Why Christians Need History

“There is nothing, perhaps, that has so detracted from the glory of God as the history of His people in the church. That is why I am going to deal with this subject of learning from history. Hegel’s famous dictum reminds us that ‘We learn from history that we learn nothing from history.’

“Now as far as the secular world is concerned, that is undoubtedly perfectly true. The history of the human race shows this quite clearly. Mankind in its folly and stupidity goes on repeating the same old mistakes. It does not learn, it refuses to learn. But I will not accept this as being true of the Christian. My contention is that the Christian should learn from history, that because he is a Christian it is his duty to do so, and he must rouse himself to do so.

“My basis for saying this is the teaching of the Bible itself. How often do we find, for instance, in the Book of Psalms that the Psalmist, in order to enforce his lesson and to make his appeal to the nation, recapitulates their history in order to show that the error into which people were falling again is precisely what their forefathers had done. And you remember how in the New Testament, in the book of the Acts of the Apostles, Stephen’s famous defense of himself before the Council was really just a recapitulation of history in order to bring out his point. There is also an account of Paul doing the same in Acts chapter 13.

“All this surely indicates that the Christian should learn from history. The real trouble with the world is that it cannot think straightly. But the Christian should, and it is therefore his duty to learn in this way. My argument is that it is always essential for us to supplement our reading of theology with the reading of church history. Or if you prefer it, that we should at any rate take our theology in an historical manner. 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.

“…Now it seems to me that if we are careful to learn the lessons of history, and to supplement our reading of theology by that, we shall already be prepared, and we shall avoid many of the pitfalls and the dangers into which we shall inevitably fall if we do not do this.” (Martyn Lloyd-Jones, The Puritans: Their Origins and Successors, pp. 215-216)