Do we have a history outside that recorded in the Bible? Are we not direct spiritual heirs of the first century church? When we base everything we do on the Bible, what does it matter what others have said and done before us? Certainly that’s a valid question, don’t you think? Can a truly biblical church have a history outside of the Bible?

To answer that question, I think we have to do some comparisons, holding up our church today next to what we see in the New Testament. First off, we gratefully see that, in their essence, they are the same. Same God, same Lord, same Spirit, same faith, same hope, same baptism… same body, which is the church of our Lord.

But as we look, we notice some other things. We find many things in our church that are not in the New Testament. Now before anybody gets upset over that remark, let me hasten to make a clarification. There is a difference between unbiblical and antibiblical. The most obvious example is the Bible itself. Nobody in the Bible carried a Bible! (nor does the word “Bible” appear in Scripture) In fact, it would be many centuries until common Christians had anything resembling what we have today as the Bible. Yet who would argue that owning a Bible goes against biblical principles? The fact that we do some things that weren’t done in Bible times shouldn’t upset us.

In the present day, we meet on Sunday morning, Sunday evening and Wednesday evening. We have Bible classes on Sunday morning and Wednesday evening, but not Sunday evening. This is a common pattern in the churches of Christ today, yet it isn’t found in the Bible. Where did it come from? When you visit different churches of Christ, you hear many of the same songs being sung. Did these come from the Bible or somewhere else? Most of our buildings have a large auditorium with pews (or seats), a communion table and a pulpit or pulpit area. Why the similarities? How did all these congregations come to do so many things the same when those things aren’t found in Scripture?

Now that you see my point, you can probably think of a lot of examples. These are good things, and it is fine to have them. Don’t get me wrong. All I’m saying is that we would not have so many of these incidental things in common unless we had a common history. The coincidence would just be too great. (I wrote a post a while back called Signs that your congregation is part of a bigger history)

One reason that we study Restoration History is to help us differentiate between things we do because they are explicitly taught in the Scriptures and things we do from expediency. The church fell into apostasy long ago because people didn’t know the difference between church traditions and what the Bible taught. We must not commit that same error!

We study church history to honor the men and women who went before us. As has been said, we are where we are because we stand on the shoulders of previous generations. It is a sign of arrogance to think we have nothing to learn from the men and women who went before us. Their voices can help us break free from the tyranny of the here and now to hear the eternal voice of the never-changing God.

Another reason to study history is to try and learn from the mistakes of the past. George Santayana once said, “Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” (Aldous Huxley quipped that the most important thing we learn from history is that we never learn from history!) Our heritage has suffered numerous divisions over the years. We have also been slow to react to some issues, like slavery and civil rights. We can learn from these mistakes and others and avoid their repetition.

We must never deify those that went before us, yet we ignore these men to our own detriment. They were men, fallible men, but their insights and example can aid us in our Christian walk.

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.” (Hebrews 12:1)