A Brief Tour of 2000 Years of Church History

A brief tour of 2,000 years of church history. Stephen Nichols of Ligonier Ministries and Reformation Bible College joins us today right here on the Christian Worldview radio program where the mission is to sharpen the biblical worldview of Christians and to share the good news that all people can be reconciled to God through faith.

I'm David Wheaton, the host, and our website is thechristianworldview.org and we'll be talking about the teachings and the executions and the martyrs that have shaped the church age. Sadly, very few Christians know how God has worked in his church since the close of the New Testament. The great English preacher Charles Spurgeon said, It seems odd that certain men who talk so much of what the Holy Spirit reveals to themselves should think so little of what he has revealed to others. The truth is the Holy Spirit has revealed much to those who have gone before us that can be of great help for us today. And so this weekend on the Christian Worldview, Dr. Stephen Nichols, who is the chief academic officer at Ligonier Ministries, is also the author of Five Minutes in Church History, a book and a podcast.

We have it linked on our website. He joins us to discuss some of the key people and events in the various eras of the church from the early church to the Middle Ages to the Reformation to the modern era. Let's get to the first segment with Dr. Stephen Nichols. I want to start out by reading a short quote at the beginning of the book on page four, where you're talking about Charles Spurgeon and the importance of Christians understanding church history. You paraphrased what Spurgeon said by saying, I find it odd that the church of the 21st century thinks so highly of what the Holy Spirit has taught today that it thinks so little of what the Holy Spirit taught the church in the first century, the second, the third, the fourth, and so on and so on. The Holy Spirit is not unique to our age. The Holy Spirit has been at work for the church for the past 20 centuries. We could put the matter this way. It is rather prideful to think that we have nothing to learn from the past. So explain that more, Steve, why it's important to have a good understanding of the history of the church.

Sure. Well, it's great to be with you, great to be talking about this topic of church history. I think it means so much to Christians.

It's a way of just sort of opening horizons, if you will. And I think we can become myopic people. We can get so consumed with our moment and the urgency of our moment that we forget that we are part of a church that God has been building through the centuries and millennia. And certainly we are committed to the authority of scripture. And so scripture is our foundation.

It is our authority. But we also see that we're not the first church. We're not the first ones. We're not the first ones dealing with a plague or pandemic. There were plagues in the early century.

There are plagues in the 16th century. And what we find is that in these centuries, God has his people, he has his church, and we can learn from that. Again, not in an authoritative way of scripture and not in any way to supplant scripture, but to come alongside of us as disciples and give us real world examples of those who've gone before us.

And truth as well, we can learn from their missteps. So it's also important to see those errors of church history that we need to guard against. Dr. Stephen Nichols with us today on the Christian Royal View, the author of Five Minutes in Church History. It's an excellent little book that we're discussing. He's also the president of Reformation Bible College, the chief academic officer at Ligonier Ministries, and he hosts the Five Minutes in Church History podcast. Now, you divide the book into the early church, the Middle Ages, the Reformation, and the modern age.

Why do you think the understanding of these divisions of church history is so weak today, especially amongst evangelicals? You know, I think it's something about being an American as well. There's a historian of American history who has talked about how Americans sort of suffer from historylessness. We're very consumed with the present.

We're very impatient. We need things now, and we don't have much place for tradition or for history. And I think that's difficult for us as Christians, because we are a people with a path. We have a rich history. And God has blessed us with many great examples of courage, conviction that I think we can learn from. And so I think we need to get past that historylessness and become a little bit more historyful. And I think as we see that, we can, I think, be encouraged to what we're facing in our own day and also recognize that should the Lord Terry, we're building for the future. And we are going to have folks who come after us. And what kind of legacy are we leaving for the next generation and the generations to come? So I think just being historically aware and being informed can give us a better perspective on our task today. And I honestly think give us an encouragement for the work that we have to do today.

Yeah. And by the way, I include myself in one of those people who I think is really is not too strong. And as I read through your book and all the different people and events and so forth, it was very informative for me as a 21st century American Christian. I think we all could learn from what you just said, those who have gone before us. Let's get into some of the examples, Steve. You bring in your book as you go through these stages from the early church to the Middle Ages, the Reformation in the modern age.

You highlight and profile certain people and places and events. Let's start off right at the beginning with two of the disciples of the Apostle John. So now we're here in the late first century, going into the second century, and John had basically two people he discipled of his own, Ignatius and Polycarp. I think Christians have probably heard those names before, but who are they and why are they significant?

These are fascinating figures. I mean, this puts us right into the pages of the New Testament. And so Ignatius was an early bishop in the church and early leader in the church and was discipled by John himself. What we find is that he was called upon to defend the gospel. We see it in the New Testament that false teaching has stepped into the church, the churches that the apostles themselves helped establish and plant. And so as we move into the end of the first century, in the early decades of the 100s, we see that there's false teaching in the church. And here Ignatius, as a bishop, steps right into it. The other figure, Polycarp, whose name means many fish, so I find that interesting, Polycarp.

It's easy to remember. Here he is a bishop and he's martyred for his faith as an old man and just his courage and conviction in knowing that, yes, there's Caesar and there's the Roman Empire, but ultimately God is sovereign and God is sitting on his throne. And just a great legacy and testimony of the martyr Polycarp. Dr. Stephen Nichols with us today on the Christian Royal View, talking about his recent book, Five Minutes in Church History. We have it linked on our website, thechristianroyalview.org. It would be an excellent resource to get a working understanding of what church history has been like since the time of Christ. You mentioned persecution and martyrdom in your last answer with regard to Ignatius and Polycarp.

And then you, in chapter four, get into what took place in Lyon. I think that's modern day France and the persecution that was going on there. You said that the Christians there, they were confronted by officials demanding that they answer one question.

Are you a Christian? As Eusebius, a historian, records before this jeering mob and before these power-wielding officials, the Christians confessed. They confessed to no great crime against the Roman Emperor or against the Roman Empire. They confessed to no great crime against their neighbors. They simply confessed that they were Christians, that they were followers of Christ. For this, they were tossed back into prison. All of this was contrary to Roman law, even a mockery of the law. Then you go on to say in the next page about how martyrdom came, I think, for 45 of them.

And they were just turned on in a terrible way by their neighbors in Lyon. And in reading this book, in a way, you think about Fox's Book of Martyrs. And there's a hint of that in some of the stories you share in this book about these earlier Christians. And persecution and martyrdom seems to be a recurring pattern for Christians. How can Christians today who live in America or in the Western world where there isn't this kind of, yeah, there may be some persecution, but martyrdom is, that's for another part of the world, I think we think. How can we be ready today for what Christians throughout history have commonly experienced?

That's a great question. What we assume as the normal experience is probably the opposite for most Christians through the centuries. And for most Christians through the centuries, they have been on those margins of society and have suffered physical persecution or even martyrdom. I think the lesson for us is that ultimately Christianity is about convictions. And there needs to be a certain courage for those convictions, not a courage that is sort of worked up within, like we have the ability. And because of our abilities, we are courageous, like going out on the athletic field.

You know, your courage comes from your practice and you're honing your skills. It's a courage that comes from knowing that ultimately God is on the throne, that ultimately God's word will not return void, and that ultimately God will accomplish his purposes. And so what that does is that gives us a power of courage to hold our convictions no matter what. And when you see Christians in the past who've been put to the ultimate test and they were willing to die for their faith, I think what that does is that helps us realize we might not be called upon to die for our faith, but we are called upon every day to live for our faith and to live our convictions with a boldness and a courage.

And I think that's especially true as we find ourselves in shifting times. We talk about, you know, post-Christian culture, whatever that may mean, what does it mean not to be a cultural Christian? What does it mean to be a Christian committed to biblical convictions and living that out every day to our neighbors, to our family in our workplace?

I think that requires a certain courage, and we can learn that from church history and from the example of these martyrs. Okay, Dr. Stephen Nichols is our guest today here on the Christian Real View Radio program. I really like him a lot, and this is a great little book, Five Minutes in Church History. We're just covering a few of the chapters. The chapters are short, so if you want to get a copy and learn more about the church age before us for 2,000 years, this would be a good starting point to do that. Just go to our website, thechristianrealview.org. It's linked right there.

It's not in our store, by the way, we're not carrying it, but we have a link to where you can get it on the Ligonier website. He's the president of Reformation Bible College and also the host of the Five Minutes in Church History podcast as well. Okay, we're going to take our first break here on the Christian Real View. It is Mother's Day weekend, by the way. Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers listening.

Yes, we do an annual program with my parents around this time of year, and we'll be doing that likely in the next week or two, so stay tuned for that. But we have much more coming up today as we take a brief tour of 2,000 years of church history back after this. How to Be Free from the Fear of Death, which explains how one can have peace with God and a confident hope for this life and the next through the good news of the Gospel. If you have never contacted the Christian Real View, request the booklet How to Be Free from the Fear of Death for free by calling us at 1-888-646-2233.

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Monthly partners can choose to receive resources throughout the year. Call 1-888-646-2233 or go to thechristianworldview.org. Thank you for your support. To think biblically and live accordingly. That is our aim here on the Christian World View radio program as we discuss topic after topic, week after week. And today we're talking about church history, a brief tour of two thousand years of church history with our guest, Dr. Stephen Nichols, the author of the book Five Minutes in Church History and also the same podcast as that as well.

You can subscribe to that by going to wherever you get your podcasts online. And we have much more coming up with Dr. Nichols. So let's get into the second segment with him. One chapter I really liked, Stephen, was the chapter five on the catacombs, the underground tunnels and burial places underneath Rome where Christians would flee and have times of church and worship and so forth. And you conclude that chapter and all the chapters are very short.

This is not a long book, so it's very accessible. You say these epitaphs, paintings and hymns of these Christians who met in the catacombs provide a beautiful witness to the lives and beliefs of early Christians who took the Lord's Supper together, who prayed together, who confessed the Apostles Creed together and who sat under the teaching of God's word. And there in the catacombs they sang together as they gathered around the gladsome light.

And you can just picture that, what that was like to be in Rome, underneath the city, fleeing persecution and martyrdom and so forth. My question is, what do you think these people back in the catacombs, these early Christians, would think about the Church in America today, the Evangelical Church in America today? And part two of that question is, what does their really simple, non-entertainment driven worship in these churches in the catacombs say about the basic elements of a church?

That's a great question. I think it gets to the heart of what it's about. You know, we had this moment in American Evangelical history where church became about the seeker, and that whole movement, it sort of had its time and past, but it had a real impact, and I think it affected in some ways almost an entire generation. And it doesn't necessarily reflect what we find in church history or find in the pages of Scripture, of what we talk about sometimes as just the ordinary means of grace, the taking of the Lord's Supper together, the preaching of God's word.

You know, we think we need some sort of entertainment or we need something sort of extraordinary and amazing, almost like a Hollywood effect in order to impact people. And I love this expression, the ordinary means of grace. God has given us His word. He's given us the office of pastor and teacher. And as we sit together in church and sit under faithful biblical preaching, that is probably the most exciting thing that we could do. And not only that, we gather together to worship the God who created the universe. So there's nothing boring about the preaching of the word and the worship of God. If we think that's boring and we've got to dress up the service somehow, the problem is with us, right? So I think as we look at some of these things, we can recognize, well, what does Scripture say about the purpose of our gathered worship on Sundays?

And how do I approach it? And this question of, well, I don't get much out of church. Maybe we need to rethink a little bit of what Scripture is saying about what church is and how it functions. And I think what we see in this instance, as you mentioned here from the early church, is there's ultimately there is a simplicity to that worship that comes to gather together to learn of God and to sing praises to Him together. And it'd be great if all of our churches across America, across the globe, if that was what we were doing every Sunday as we came together.

What a witness that would be to the world of who God is. Dr. Stephen Nichols today with us on the Christian Real View talking about his book, Five Minutes in Church History. Let's skip forward to chapter 14, where you start out by saying the Middle Ages, now we're in the year 1000, let's say after Christ, were a rather unique time in the history of ideas. When you study church history in the Middle Ages, and when you study philosophy in the Middle Ages, you are studying the exact same people, events, books, and ideas. That is not true of other eras.

It's certainly not true of the 21st century. The Middle Ages were the time of Christendom, the bringing together of all things under their rubric and sphere of the church. So we have not two separate disciplines of theology and philosophy in the Middle Ages, we have them both intertwined. And much of the theological, philosophical discussion revolved around God, his communication to his creatures, and the revelation of his will.

To use philosophical categories, we would say metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics. And there's a lot in that paragraph as you introduce this period of time known as the Middle Ages. Tell us about why at that time there was this separation of philosophical and theological that we see today, and how the Roman Catholic Church was integrated back then. Was that really the only church in town? Was the Roman Catholic Church the same way as it was today with the same kind of doctrinal errors that it teaches today? How did that figure into this time?

Wow, those are great questions. I think, first of all, if we just address the idea of the church, it really was the Roman Catholic Church that was the only church in the Middle Ages. So you were either an outright pagan, and like a Celtic druid or something, or you're Roman Catholic. Or, of course, there's the option of Islam.

This is really all that you have. It's not until the Protestant Reformation that we have a sharp divide now between Protestantism and Roman Catholicism. I think, secondly, we need to recognize that it just wasn't the medieval Catholic, Roman Catholic Church wasn't the same 500 as it was in 1517 at the time of the Reformation.

But over the centuries, it drifted further away from God's word and added more and more sort of layers of teaching so that the layers of teaching of the church became the focus and not the Bible became the focus. That didn't happen overnight in 500, but it happened over the centuries. So those are some ways for us to understand that sort of thousand-year period.

But I think, rather than just sort of dismiss, you know, I'm a Protestant, I love the Reformation, so I'm all about the Reformation. But rather than just dismiss the Middle Ages as one big misstep, I think we need to take a look back and say, what was going on there, though, that could be helpful for us? And I think one of the things we see is we've seeded all of this territory in the modern age, and we've let the Academy do its thing, and we as Christians have sort of isolated ourselves into our theology and church sort of bubble. And you come to the Middle Ages and you say, the greatest philosophers, these were absolutely committed to studying who God was and knowing who God was. Not the greatest theologians, the greatest philosophers, right? Whereas in our age, we've got this rampant secularism that has just driven a sharp wedge between philosophy and theology or science and religion. You didn't have that in the Middle Ages, and I think there's some things to be learned there that we don't have to give up this ground as Christians. We can be the best philosophers, we can be the best scientists, because we understand this to be the world that God has made, and that's a tremendous advantage for us.

So those are some of the things. Recognizing that there were a lot of theological and ecclesiological missteps in the Middle Ages, there's still a lot that we can gain from that in terms of how we approach life and how we think about the world we live in. Stephen Nichols with us today on the Christian Real View, talking about various stages and people and events in church history the last 2000 years. You get into Thomas Aquinas.

He's probably a well-known name, but maybe we're a little foggy on who he was and what he did. He talked about five ways the existence of God can be proven. Give us a snapshot of why Thomas Aquinas was important.

Thomas Aquinas is a towering figure intellectually, history of the church, theology. Thomas has a very basic principle, and I think this can help us. We think, well, we can't really prove Christianity, we just have to take everything on faith. Thomas wants to say, no, you can prove the existence of God.

It actually takes a lot more faith to not believe in the existence of God. And he had a very simple thing that I think we can wrap our heads around. He said that to understand what you cannot know or cannot see, you start with what you can see and what you can know. And what we can see and what we can know is this world that we live in. And this world that we live in is a testimony to a starter of this world or a beginning of this world.

And what Thomas wants us to grasp is that we can move from that which is known to that which is unknown. And it's actually someone who has to give an account for the existence of the world apart from God. That everything that we see around us just came about by chance. That's absurd.

Chance produces nothing. And so you're saying everything comes from nothing, which is just absurd. That's the part where I think as Christians sometimes we don't need to just say, oh, this needs to be taken on faith. We can recognize that no, there is a there is credence and credibility here. And a thinker like Thomas Aquinas can help us make a case for who God is and for the authority of his word. OK, Dr. Stephen Nichols is our guest today on the Christian Real View. I hope you're enjoying the interview and gaining from all he's saying about the past two thousand years of church history.

This is not exhaustive at all, by the way. There's much more to it than this brief few points we're hitting on today. So I encourage you to get his book, Five Minutes in Church History. Good starter to getting some working knowledge of what took place before. We have more coming up with him today as we take this brief tour of two thousand years of church history. So stay tuned. More coming up on the Christian Real View after this. This is the doctrine that separates Christianity from every other religion in the world.

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A little frog in my throat there. Christian World View radio program and also lots of resources to get there on the Web site. One of our featured ones right now is how to be free from the fear of death. This little booklet by Ray Comfort. We had him on recently and this is an excellent little resource.

It's really a kind of a not a gospel track that short, but it's a little booklet and explains the gospel as Ray can. So we have those for only 50 cents. If you've never contacted us, we'll send you one for free so you can get a bundle of those to give out to people. We also, of course, are still featuring the American gospel films. Those are excellent. We have lots of other DVDs and things on the Web site for adults and for children. And just one last recommendation with Father's Day coming up about getting your father a copy of my book, My Boy Ben, a story of love, loss and grace, and I'm glad to sign it and personalize it for your dad or for maybe someone who has a birthday coming up. And you can get that on our Web site, theChristianrealview.org.

Or you can also we have a dedicated landing page for that myboyben.com. All right. Today in the program, we're going to continue with our interview with Dr. Stephen Nichols. He is the president of Reformation Bible College, the chief academic officer of Ligonier Ministries.

He's also written a very accessible, insightful book that we've been discussing five minutes in church history, going back and looking back over the last 2000 years of church history as some of the most important events and people and places. So let's get back to the final segment with Stephen Nichols. Let's move on to the last couple questions later in the book.

I think we're now more in the modern age. You talk about the French Huguenots and I won't read the passage, but you say that the French Huguenots were actually the ones who celebrated, really celebrated the first Thanksgiving. They had a presence in Florida. Of course, they also came from over in from France. So they were impactful in both continents.

Who were they? Why are they important? Yeah, well, you know, for one thing, I'm down here in Florida. And of course, we talk about the first Thanksgiving.

We're always paying attention to New England, as we should. But a few decades before New England, even in the late 1500s, we actually have a Thanksgiving service here in Florida. And these were French Huguenots. This is the group, you know, the Reformation never took hold in France like it did in some of the Swiss city states or in Germany or in England.

It was dominated by Roman Catholicism as a state. But there were plenty within France who embraced the doctrines of the Reformation. And these were the Huguenots. And they were terribly persecuted in France. And a number of them made their way to Florida right around St. Augustine. Now, that settlement was eventually defeated by the Spaniards. And so the Spanish, of course, were Catholic.

And so everyone thinks of Florida's roots as Catholic. But the Huguenots were here first. And they had a celebration, a Thanksgiving celebration, where they had a worship service and a feast together. And they read the song, and they sang hymns, and they ate a feast.

And so that was the first Thanksgiving in America, the colonies at that time. But what we see in the Huguenots is that example of a persecuted people, but who were persistent. And, you know, as much as the Roman Catholic authorities in France tried to stamp them out through persecution and martyrdoms, they persevered. And God blessed them. And they really went all around the globe and took the gospel with them as they went. Yes, I remember the last time you were on the program, I think you talked about them. And so when I read it in the book, that really jogged my memory about who they were.

So thanks for bringing that up again. Again, Dr. Stephen Nichols with us today on the Christian Real View, the president of Reformation Bible College, and also works with Ligonier Ministries. All right, final question goes to someone that many in the audience will know of, Jonathan Edwards, part of the pastor and theologian during the first Great Awakening. And I'm just going to read a quote from the book.

He says, Edwards grew up on the Westminster Shorter Catechism. He learned from the first question that the chief end of man is to, quote, glorify God and enjoy him forever. Our culture tells us that true happiness and true joy come from serving the self. But this is a false idea, you write. Jesus exposed this idea as a lie in Matthew 16 25 when he says, for whoever would save his life will lose it.

But whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. We were made for God, made with a singular purpose to glorify him, and as we glorify him and as we live for and live toward him, we find our souls true joy. This is how we are made happy.

In fact, Edwards even liked to use the word, hapified. We are hapified when we glorify God and enjoy him. I think this is a fitting end to the conversation today as we talk about these different people and eras and places and times in your book. Talk about this chief end of man, to glorify God and enjoy him forever.

For someone who's listening today, Steve, that may not understand their purpose for why I am here, that most fundamental question. You know, I think sometimes we have this conception that there's the good life and then there's the Christian life. Or there's happiness and the pursuit of happiness and then there's being a Christian. And again, we've sort of seeded ground there that we don't have to. You go back to any one of these figures. You go back to Augustine, you go back to Calvin, you go back to Edwards and you will find them all saying the good life is the Christian life.

You'll find this in Edwards. To be truly happy. God made us for himself. And when we are obeying him, living according to his word and seeking to worship him in all of life, that's when we are most fulfilled, most happy and have true joy in our lives. And we're told really the opposite culturally and we're bombarded with the opposite message culturally.

And we just need to push back against that. We need to push back against that for our sakes, we need to push back against that for the sake of the next generation, our kids that we're raising, to help them to recognize that it is in the worship of God that you will be the most fulfilled. And as you have God at the center of your lives, you will be truly happy. That's really the message of the Christian life. It's not the Christian life versus the good life. It's not Christianity versus happiness.

Christianity is the good life. And that's a great message. Whether it's taught to us from Augustine or Calvin or Luther or Edwards, ultimately it is taught to us by the Psalmist.

And that's just a good reminder for all of us. To follow up on that, how does one enter into that, enter into Christianity, so to speak, or enter into being right with God and to live within the purpose for what he created us to glorify him? Well, you know, again, we're back to Edwards, right? We first come to this through what Edwards would call the divine and supernatural light as we are converted and as we recognize who Christ is and what he's done for us. You know, and this was what Jesus says when Peter says, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.

What Christ says to Peter is, Flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, Peter, but my Father in heaven. And so Edwards would remind us that we need that divine and supernatural light that awakens us to God. But then, once we're awakened, we just relentlessly pursue God, serving him, learning about him and his word, seeking to be faithful.

And that's what it means to pursue happiness. Steven, thank you for joining us on the Christian Real View today. We really appreciate this book.

This is helpful. We do recommend it highly to listeners as just a good way to get introduced and have a working understanding of so many things that have happened in the Christian faith over the last 2000 years. We're thankful for you, Steve, and all you're doing at Reformation Bible College in Ligonier. And we just pray and wish all of God's best and grace to you. Well, kind of you to have me. I'm grateful for the conversation.

Thanks so much. That was Dr. Steven Nichols, everyone. And if you want to hear more from him, he has a five minute podcast called Five Minutes in Church History where you can hear more of these vignettes.

I think he has lots of them. As a matter of fact, that's what this book was based on, was his podcast. They would do these features and they just put it into this book. And again, this book, Five Minutes in Church History, is linked on our website, thechristianrealview.org. I liked what he said there, and I think it was the last answer to the second to the last answer. He said, it is in the worship of God that you will be most fulfilled. It is in the worship of God that you will be most fulfilled.

And isn't that always our problem today? We're always chasing after other things, whether it's we're trying to make more money, we're trying to do something with our kids, we're trying to go on some vacation or buy some thing or move into another house. And we may not think, oh, if I just do that, I will be more fulfilled.

But I think inside of us, maybe even subconsciously, we think that's the case. But like he just said, it is in the worship of God that you will be most fulfilled. And the reason that is that way is that God created each one of us to be worshippers of him. We are created to worship. If we don't worship God, we're going to worship something else, ourselves, money, whatever. It's going to be addictions, alcohol, sex, you name it. We're going to worship something.

And so when we worship God, that is ultimately when we find the greatest fulfillment in life. We have much more coming up in some summary comments after this final break of the day in the Christian worldview. David Wheaton here to tell you about my boy Ben, a story of love, loss and grace. Ben was a yellow lab and inseparable companion at a stage in my life when I was single and competing on the professional tennis tour. I invite you to enter into the story and its tapestry of relationships with Ben, my aging parents, with a childhood friend I would finally marry and ultimately with God, who caused all things, even the hard things to work together for good. Order the book for your friend who needs to hear about God's grace and the gospel, or the one who has gone through a difficult trial or loss or just the dog lover in your life. Signed and personalized copies are only available at MyBoyBen.com or by calling 1-888-646-2233.

That's 1-888-646-2233 or MyBoyBen.com. People everywhere have anxiety about the coronavirus pandemic. What will happen to their health, their job, their finances, the future? There is also heightened spiritual awareness. Why is God doing this?

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Perfect for sharing with others. To order, go to TheChristianWorldview.org or call 1-888-646-2233. That's TheChristianWorldview.org. All right, final segment of the day here on the Christian World View radio program.

If you missed any of the interview with Dr. Stephen Nichols on the brief tour of 2000 years of church history, you can always hear the program by going to our website, TheChristianWorldview.org. You can get our podcast, which is the same thing. You can go to iTunes or Apple Store or Google Play. The program is also on OnePlace.com. That's also a good place to hear it. So lots of different ways if you can't hear the program live or on the radio over antennas every week, you can get it in a very wide variety of places online. And you can subscribe to our weekly email to get the short takes too. If you don't have time to hear the 45-minute podcast, just get the short takes.

You at least get a taste of what took place every week in the program. So just some summary thoughts on the interview and this topic today of understanding church history. You know, we are weak in our understanding of church history because it's just not emphasized in the American Evangelical Church unless you perhaps go to seminary. I mean, how many times do you hear your pastor of your church reference things that happened maybe during the Reformation or the early church age after the close of the New Testament?

And it's just not done that much. Most people who are referenced might be a popular Christian author of the day or so forth, but certainly not going back hundreds and hundreds of years to those who went before us. And I don't think there's any danger, as Stephen mentioned earlier in the interview, we don't want to make these men and these other people, women who went before us to be inspired like they're writing from the New Testament, that the Holy Spirit inspired them.

That's definitely not a danger for us in the Evangelical Church today, like the Reformers, you know, John Calvin or Martin Luther or Zwingli or John Knox and so forth, William Tyndale. No, they weren't inspired, but they are incredible examples of faithful men who were obedient to God, who did great things to move the ball forward, so to speak, during their particular time of life. You know, these biblical, just like biblical characters, and the Bible brings them out, these men had flaws. These church leaders in the church age had flaws, and that's actually a good proof for why the Bible can be trusted.

It doesn't try to sugarcoat, like the Chinese Communist Party or something, that sugarcoat everything that their dear leader does. No, the Bible does something very different than that. It shows the great examples of faith and obedience that these men of the faith had, but it also shows their flaws. Think of someone like King David or even Moses or Abraham, Noah, all these great men that are pictured in the Old Testament. The Apostle Peter denied Christ. This is actually evidence for the Bible being true, that they would be willing to show that leaders had flaws. Martin Luther, for example, who is basically credited with starting the Protestant Reformation, which changed everything in the world, he said things later in his life against the Jews. But that doesn't mean that everything he has ever said and ever did should be completely discounted or disqualified.

He had a blind spot, like we all have blind spots. And so we need to compare everything they said, those in the church age, to the only standard that really matters. Everything needs to be compared right back to what the Word of God says.

Then we can know whether it's true or false. So their writings can be very helpful, and learning about them and reading his book can be very helpful to push us forward and to help us gain some of the character qualities that God had instilled in their lives. Because knowing what doctrines they fought for, the convictions they held, the way they are willing to die for their faith, that's inspiring and should really lead us to question ourselves whether we would be willing to do the same. As you read these people in the book, you think, man, what if I was in that situation?

How would I respond? Would my faith be able to hold up? Am I willing to go down the roads they did? You look at a passage, what Jesus said in Luke 9, he said, if anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. Whoever wishes to save his life, in other words, if you want to live a life of comfort and ease, if you just want to save your life and be safe and protected, we'll lose it. But whoever loses his life for my sake, and that doesn't necessarily mean death, that means just lose your life. In other words, live for Christ instead of live for yourself. He is the one, Jesus says, who will save it. For what is a man profited if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself or his soul? For whoever is ashamed of me and my words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes again in his glory, in the glory of the Father and of the holy angels.

That's from Luke 9. In other words, we need to live for Christ. That's our purpose in life, to worship God, to enter into a relationship with God, the one way God has provided through repentance of our sin and putting our faith in who Jesus is, the Son of God, and what he did for us on the cross. He died for our sins. And once you enter into that, it's a life of following and obeying the Lord fully.

And that's where the most fulfillment comes from life in doing that. And as I listened to Stephen Nichols today, I just thought about the differences between the church back then and now. And this is generally speaking, because obviously there's lots of different kinds of churches and so forth and so on, and some of them are more faithful than others. We read the churches in Revelation, that was the case there as well.

So this is going to be a general comparison. Back then, there was a separation from worldliness. Whereas today, there's a desire to be culturally relevant for Christians, what we watch. Christians want to be watching the same entertainment as the world. They want to be dressing like the world.

They want to listen to the same music as the world. We want to be kind of like the world, but just Christian. Whereas back then, there was a complete separation from the world. Now, they weren't trying to separate from unbelievers. They were still evangelistic, but they didn't want any part of kind of the ungodly aspects of the world. Second thing is the differences between the church then and the church now is there was an incredible reverence in worship back then.

You read about, we heard Stephen Nichols talk about what worship was like in those catacombs. I mean, it was just plain preaching of the word, singing a hymn, gathering together, taking communion, that was it. Whereas today, think about the mega evangelical church today, it's about having an experience. It's very man-centered.

How can we craft this worship to touch the emotions and to move the people who are listening? It's about numbers. There are these big church buildings, and the reality of economics is you have to have people coming in through the door and new people to pay off those mortgages and those expenses and those salaries and that staff for the gigantic expenses. I mean, they didn't think about those things back in the day. They were just kind of gathering in a place, a home or wherever it was, and the main things were the main things. There was a focus on doctrinal soundness back then. They were very concerned about doctrinal clarity and soundness. That's de-emphasized today. And lastly, there was a willingness to suffer persecution and even death for following their Lord.

Whereas today, again, generally speaking, there's much more of an attraction to our general peace and safety. So we can learn from these men and women who have gone before us and hope to get a copy of this book, Five Minutes in Church History, and read the word and find out what those who have gone before us were like so we can emulate their lives. Read the chapter of faith in Hebrews 11. Thanks for joining us on the Christian Real View today. Until next time, think biblically and live accordingly. The Christian World View is a weekly one-hour radio program that is furnished by the Overcomer Foundation and is supported by listeners and sponsors.

Request one of our current resources with your donation of any amount. Go to thechristianworldview.org or call us toll-free at 1-888-646-2233 or write to us at Box 401, Excelsior, Minnesota, 55331. Thanks for listening to the Christian World View. Until next time, think biblically and live accordingly.