tend to lift up our own particular place, not realizing that there are those who come before us and those who will come after. So, that should be a good sense of even self-criticism and self-evaluation in the study. Yes? As a young Christian, I'm going to study the history from a secular point of view. And it was really difficult for me to reconcile. And at that time, in my development and maturity as well as my Christian faith, everything seemed like it should have black and white. And all those grays didn't make any sense. I appreciate acknowledging that retrospective education. That's helpful testimony. All right, there's no other questions. I'm gonna end today's class the way that David Calhoun ends almost all of his courses. You ever listen to Calhoun's lectures on church history? He ends by reciting one of two scripture texts. I'm gonna read one of them as we close this morning in prayer. He says, He often goes one to Isaiah and the other to Hebrews. I'm going to read Hebrews 12.1 as a fitting close, as well as a fitting beginning to this quarter of classes. Therefore, we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily ensnares us and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us. Let's pray. Father, we praise your holy name, that you are a God who is not distant and abstract, God far removed from us, but a God who has condescended to speak and to act. We thank you, Lord, that you continue to work through your church to accomplish your kingdom ends. Lord, we do ask that we begin this order of classes that you would bless our labors and help us to pursue the glory of Christ in it. Praying this in his name, amen. Okay.