This document discusses how church history is important for developing theology from the Bible. It provides four ways that church history can be used: 1) Content - What biblical ideas are affirmed or omitted through history. Examples given are writings affirming Galatians 3. 2) Continuation - How much of what earlier writers said is continued by later writers. An example is how Athanasius continued opposing Arianism. 3) Context - Who said what when. Examples show ideas before Luther in England with John Wycliffe and in Hungary with John Hus. 4) Clarity - How much outside factors like persecution or philosophy affected what writers said. An example given is how persecution may have impacted Or

1. How do we get our theology from
church history?

2. But why is church history important?
Sola Scriptura

3. But why is church history important?
Sola Scriptura not Solo Scriptura

4. Sola Scriptura not Solo Scriptura
Everyone reads the Bible with a bias!
The Bible our bias

5. So who should control our bias?
How we feel
Church today? The Vatican
tradition? in Rome?
The “bias” through which
we understand the Bible
The Bible

6. Solo Scriptura means:
My pastor I saw a
said ... documentary on
TV ...
This Blog It makes
said ... more sense
if...

7. But Sola Scriptura means:
Although the Bible has authority over tradition,
we use church history in these four ways, to
build our theology ...
Content Continuation
Context Clarity

8. The Roman Catholic Church rejects Sola Scriptura
Not the church
The Pope past but the
said ... Vatican now.
The church is
It’s Official above Scripture

9. So the way we understand the Bible is a cycle:
We understand the bible
through a particular bias
The Bible has authority
over church tradition
Church tradition
shapes our bias

10. But it’s a biblical cycle:
We understand the bible
through a particular bias: The Bible has authority
There are some things in them that over church tradition:
are hard to understand, which the
Now these Jews were
ignorant and unstable twist to their
more noble than those
own destruction, as they do the
in Thessalonica; they
other Scriptures. (2 Peter 3:16)
received the word with
all eagerness,
examining the
Scriptures daily to see
if these things were so.
(Acts 17:11)
Church tradition shapes our bias:
“I found also an altar with this
inscription, ‘To the unknown god.’
What therefore you worship as
unknown, this I proclaim to
you.” (Acts 17:23)

11. Sola Scriptura:
Content Continuation
Context Clarity
So this is how we get our theology from Church
History ...

12. Content
What biblical ideas are affirmed or omitted and
in what way?

13. Content: What biblical ideas are affirmed or omitted and in what way?
e.g. Gal 3:10-13
10 For all who rely on works of Gregory of Nazianzus
the law are under a curse; for it is
(330-390)
written, “Cursed be everyone who
does not abide by all things written “As for my sake He was called a
in the Book of the Law, and do curse, Who destroyed my curse,
them.” 11 Now it is evident that no
one is justified before God by the
and sin, who taketh away the sin
law, for “The righteous shall live by of the world.” (The Fourth
faith.” [1] 12 But the law is not of Theological Oration)
faith, rather “The one who does
them shall live by them.” 13 Christ
redeemed us from the curse of the
law by becoming a curse for us—for George Whitefield (1714-70)
it is written, “Cursed is everyone
who is hanged on a tree”—
“For these Jesus Christ died a
painful, cursed, ignominous death;
and by his obedience, and by his
death, wrought an everlasting
righteousness for them.” (‘Sermons
Preached’)

14. Continuation
How much of what was said is continued?

15. Continuation: How much of what was said is continued?
e.g.
In about c300 AD So in 325 The Nicene
Arius Creed recognizes
claims Jesus is only a Jesus as God
created being ...
But a few decades
later Athanasius
opposes the now
widespread Arianism

16. Context
Who says what when?

17. Context: Who says what when?
e.g. 4. Furthermore,
5. And before
Luther in Protestant-like
England as well, ideas appear a
with John hundred years
Wycliffe. before Luther in
Hungary with
John Hus.
1. We assume
the Refromation
begins with
Luther in
Germany
2. But Luther was an Augustinian monk,
schooled in the ideas of Augustine who lived
and worked in North Africa 1,000 years earlier

18. Clarity
How much did persecution, other
philosophical ideas or cultural moods
affect, or not affect, what they said?

19. Clarity: How much did persecution, other philosophical ideas or cultural moods
affect, or not affect, what they said?
e.g.
A Platonic conception
Lived during times of
of how the cosmos
persecution
worked
Origen

20. So that’s how we get our theology from Church
history/tradition.
Content Continuation
Context Clarity
(Now admittedly some relative method are useful but not determinative;
such as the what the majority says or who says it most eloquently.)

21. But church history/tradition is only one of three,
interlocking, parts of how to understand the Bible
Wisdom (common
sense)
Church history/
tradition Prayer