“Why?” Before we attempt to answer that question, we need to first understand what history is and also where it originated.
What is History?
Most believe history to be the remembering of persons, events, and dates from the past. Although history encompasses all of these things, this is not an adequate definition. History is a multiplicity of things.
History is an event. It is real tangible events that took place within time and space.
History is significant or “historic” events. Not all history is “historic”. But there are events of enormous consequence.
History is an event that can be proved to be true. To say that history is a provable event is to say it happened and we can demonstrate that it happened through various and sufficient evidence.
History is an event from the past that has been documented most often by putting pen to paper. For example: The four Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are written documents that record the various aspects of Christ’s earthly Messianic ministry to be real events that took place within time and space.
History can also be defined as significant events converging with the lives of individual people who can give their testimony about these events. These individuals, who give their testimonies concerning these significant historical events, are what practitioners of the art and science of history call primary witnesses. Primary witnesses are considered to be the most reliable source of historical documentation. For example: the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles, were written based on eyewitness testimonies. Luke records —“Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, just as those, who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word, handed them down to us” (1:1-2, Legacy Standard Bible). Luke is specific in v.2, that he wrote the Gospel of Luke according to the testimonies of “eyewitness and servants of the word, [who] handed them down to us.” These are primary witnesses.
In view of the preceding, history is events of the past; history is significant events; history is documented events; and history is significant events converging with individual lives.
The Origin of History
According to secular historians, the founder of history as an academic pursuit was Herodotus (484-425 B.C.). Herodotus is considered the founder of the discipline of history because of the account he wrote of the ancient wars between the Greeks and the Persians during the intertestamental period, or the period between the Old Testament book of Malachi to the appearance of John the Baptist in the early 1st century A.D.
Herodotus documented history as accurately as possible by traveling extensively and carefully examining and taking notes from the written records that existed of Greco-Persian wars. Herodotus’ method of sifting through documents to arrive at an accurate historical account of the Greco-Persian wars is why he is considered the founder of the discipline of history.
It is my belief, however, that the founder or originator of history was not Herodotus, but the God who has revealed Himself to His people in the pages of the Holy Scriptures and in the Person of His Son, Jesus Christ.
I say this because Herodotus’ work began approximately 2500 years ago. In contrast, the history God inspired the authors of the Scriptures to record is history that has been forever settled in heaven, as we read in Psalm 119:89—“Forever, O Lord, thy word is settled in heaven” (King James Bible). In other words, before the authors of the Holy Scriptures put pen to paper, as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit to write the words of God on parchment, the history in the Holy Scriptures was forever settled in heaven.
Virtually every book in the Scriptures, from Genesis through Revelation, contains history.
So, “Why should Christians read history”? Christians should read history to learn and to pattern their minds and hearts after God. For the thoughts of the first historian was and is revealed in the Bible. The God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the God who ultimately and finally revealed Himself in the Person of Jesus Christ, is the God of history.
Other Reasons for Christians to Study History
We study the history recorded in the Holy Scriptures because the Gospel that has redeemed us from sin and all of its consequences is inseparable from a historical event. In other words, it is a significant historical fact that Jesus died for our sins according to the Scriptures, was buried in a borrowed tomb, and raised bodily from the dead on the third day. This historical event is recorded in all four Gospels (Matthew 27:33-28:15; Mark 15:22-16:8; Luke 23:33-24:12; John 19:16-20:18). The Apostle Paul was clear in I Corinthians 15:1-4 that this Gospel of Christ’s death, burial, and bodily resurrection from the dead is what has saved us from our sins—“Now I make known to you, brothers, the gospel which I proclaimed as good news to you, which also you received, in which also you stand, by which also you are saved…that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised from the dead on the third day according to the Scriptures.”
We study the history of Christ and His people because it is the pattern God has given us in the Holy Scriptures. God commanded His people to never forget their history in relationship to Him in verses such as Deuteronomy 6:12—“Then beware, lest you forget Yahweh who brought you from the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery” (Legacy Standard Bible).
We study history in relationship to Christ and His people to make us wiser. We study history and become wiser by not making the same mistakes others made in the Scriptures and in the history of the Church. But we also study the history of Christ and His people to follow the examples of those in the past whose behavior was consistent with the Holy Scriptures and reaped the positive spiritual benefits of such.
Christians should, or rather must, study history!
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