Summary - 20 centuries in 20 minutes

Why do we do the things we do? Where do our traditions come from?

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I like to facetiously say, “History doesn’t repeat itself, but historians do,” but it is apparent from this study that Christian history is rife with examples and instruction for us today. In today’s lesson you will see a giant, 20-centuries-long loop during which historical situations repeat and are handled in different, better and worse ways, throughout.

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Ecclesiastes 1:9-11

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Chapter 1

• AD, BC, BCE (p6) (reflects current, modern relativism)

Chapter 2

• Rule of Faith (p21)
• Canonical Scripture (p20)
• The fish monogram for Christ – The Greek word for fish is an anagram for the phrase “Jesus Christ, God’s Son, Savior.” (p24)

Chapter 3

• Gloria Patria as a musical response to Arianism. (p30)

Chapter 4

• Augustine of Hippo – proto-Reformer (p40)
• Spread of Celtic Christianity (p45)

Chapter 5

• Rise of Islam (p50)
• Crusades (p54)

Chapter 6

• Bernard emphasized the loving, innocent infant image of Christ as opposed to the earlier, strict judge image. (p64)
• Valdes and the Waldensians (A.K.A. the Poor Folk of Lyons) – proto-Reformers (p65)

Chapter 7

• Wycliffe (p74)
• Hus (p74)
• Erasmus (p78)

Chapter 8

• Luther’s 95 Theses (p81)
• 5 solas – sola scriptura, sola fide, sola gratia, solus Christus, sola Deo gratia (p80)

Chapter 9

• TULIP – Total depravity, Unconditional election, Limited atonement, Irresistible grace, Perseverance of the saints. (p94)
• Puritans (p96)

Chapter 10

• Charles Wesley wrote many of the hymns we sing (p110)
• Great Awakening (p109)
• Deist or Christian forefathers? (p104)

Chapter 11

• 5-Fundamentals as a response to modern liberal theology – Jesus was uniquely divine, virgin birth, died as a sacrifice for sin, will come again, and the bible is inerrant. (p123)
• Gothic architecture (p119)

Chapter 12

• Dead Sea Scrolls (p126) (returns us to the beginning of Christianity in a great, big, historical circle.)
• Evolution (p130)
• Post-modern relativism (p139)

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Ecclesiastes 3:11

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The history of God’s miraculous creation, the Church of Christ, points us back to himself through the Scriptures. With this additional insight into Church History, let’s return to the Scriptures with a prayer for the Holy Spirit to shed fresh light upon our studies.