Is there a specifically Christian case for the study of history? Should faith in the God of
the Bible and the understandings of orthodox Christianity persuade us of the importance of the
past? Absolutely! In my previous post I shared three reasons why I’m convinced that this is so.
Here are three more.
For starters, our faith informs us that the entire unfolding human story is worthy of
attention. It’s not just the history of the Church or of particular historical events that merit
notice. We believe that God has infused the human story in general with great dignity. Our
understanding of creation tells us that God Himself set the story in motion and that its central
characters bear His image. Our belief in the incarnation further reminds us that the Lord of the
Universe actually entered into the story, identifying with its characters and walking the earth as
one of them.
Beyond this, our conviction of God’s sovereignty teaches us that God is not only Creator
but Sustainer as well. He is involved in the minutest details of the human story. It is an epic that
is unfolding according to His design and decree. In this sense we should see the human past as a
sphere that God has created—and thus a form of natural revelation—every bit as much as the
physical world around us. This makes studying history one expression of obedience to the divine
command to love God with our minds—as well as with our heart, soul, and strength.
Second, in striving to understand the past, we stand on holy ground. The past is immense
and incalculably complex, and most of it is lost to us, beyond our capacity to recover, much less
to comprehend. When we contemplate this truth through eyes of faith, we should drop to our
knees in awe and humility: awe, as we reflect on the sheer magnitude of the never-ending past,
and humility as we acknowledge our intellectual limitations. But above all, we should respond
with worship, as we marvel at the One who alone perfectly comprehends this vast expanse and
declare with the psalmist, “Such knowledge is too wonderful for me” (Psalm 139:6).
In the words of the late Princeton historian Arthur Link, “Biblical faith . . . tells us
something very special about the historical record. It tells us that it is stored in its incredible
totality in the mind and memory of God.” This means that historical truth is God’s truth, and
thus precious to Him. It means that when we claim to know any particle of the past truly, we are
claiming to see it as God does, which should cause us to tremble. Finally, “while readily
acknowledging that only God knows all historical truth,” and that we necessarily understand it
“only partially, imperfectly, corruptly,” we can “affirm, profess, and confess” that when we strive to make sense of the past “we stand in the presence of something far greater” than ourselves”
Humanly speaking, the past is gone forever. We strive to reconstruct the merest fraction,
relying on shadows and echoes to piece together glimpses of a vanished reality now stored in
“the mind and memory of God.” This is holy ground indeed. We need to take off our shoes.
Third and finally, historical understanding plays a vital role in faithful Christian
discipleship. The study of the past can function as a mirror, allowing us to see our own moment
in time more clearly. In the light of scripture, we see how precious such insight is and how risky
historical ignorance can be. The Apostle Paul’s letter to the Romans warns us about letting the
world “squeeze us into its mold” (Romans 12:2). His second letter to the Corinthians commands
us to “bring every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5).
But when we’re “stranded in the present,” the fads of the moment can look like timeless
truths. We can be shaped by our contemporary contexts without even realizing it. Nor can we
“bring every thought into captivity” when our present-mindedness renders our most deeply
ingrained ways of thinking invisible to us. In both cases, the first step to obeying the biblical
commandment faithfully is seeing both ourselves and the world around us rightly. The study of
history can further this goal.
History’s ability to provide us with a memory before birth can be indispensable as well.
One of the most repetitive observations of Scripture is the simple truth that our lives are short.
We read that our days on earth are akin to a “breath,” a “passing shadow,” a “puff of smoke”
(Job 7:7, Psalm 144:4, James 4:14). And with brevity of life comes lack of perspective and
narrowness of vision, which is precisely why we need to study the past.
“Remember the days of old,” Moses sang to the assembly of Israel. “Consider the years
of many generations. Ask your father, and he will show you, your elders, and they will tell you”
(Deuteronomy 32:7). “Inquire, please, of the former age, and consider the things discovered by
their fathers,” counsels Bildad the Shuhite. And why is this necessary? Because “we were born
yesterday and know nothing” (Job 8:8-9). History allows us to glean wisdom from our
ancestors, and in this respect it is a logical extension of the biblical precept to honor age. It
broadens our perspective and expands the range of experiences that we can draw on as we face
the future.
“Christianity is a religion of historians,” wrote the French historian Marc Bloch from a
Gestapo prison cell during World War Two. Surely he was right. Christians are, by vocation,
called to be historians as well. God has created us as historical beings, implanted in us a
historical faith, and bound us to the past by engrafting us into a historical church. When we
approach the study of the past with humility and awe, recognizing the past as a sphere that God
has ordained and prompted by biblical dictates and principles, the study of history can become
both an act of obedience and an expression of worship.
(Adapted from A Little Book for New Historians: Why and How to Study History)