144. CHUMP TALK: Why Bother Studying Church History?

Finally, the question that everyone (usually our wives and loved ones) constantly asks us.

"Why bother studying church history?" 

"Isn't it all so boring?"

"Isn't it just a bunch of dead guys?"

So after putting on a brave face and pretending these questions didn't hurt our feelings, Taylor and John have decided to put this discussion to bed once and for all.

Join us as we discuss why we believe that studying church history is beneficial for any believer looking to understand theology, have a better grasp of the Scriptures, or just be more tuned into God's family. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:52

Hey everybody! Welcome to Church. Hey, buddy. Can I help you, Taylor? Did you forget who you were for a second?

SPEAKER_00 1:00

I had the intro.

SPEAKER_02 1:02

You said that three seconds before I hit record, which made me assume that was an error on your part. Hey, everybody. No. This is because it's chump talk, doesn't mean we go off the rails, okay? We're still a dignified podcast. If Christianity today is ever going to pick us up, we have to clean up our act, Taylor.

SPEAKER_00 1:21

Yeah, you have to clean up your room. You listen to Jordan Peterson, clean your room.

SPEAKER_02 1:26

This isn't my room, it's my office. And as men with offices know, it's also partially where our wives will store their crafty stuff.

SPEAKER_00 1:36

That's true. Dude, that's true.

SPEAKER_02 1:39

Yeah. So would you rather me have a clean office or be a loving husband? Pick one.

SPEAKER_00 1:44

Well, I would always choose loving husband. That's right.

SPEAKER_02 1:47

So I don't want to hear another word. Okay. Hey guys.

SPEAKER_00 1:51

Before we started recording and John's camera went on, I was like, oh my gosh, at least close the closet door.

SPEAKER_02 1:57

It's because I moved to treadmill. I moved to treadmill in here for health, for health reasons. This kid look at you.

SPEAKER_00 2:04

I've been trying he closes the closet door, and then what's behind what is that? What is written on the closet door? Something my wife wrote.

SPEAKER_02 2:12

To be nice to you? No, it's like uh I think it's like a to-do list from months ago. Wow. All right. Yeah. We got a lot, we got a lot going on. Here's the thing. We we we're we lived in apartments for a very long time, and the Lord blessed us with the ability to buy a house, which I really shouldn't say because we're still looking for donors for our show. But we did buy a house. God was very good to us. Um but we still have that apartment mindset, you know? It's like when you move out of the hood, but you still got that hood mentality, you know what I'm talking about, Taylor?

SPEAKER_00 2:47

Yeah, like where you store, you know, leftover food hidden in your closet.

SPEAKER_02 2:52

That's that's right. Yeah. Just uh l little Debbie snack cakes in in every little in every cupboard and and stuff like that. Yeah. It's like it's like the same thing. Yeah. We we feel the need to fill all of our space because we we forget that we have so much of it, you know.

SPEAKER_01 3:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:08

Well, if you want to roast me, you see that little sound bar hanging behind me?

SPEAKER_02 3:13

It's pretty slanted.

SPEAKER_00 3:14

Yeah, it's totally jacked up.

SPEAKER_02 3:16

Hmm.

SPEAKER_00 3:17

I just you know I'll fix it one day.

SPEAKER_02 3:20

Yeah. I don't think sound bars like what's the point?

SPEAKER_00 3:25

It I think they sound way better than TV speakers. But the funny thing is that thing doesn't even work anymore.

SPEAKER_02 3:33

Yikes. And it looks bad.

SPEAKER_00 3:35

And it looks I know, dude. I know. And here I am roasting you for your your space.

SPEAKER_02 3:41

It's true. And my my place is just a work in progress. It's a work in progress. But aren't we all? Amen. Amen. But hey, much like the promise made in the book of Philippians, I will finish the work that I started in this room. In this room.

SPEAKER_00 3:56

Maybe not everywhere else, but in this room.

SPEAKER_02 3:58

Maybe not everywhere else. Yeah, we'll see. Uh hey, welcome to Chump Talk. This is uh, if you're not familiar, kind of our more free form flow like flowing conversation.

SPEAKER_00 4:09

It's behind the scenes. It's not behind the scenes.

SPEAKER_02 4:12

I mean, we talked about other stuff.

SPEAKER_00 4:13

If this was if this was if we had Patreon and we treated you guys like terrible people and we're awful to you, and we locked content behind a Patreon.

SPEAKER_02 4:23

Like paywalls.

SPEAKER_00 4:25

This is what you would get. But instead, we give it to you for free.

SPEAKER_02 4:30

That's right. Yeah, we're not EA. We're not uh, you know, some some lousy game on the app store. We we give it all away free freely given to all of the Humble Beast fans from the early 2010s. Freely given. Remember Humble Beast, man? I do.

SPEAKER_00 4:47

Humble in the mumble in the jungle and shops and screams. Beast. I know you wanted to finish it. Diggin Tumbles under a stampede beast.

SPEAKER_02 4:57

Oh man, dude, it's it's uh it's a jarring thing to look through what Humble Beast was compared to what it is now. But that's not that's a different, but that's different.

SPEAKER_00 5:07

Did you see okay, last random thing. Last random thing. Did you see Andy Menio put up the funniest TikTok? It was him like getting it was like the shot with the violin playing and it and the caption of like him sitting down in an interview chair fixing the mic, and it was like him talking of uh it said me getting ready to uh on the documentary about how I survived Reach Records. And then the and then the comments were and then the comments were, and then part two is how they survived me or something like that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:36

So he was clearly making a joke. For sure. I love it. Also, Andy Minio's new album, Magic and Bird 2. Not bad.

SPEAKER_00 5:44

I'm just glad he's still a Christian.

SPEAKER_02 5:46

Okay. Not bad. Hey, me too. I'm just glad I'm still a Christian. I'm glad you're still a Christian, man. No, we're still running that race. I'm still I'm glad you're still a Christian.

SPEAKER_00 5:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:55

Not that the Muslims didn't come calling. Just kidding. I don't think so. Um I feel like we need to answer a couple of questions that we got from our last episode. Uh the first one was will we start a Discord? I think we need to now. We got we got a lot of positive comments about the Discord.

SPEAKER_00 6:12

And that's also not going to be locked behind a paywall.

SPEAKER_02 6:14

There you go. No, free, freely given. Freely given.

SPEAKER_00 6:18

Much like the Lord.

SPEAKER_02 6:19

I I feel like I need to expose the the the running Ray joke. I almost feel like I shouldn't do it, but I I have to. So here's the thing. Ray was our beloved audio editor for basically since we started. And uh as much as it fills me with shame to acknowledge this, uh we've act we AI took his job away. Um why are you telling them this? They need to know. Look, we we build our platform on honesty and transparency.

SPEAKER_00 6:49

I guess. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 6:51

And uh and yeah, it just uh Ray has been as been but honestly, he was overqualified for this job. Uh he's he's a very advanced audio editor, and uh we just need someone to make sure that Taylor wasn't super loud and I wasn't super quiet, which is something uh Mr. Alan Iverson could take care of. So uh but we still like to make jokes and we still like to talk about Ray. And honestly, you know, because our boy was talking about, oh well, we always say Ray cue the music and then there's no music. The thing is, we would love to have like orchestral, like really awesome Lord of the Rings style music for our cold opens. The only problem is we don't want to give AI more money, and I don't know where to find cheap music that I can buy that's not gonna get copyright struck. So if you do that, listener.

SPEAKER_00 7:43

Well, we should just AI it.

SPEAKER_02 7:45

No, I don't want to I don't want to keep doing it, man. It's AI already took one man's job on this team.

SPEAKER_00 7:51

Just and it was Ray's. We need to tell them that Ray spent like 10 minutes a week doing what he was doing. And we're pretty sure Ray was using AI tools as well. Oh, that's true. That's also true. We just did the people who are like, these guys are monsters.

SPEAKER_02 8:09

No, I think he dragged and dropped it into uh into a program that went doop. Yes. And then it was done.

SPEAKER_00 8:17

Yes. And now it's fine. You could AI the uh what's that one? The one that makes the music. Suno. Yeah, you could sudo orchestral.

SPEAKER_02 8:28

I thought about it, but it's uh the thing is AI just takes music that's already exist. Like it's it's they've already found AI is like stealing music.

SPEAKER_00 8:38

The ethical implications of AI's very existence are interesting to talk about. And we had a whole episode about it. Yes, but I was more talking about the tools for uh you know productivity and stuff. But as far as the create if if you want to talk about the creative side of LLMs, it only exists by stealing effectively. Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 9:00

Exactly. Like generative AI, I feel like is a totally different conversation to like uh either research AI or even just like organizational AI. But yeah, I think they're different, but that's a good point. We have a whole totally different other topic. This one was sponsored by our good friend and long time, long time fan of the show and and longtime fan of John Simon's heart. My good friend Brian Betts, uh, he writes us uh if you guys don't know, you can executive produce an episode of the of uh Chump Talk, which means you can pick the topic for us. That's exactly what Mr. Betts did today, and this is his uh prompt. He says, uh, guys, big fan of the show. I added that part. Uh are there any insights from church history, such as the writings of a theologian, the practices of a ministry movement, or an event in the life of the church that have caused you to see a biblical passage or a theological concept in a new light? So there we go.

SPEAKER_00 10:00

It's a great question.

SPEAKER_02 10:01

Yeah. Yeah. So I kind of generalized it a little bit. And I I do think I I want to get back to like more of the nitty-gritty, but I think it's almost like what has learning about church history done to like really affect our day-to-day faith experience.

SPEAKER_01 10:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:22

So I don't know. Those are there may be two two sides of the same coin, but I think those are both interesting questions to uh to delve into.

SPEAKER_00 10:28

Yeah, we could do general, like why why study church history, and then we can talk about kind of specific things. I I have a few specific examples that I thought of. Okay. The j the general why is is really uh a great question. And I think I hinted at it at the end of the last episode. There's actually a divide in the academic community. And I don't know if you saw this at your during your time at seminary, but there's like kind of that biblical studies guy group of guys, and then there's the church history slash theology guys. And typically the biblical studies guys tend to look at the church history guys as like, well, I don't know why you guys are studying old dead guys when you could read the Bible.

unknown 11:16

Oh, I hate that argument.

SPEAKER_00 11:17

Yeah, so much. And and so let me clarify biblical studies in the academic world is like the I'm gonna I'm learning Greek at the most advanced levels, and I'm going in and really dissecting passages.

SPEAKER_02 11:33

Can I say what I can I can I just say The Greek's been translated, dog. Like you're gonna figure out something new in 20 aught twenty-six in the year of the Lord 2026. Yeah, it's like it really is though. But it's like, brother, yeah, come on, are you gonna tell me what a Google search on the word Theotokos isn't? Like I I and I'm not saying that you shouldn't learn Greek, and I'm not saying that biblical studies or hermeneutics are bad, but it's like if you're gonna be so reductive about church history, I'm gonna be reductive right back.

SPEAKER_00 12:10

Well, no, that's kind of the clap back. I try to be a little more ecumenical. I try to play it off like cutesy. Ecumenical is not the right word for that. But I try to be like But yeah, the I try to be cutesy about it and be like, well, I respect what you do, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And but like the reality is, yeah, Mr. Biblical Studies, you're I I like to think, you know, you're the saying the forest through the trees. You missed the forest through the trees. Church history and theology is a survey of the forest. Right. And kind of let's look at God's word working throughout history. Obviously, we have to have an understanding of the Bible to even do that. Sure. And then they're not missing it through the trees. In in their world, they can sometimes get stumped on twigs.

SPEAKER_02 12:59

Well, and and sometimes it's like for me to really, really understand the Bible, it also feels imperative to also understand the history. So it's like if you can if you can parse Paul's words and get into every Greek, you know, piece of grammar and syntax, that's great. But it's like, but if you don't study the history of what was happening in Corinth when he wrote the letter, then what's the point?

SPEAKER_00 13:25

Like Well, that's the other thing. This is so funny. You've never had this discussion, and you're already shooting them. This is great. This is great. They do church history or history. Right. Right, right. It is they are historians. They're just first century historians. Right.

SPEAKER_02 13:41

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 13:42

Which yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:43

And I I it seems like a like a like a leftover thought from the reforms or from from the reformation that it's like we stick with the apostolic era. Like we the Reformation taught us that all we really need are the scriptures and the apostles, and we can we can come to some wholesome conclusions without all of the traditional stuff.

SPEAKER_00 14:04

What it is is the modern biblical studies in evangelicalism evolved to combat the Germans.

SPEAKER_02 14:13

Oh, like Schleiermacher and everybody came to the liberal liberal theologians who kind of allegorized to death everything and took away a lot of the literal Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:25

So biblical studies has its place, but the divide is so unnecessary. Sure. So now we get back to this main point, like, you know, I took we we've talked about the divide. Okay, you have your biblical studies on one side and your church history theology on the other. And then so I think you have to ask, okay, why are church history and theology combined? And because church history is ultimately a study of theology being played out. If if we're being honest about it, right? It's bad theology a lot of time, unfortunately. We're learning about the crusades. That's an example of bad theology being played out. But you so so you have church history theology, and then you say, okay, so why would generally why study it? Well, if you're someone who appreciates easily obtained wisdom, I think that's the fastest way to do it. Imagine with me, if you will, dear listeners, close your eyes. Close your eyes. Unless you're driving, keep them open, keep them open. Imagine if you could have a greatest hits album with all the best songs in the world, and which is handed to you on vinyl, and you have the most beautiful sound system at home with a record player ready to play it. And you could just play the greatest songs ever written in humanity and just sit back and listen to Fireflies by L City. That's not on there. Now sorry. I was gonna say there definitely is a track from 36 Chambers on there. Or two, at least. Yeah, yeah. Anyway, that's essentially what church history is because they did all the filtering for us. Wait, think about how many guys you can name that were alive recently. John MacArthur, R.C. Sprohl, or other guys that are still alive and making big waves. You think like uh John Piper, Mark Dever, um, you know, uh uh David Platt. I mean the list can go on, right? I was Vody Baccom shout out recently with the Lord. This is a very telling, this is a very telling list that you're getting you're really uh.

SPEAKER_02 16:49

Oh, what do you want to be like?

SPEAKER_00 16:50

Sean Sean Fuanked, Sean Fuanked. No, yeah, like Bill John Bill Johnson.

SPEAKER_02 16:54

Dallas, Dallas Willard or uh Dallas Willard. That's great. Yeah, I don't know uh gosh, I'm telling on myself right now too. Uh whatever. I don't care. Yeah, exactly. I listen to dead guys, I don't listen to these moderns.

SPEAKER_00 17:06

Yes. So imagine though that it gets we don't know what's gonna end up on the greatest hit for that. And I'm not saying all those guys are great. Every single person we name well, maybe not, you know, not two of them. Two of them were not, but everyone else is amazing. Everyone else we named is amazing. Um but their kind of contributions we can't really see right now the full influence that they're gonna have. And so in the grand scheme of history, so history is the filter for us. Now there's something interesting about the patristic era in the sense that you're just slammed with greatest hits after greatest hits, right?

SPEAKER_02 17:50

There's something kind of interesting there. And Protestants don't hold don't have the office benefit too. Because you think like even with the church fathers, a lot of these dudes were bishops or popes or archbishops. Like today it's just and this is and this is kind of why I feel a little cynical about a lot of the modern writers and because like today it's like if you want to be if you want to be featured on Christianity today, like you've got a you've gotta have a brand, or maybe or maybe a big church, or just like a big megachurch. But like we don't have the the the office tends to lend to it. So now we kind of have to figure out our own elected.

SPEAKER_00 18:30

Yeah, no, no, that's fair. That's fair. I mean you don't c you don't suddenly just like construct ecclesiastical positions that don't have any biblical backing to to combat that, but like it's a fair critique. Uh and you're right, you have to have a platform to be published. So if I graduated with my PhD and I edited my dissertation, Lord willing, five years or so, and I said, Hey, I think I've got something good here. Uh, you know, I've had a lot of eyes on it, and uh I I bring it to a publisher. The big guys, Crossway, Zondervan, uh IVP, unless I have a platform, they're not touching it. But it's not but it won't matter. So you're right. There's a little bit of a cynical take there. A little bit. So yeah, and I acknowledge that. I acknowledge that it's different now. All that aside, history is the great filter so that we know when you think of 18th century, who's the first name that comes to your head, John? 18th century, like Edwards, probably. Exactly. Dude, we're locked in, baby. And there's and there remember we we had Tyler on to talk about Andrew Fuller. I've mentioned before on air, I want to study Andrew Bacchus or Isaac Bacchus, should probably learn his name. You know, Isaac Bacchus and history's the great filter though. Right. And so yeah, we both, and I would I would bet listeners, you thought the same thing. Yeah, 18th century, uh Edwards. Edwards. And so now we we know you're gonna read Edwards and it's gonna be good. You're gonna have a lot of good stuff. So think about it like that for one of the main reasons I like to study church history is we get just all this awesome Bible teaching just available to us if we just read it. And it's not just the Bible teaching, it's the application of it. And if you can sort of take if you can take their context, and this is where the history part comes in, if you can take their historical context and actually understand it, and you can take their responses to their historical context and actually understand it, or actually understand it, then you can start drawing parallels to our modern context, and now you can start applying wisdom that they already gained. That they've already thought through. That's that's my probably big reason. I I don't know. I don't know that I don't know what you're saying.

SPEAKER_02 21:02

Here's my here's my like mild pushback on that, which is like and it's okay. So actually I want to s I want to point out something that I think might have been one of the best quotes, one of the best tailored quotes that I I in in recent chump cast history, which is that, oh hold on. No, no, it's not very flattering. Just kidding. Um, no, it's that uh church history is like the expression of the like like you can see theology played out in church history. I think that's that's a very well, very good way of like interpreting things. Because like we've been through the crusades, we've been very um, I mean, critical, yeah, but we've also just been very like clear. Clear, real, uh, we've been very honest about like one of the one of the c one of the historical documented incentives for the crusaders was this idea of plenary indulgence, which was that to fight for Christendom was like an expression of faith, a work of faith that would that would wash away your sins, which is uh as a theological idea very, very problematic, but also it shows where the church it's a snapshot. It's a snapshot of where the church is. I think that's a that's an excellent way of putting it. I will say though that when you like if you ask if you ask a Catholic dude who he thinks of from the 18th century, he's probably not St. Edward's. And if you ask a Reformed or not a Reforms dude, if you ask like an Orthodox dude, it's probably gonna be some like Russian monk. Like, I think. History is the great concentrator. Like it's it's what simmers down your broth into a nice sauce for sure. But each pot exists within its different tradition, I think. Because that's fair. That's fair. We both said Edwards because for sure, yeah. And Edwards is who I know from the 18th century. Um But the I think one of the things that got me into church history, and this was this was how it was presented to me in my seminary, which I really loved and still think about to this day, they're basically like church history can be kind of like a propaganda thing. Because what people tend to do is like uh this is very generalized, this is kind of stereotypical. I'm gonna say that on the front end, but it's like if you're if you're like a prisb if you're like a like a classical Lutheran church, they're gonna say church history, you got the apostles, you got uh let's see, Polycarp, and then let's get to Augustine, and then a few things happened, and then boom, the Reformation. And it's like uh church history can kind of be like hopping on lily pads to like your favorite heroes of the faith because they represent where you are today, but they don't consider the whole story. And I think for me, I'm like, even if I don't agree, even if you know, like someone like Jerome, who of course formulated the Vulgate or uh, you know, lots of these dudes who advocated for views that we wouldn't necessarily stand by, I'm like, I still want to know them because I still think it's part of our story. Yeah. And so the lily pad of like hopping around, like I refuse to acknowledge I refuse to believe that the church was not alive in some way, even during what we call like the dark age, the medieval ages, because we see lots of really fascinating happening, maybe not mainstream, maybe more like in monastic orders or uh in different areas. But yeah, I I uh I'm here for the whole pot. Like I I want it bones and all, is where I what I feel about churches.

SPEAKER_00 24:49

You know what's funny, Anthony kind of he pointed out that uh Francis of Assisi. Anthony, Anthony, I think that was a great counterpoint when we're talking about missions and how in the Crusades you do have Francis of Assisi pops up and he does things very differently. Totally. He does things and and yes, he he's much more uh for lack of a better word, evangelical than anything else going on at the time.

SPEAKER_02 25:20

So we've talked about how the Carmelite order came out of the Crusaders, and like, you know, personally, some of my favorite Christian mystics came out of the Counter-Reformation, which was literally Spain and Italy like scrambling to try to try to fix the church because of how how impactful the Reformation was. So like I think we we miss so much if we only pick our heroes, we don't see the little other areas.

SPEAKER_00 25:47

That's part of the that's that's like my number two reason for studying church history, is it does sort of it gives you, I think, a better understanding of how you why you are the way you are. Exactly. And this is not this is not a modern 21st century western like presupposition, but like really think about it. You are of one of those l lily pads in the lake. Like that's that's where we are. We're just one, and there's a whole trail of lily pads that got us to where we are. Totally something shaped us and brought us here, and I think it's good to challenge the things that we have kind of assumed and taken for granted, uh, and look back and go, oh, maybe maybe I'm not maybe I need to loosen up on that. Or personally studying church history, I don't wanna I don't wanna I still wanna keep it on the why study church history, but I'm gonna give a specific example of uh the veneration of the saints, I do like it's pretty dang pagan. I've gotten there and and studying church history has done that for me, of like really thinking through look, you're not just asking Saint so and so up there to help you, but then at the same time, I feel like my heart has softened to people that some of them are actually just thinking, uh, you know, if the saints can see us in the past, I just want to give my boy a shout out and ask him to pray for me.

SPEAKER_02 27:25

Dude, I can't wait to do a series that's called like We Force Taylor to study Catholic things because like we're not gonna you you won't I don't think it's gonna change your mind, but I do think it's gonna open up your perspective a little bit. Because what I've read about the veneration of the saints has not made me want to venerate them, but it has made me feel pretty good about it not being a pagan practice.

SPEAKER_00 27:48

Well, I okay. I guess I mean our pilgrimage stuff is really it's been yeah, it's been I mean, like, even the relic stuff.

SPEAKER_02 27:59

Like, I find the relic stuff I do find it steeped in medieval superstition culture. I also think on paper it's this idea that like physical things can be sacred, which we see in the old testament all the time. So I don't know. I think I always try to cut it out. I'm gonna be more precise.

SPEAKER_00 28:19

It doesn't have to be pagan. I think it is pagan in a lot of ways. But it doesn't have to be. And uh it's pagan pagan vibes. It does have pay it's it's pagan coded, as the kids would say. Yeah. But but you know what made me think about it, and then we'll move on, is uh this loosened my heart towards it. When John MacArthur died, and I remember driving into work the next day, and I saw I saw an image of John MacArthur and he spoke to you. No, I wish that'd be like wow, I'm I'm next. Pray to me, Taylor. Pray to me. No, I swear. I just thought about all the reform people that are just like devastated this morning, right? They're just they lost their favorite Bible teacher. You know, I don't know if you know this. John MacArthur's huge in the Hispanic world.

SPEAKER_02 29:09

I believe he's huge in the all kinds of California world.

SPEAKER_00 29:13

Well, the reform Hispanic world. Anyway, they love that guy. And I uh I was just thinking, like, man, all these different cultures, all these different people are sad. And then I thought to myself, someone's already prayed to him. It's like some reform guy on his way to work today was like, Pastor John, if you can hear me, I'm just so glad you're with Jesus. And I thought, that's that's what it is. That's what it is. And you like, you can't I don't know if you want to blame that guy in this hypothetical situation.

SPEAKER_02 29:45

So my my understanding, and and uh saint venerators who are listening, feel free to comment. My understanding is that the the truth that this principle is built on is that the kingdom of God is full of saints who are alive and well. It's literally Jesus being like, do we serve a is our God the God of the dead? Like when he referenced like the patriarchs. And so, yeah, I think it's like if we acknowledge that the people that there are saints in heaven around the around the throne of God, like then are their ears turned to us or not? I I don't think so, but I do understand the the connection.

SPEAKER_00 30:27

Yeah, see and reading the theology and the history behind and where it came from, this has helped us sort of develop these more nuanced opinions, I think.

SPEAKER_02 30:42

Correct. Have you heard of NT Wright's five-act, like uh this kind of five-act model of seeing the the seeing the the story of creation? No. Okay. I like it a lot. Uh and we we learned it when I was when I was in seminary. So it's basically like uh the first four acts are what we see in the scriptures. So it's uh creation, the fall, uh, the story of Israel, and then the coming of Christ. And then he kind of refers to it as like it's like imagine you uncovered a um an old manuscript of like a Shakespeare play, and all four, the first four acts were written, but the fifth one is unfinished. Like that's kind of how he sees it. So it's like you've got, you know, the world created, the fall, the story of Israel, the coming of Christ, and then he calls act five different basically now, he wouldn't call them dispensations, he's an Anglican.

SPEAKER_00 31:42

It's Anglican dispensational, dispensational.

SPEAKER_02 31:45

It's chapters of the God is the same. There's no different giving of grace. God is the same, the story is different.

SPEAKER_01 31:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 31:53

Uh but he he he calls like he's basically like, until the coming of Christ, we are living in chapter five. And so it's like, for me, the beauty of church history is saying, like, what if the story of God's people isn't just what we read about in you know, the book of Acts, but also like the Old Testament. It's like, what if the story of God's people is ongoing today and started at Pentecost and we're still experiencing it? So that's why it's important to be like, even in the areas where we feel like it's really dark, and when the theology goes black, like even when things seem wacky, it's like, but even in the old testament, they had times when they resisted the spirit of God and then they had to walk into repentance, like but it's all the story. The story's all there. The people of God, the spirit of God is all there.

SPEAKER_00 32:48

So um no, man, you're you're spitting facts. As the kids say, as the kids say, as the kids say. No, man, I love it. I I think, yeah. I think it wa I looked up a couple articles actually. I was at the gym. I because you know, if you go to the gym, you have to tell people you went to the gym. So it was I was at the gym before this, and I I was looking up articles I was on the treadmill. I was like, well, I study church history. And honestly, I was just thinking I'm not gonna use any of this stuff. Yeah, like it it's not that complicated. There were so many, there's so many different points, and I feel like it was over-theologizing. And in my mind, I'm like, it's so simple. It's like what basically I f I'm so comfortable with the three that we have. So number one is like uh it is oh my gosh. What did I say 20 minutes ago, John? Oh, the expression of theology. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's just it's wisdom. Yes. It's wisdom. Number two, kind of uh like like we've we just said it, it helps us understand our context, our own context. And then number three, it's just this I feel like it's dishonoring to God almost to just be completely unaware of just be like, oh yeah, hey, I I I was given the gospel when I was at went to youth camp, and now it just revolves around me and my expression of faith. Sure, sure. And I'm like, well, you know, there's thousands of people involved in the trail that led to the pastor that was qualified and equipped to give you the gospel.

SPEAKER_02 34:29

Absolutely, yeah. And I think just as it helps us understand our own context, it also helps us to understand others too, because it's like we do, I think that in America, but I think just in general in the West, we can have a very West-centric view of the church, but it's like when we remember, like some of the oldest churches in the world, some of the some of the countries that have been immersed in Christianity for the longest are like Armenia and Syria and Ethiopia and India. And it's like we know that the gospel is going to every tribe, tongue, and nation. Like it's a beautiful thing to recognize, like, oh wow, these people live in a very different culture. Their government is different, they have very different social uh ways of doing things, but they worship the risen Christ, and that's beautiful. Like it's a way of realizing just how the kingdom of God fills different nooks and crannies in very different ways that are still honoring, they're not, it's not like relative, but you know, there's a lot of lot of ways to do it.

SPEAKER_00 35:33

And this gets all the way into the most practical thing. Let's just say somebody somebody came to us and said, Hey, Taylor and John, I'm getting ready to go overseas. This missions organization is sending me, like, we're we're trying to actually come up with an attack plan for these for these guys. What do you think? Well, your missiology can be directly informed by just reading church history and realizing one, there's tons of failed missions to learn from. And two, you just kind of learn like, yeah, their culture was so different than ours, but like they're clearly Christian. Right. So we don't have to go over there and shove our cultural practices of down their throat for how they can express the truths found in Scripture.

SPEAKER_02 36:30

Well, and dude, like imagine it's a hundred years from now and someone's planning a a mission trip to like Boston, and it's like, and it's like Boston was so impacted by the big scandal with the Catholic Church, because Boston and all of New England was like historically super Catholic because of all the Irish folks there and Italians and stuff. So it's like, how would you understand how they receive the notion of Christianity if you didn't also understand the way that the church had so badly dropped the ball and like lost the trust of the people? Like if you're gonna be doing mission work in Quebec, you should probably learn about the the the vibes that Quebec Quebecers, Quebec, Quebec, Quebec, Quebec, Quebec Quebecwa. Yeah, uh, but what how they feel about the faith? Because I know they've got some really radically anti-Christian ideas out there too. Uh so yeah, you gotta figure out where all that comes from.

SPEAKER_00 37:30

Yeah. Um, you know, right now I think the I think I feel like the IMB is making a bigger push for Japan right now. Send in more and more people over there. Japan's super lost. That culture, that is a monoculture. They are super 21st century, high tech, like they are collective, and it's just kind of like, dang, this is a hard nut to crack. Right. Right. So we better we better read as much as we can to try to figure out like what's been tried in the past to to see what we can learn to crack that nut that is Japan.

SPEAKER_02 38:07

This is a fun fact. Well, actually, this is the opposite of a fun fact. Do you know where the historical like epicenter of Christianity was for like hundreds of years in Japan up until the 1940s? Nagasaki. Nagasaki. Oh no. And I think literally we we did it, we did a really fun episode. This is like our third ever episode, so it feels like we were babies back then. But literally the point of impact over the city was over the like historical cathedral in Nagasaki. Um where like, yeah, it was it was real. I think like something like 30% of the nation's Christians were killed in that one attack. So bad stuff. Unfun fact. Not a fun fact at all. Now I'm energized. Sorry, man. We got a word.

SPEAKER_00 39:04

Yeah, so wisdom. Um I should see this is where you know it would help for to have written it down. But yeah, wisdom, uh Well let me ask, let me ask uh let me just say let me just say some wisdom. Wisdom, context, and what do we want to say? Ecumenicism.

SPEAKER_02 39:24

Probably missions, like you were, you know, it's always always lands at missions for the Baptists.

SPEAKER_00 39:29

I know. I'll just say wisdom, context, and ecumenicism are are the big reasons to study church history. Sure. Sure.

SPEAKER_02 39:37

And I just I just think it's imperative, you know. Like I I honestly am a big believer. Like I think that my view of like who I can consider a faithful member of the church has I think my uh my number of boxes to check has gone drastically down. I I think that if I mean I I'm genuinely a believer, like uh there are churches out there, I mean, like we've mentioned the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. Very, like, you know, they've got some very unique traditions. I think it would be pretty uncomfortable for a lot of people, even a Catholic or Orthodox person. But I'm like, dude, if you affirm the Apostles' Creed, if you're checking the boxes of like Christ's resurrection, um, the divinity and humanity of Jesus, like the significance of the word, but also on the practical level, you walk by faith, you walk in repentance and belief. Like, it's real hard for me to not think that you're a Christian, like, even if your tradition's got some wonky stuff.

SPEAKER_00 40:39

And understanding, like in the big picture scheme of things, how you and I got to our individual churches and just how much absurd the absurd amount of fracturing that happened so long like since the Reformation, you're kind of like like that, if it's all interpretation of what do you do with it. But when the Ethiopian Orthodox guy looks at the Protestant church, it's like I you guys are just you just do whatever you want. Like I think before you really study church history, that that's like an offensive statement. Yes. But then when you study church history, you're like, oh, uh that's a fair point.

SPEAKER_02 41:16

Now let's talk about that. Absolutely. Yeah. There's this book I really want to read. I think it's called the democratiz the the democratization the democratization of American Christian Thank you, thank you, man. I needed it. The democratization of American Christianity. And I think it basically just takes that same idea of like the difference between how Christianity developed in the States is that it became very like for the people by the people, which meant that like these fractures could exist. The reason there weren't a billion Reformations scattered throughout Europe and the rest of the world's history is because by and large they were pretty collectivist and they had no problem. Like the the average everyday Christian was pretty much fine letting the leaders be in charge of what they wanted to do. Right.

SPEAKER_00 42:05

Which is why they destroyed the Anabaptists.

SPEAKER_02 42:09

Exactly. Yeah. They were like the original punk robbers, dude.

SPEAKER_00 42:14

Anabaptists were like the proto-evangelicals. Yeah. Well, my Bible says this. And it's like straight straight to the gallows.

SPEAKER_02 42:24

That's right. Straight to jail. Straight to the throat cut. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 42:29

Um, that's good. That's good. I I I think for myself, I've thought through a couple different, you know, bet's asked for some examples. We've already given some, but I think a good one is uh Crusaders were watching Augustinian just war theory play out. Everything they're doing ticks all the boxes for Augustine's just war theory. 100%. So you know, you're like, oh, maybe that okay, maybe there's an issue there.

SPEAKER_02 42:58

Right, right. Honestly, dude, I I've found that like more often when it comes to a when it comes to a passage in scripture that doesn't like have a meaning that jumps out to me, that seems like very easy to intuit, I tend to ask myself, I wonder what the church historically believed about this. Like I was like I I saw this video, oh gosh, it was bad. It was like it was like this dude who's like building this platform about like Christian men reclaiming manhood, and it was very like it was kind of cringy. But he was talking about like the imprecatory psalms, which if you don't know are the psalms where it's like, God, I wish we could break the teeth of my enemies and bash the bash the heads of their infants against the rocks. They're like the psalms written mostly in captivity, but they're very violent and very aggressive. And the guy was saying it like, Yeah, you can pray these and be a Christian. They're in the Bible, it's good for you. And I immediately had this like really ugly taste in my mouth. And so my first response was like, I wonder what the early church did with the imprecatory psalms, or I wonder what the reformers did with the imprecatory psalms. And you know, you get this, you get these wide, this wide view, but it's like I really do believe, I don't think that I don't would I wouldn't go as far as to say like that tradition is authoritative, but I really do believe that like if we can find a common thread in how Christians have understood certain things, that should point us in the right direction. I don't think it's always right.

SPEAKER_00 44:37

Yo, yo, yo, yo. I feel really strongly about that because you will have Protestants will push back on the authority of tradition so fast, right? We will push back. The reality is though, we but then we say, okay, but then let let my church let's decide how how we're gonna interpret scripture together as a church. And I'm like, why would you not want to expand that to all of Christendom to say like obviously you're not gonna agree with everybody? Yeah. So yeah, study the church history. In this case, that would be historical theology, and see what they said. And it's funny you said, I love that your your reaction is like, okay, that was a bold claim. Let me see what let me see what these guys said.

SPEAKER_02 45:23

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 45:24

And uh Dr. Chun, uh the our church history professor at Gateway, he he studied, he wrote on Edwards for his dissertation. And so he said it it is so drilled into his mind now that he's he, if a question pops up in his head, he's like, Well, let me consult the boss. Like, let's go see what let's go see what Edwards says.

SPEAKER_02 45:47

Right, right. Yeah, I I mean, and there's some I mean, like, we we read commentaries, we'll we'll read what some dude wrote 40 years ago. I'm like, I don't think it's that crazy if I literally am like, I wonder what a gu I mean, yeah, I wonder what Augustine says about war at the precipice of war. Like I wonder what uh I mean I I'll be like, I wonder what C.S. Lewis wrote about uh the like nucle the the nuclear growth of the Western world. Like I I wonder what relevant people wrote about relevant topics.

SPEAKER_00 46:21

So like you know, we think of some modern geniuses, and calling Bob Inc. modern really proves how our brains are wired for the past. That's fair. Because we're like, that was spit basically yesterday. But you have Bob Inc. Martin Lloyd Jones, two pretty insanely smart guys that wrote on a lot of stuff, right? And we'll throw in uh Van Hooser, Kevin Van Hooser, for someone who's still alive. Okay, so I've got like three Titans of theology today. The problem with those guys is that yes, they're gonna have a lot of wisdom and insight. They're still products of the same culture that you are in a lot of ways. They're post-Enlightenment, they are Western. So we should read Bob Ink, we should read Martin Lloyd Jones, and we should read Kevin Van Hooser. But let's also go back and see like what you said, the reformers. That's pre-Enlightenment. What are they doing? And then let's go back and look at the patristic era and they're like in their their brains are totally in a different spot, their culture is totally foreign to ours. Let's see what they said. And I think if all three of these groups are communicating the same thing and their understanding of scripture, maybe that is an objective understanding of scripture. Right.

SPEAKER_02 47:45

Yeah. Yeah. I I I I do love and I do laugh at, you know, the joke about like uh you I'm sure you've heard the joke where it's like the Baptist is talking to the Catholic and he's like, Oh, oh, the Catholic asks the Baptist, who do you pray to if you have to confess your sins? And they say, I pray to God. And the Baptist says, Well, who do you pray to? Or who who do you who do you confess your sins to? And the Catholic said, My priest. And then they said, Well, who does your priest pray to, or confess to? And they said, Oh, they pray to the bishop. And then, well, who does your bishop? Oh, they go the archbishop, and then who does your oh the the cardinal? And then who oh the pope. And it's like, well, who does your pope confess their sins to? He's like, Oh, they go to God. And he's like, Oh, the Pope is Catholic? Or no God.

SPEAKER_00 48:37

You've butchered that the Pope is Baptist. That was the worst telling of the joke ever. Don't you dare, don't you dare edit that out. I ruined that joke so bad. That's a funny joke. Oh, so the Pope is Baptist.

SPEAKER_02 48:51

Yeah. The Pope is Catholic? That was awful. I hated that. Um I love it. But like for you. The the idea that um the Pope is and and and I I remember when people would really harass Pope Francis about being like this liberal theologian, and they would say, like, oh well he's gonna, he's gonna upend, he's gonna, he's gonna make the church okay with gay marriage. And I remember one time he actually spoke on it and he was like, bro, I couldn't if I wanted to. Like, do you know how many documents, like, do you know how many pieces of paper there are? Like, he's like, I it would be impossible for me to speak to that because there's so much precedent. But the issue is when Pastor George from Second Baptist Street across the across the way is like, uh I feel like I can change this. Like, like there's no precedent, there's no stack of papers that's keeping him, keeping him bound, which is why a lot of the reform dudes they love the confessions, they love having that accountability in a sense.

SPEAKER_00 49:55

Um, it's a ch studying church history is very, very important. I think it's very enriching. I think like you guys listening already know this. Maybe maybe this episode was helpful to articulate some things that kind of been floating in your subconscious. I know what's probably preaching to the choir. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. We're not we're not convincing anybody. Um it is interesting though. I feel like there is a rise in interest in church history. And I am happy to be somebody that gets to communicate church history, I feel like at an accessible level, right?

SPEAKER_01 50:39

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 50:40

Like that's that's kind of what we try to do. And uh hope hopefully more and more people are wanting to learn more about church history. I think what happened is in the same way that uh biblical studies came about responding to the Germans, I think a lot of uh 21st century atheists started making the claims about Council of Nicaea and all that. And uh they wanted they said, Well, that's not actually what happened at Nicaea. We actually can know. So now you have people in their free time watching you you hour-long YouTube videos on what happened at Nicaea, and then I think the ball gets rolling. And then I'll I'll say this this shocked me to find out. You know how I just was able to reconnect with my old youth group a few weeks ago? Yes. So I asked the new youth pastor, Eric, I said, Oh, hey, so what are you what what are you teaching? And so the kids are still doing verse by verse Bible study on Sunday morning, so very good. And then Wednesday nights, he uh he let the kids vote. They voted to learn hit church history.

SPEAKER_02 51:44

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_00 51:44

For their the kids voted for this for their Wednesday night, and so he's like, Yeah, man, I'm getting ready to do uh uh a lesson on the schism, and they're like excited about it.

SPEAKER_02 51:54

Yeah, that's super cool.

SPEAKER_00 51:56

Yeah, these are like midtown Tucson teenagers that are like, Yeah, let's learn about this stuff.

SPEAKER_02 52:02

Yeah, kind of a grungy part of town. All love to all love to Alvernon, but yeah, no.

SPEAKER_00 52:08

No, it's a terrible part of town. God bless Emmanuel Baptist Church and the work you do.

SPEAKER_02 52:13

Yeah. No, I I love that. I I do think that um people just want to be more tuned in to something that feels like a rich heritage. Like I'll say specifically, hopefully, Brian, this answers another one of your questions. One thing that I think church history has kind of 180 in me, uh, compared to what I was taught growing up. I have a lot of sympathy for like monastics, mystics, like I I do think that Calvin and Luther had experienced like the the monastic orders in like their least healthy, which we know as we've as we've talked about, there's kind of like there's always these phases of like the order starts and it's really rich and it's really biblical, and then it kind of gets it becomes a bank, it gets full of money. See the night. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Um, but it it makes me wonder if they were a little bit like let's throw out the monastic stuff because clearly this just leads to problems. But dude, I I think, and I could totally see people who are kind of in the John Mark Comer world. I I think it would be amazing if there was like a new interest in Protestant circles of like monastic communities. Maybe not necessarily like the vow of celibacy and all that stuff, but even just like committed communities for young men to really dive into spiritual discipline and uh pray and sing and worship together. Like I dude, we knew we knew so many young men. We probably were among them in our like early 20s where we're just like feeling like we've got benefited immensely spending two years. Yes, to live like in a very intentional community that's like you know, we're we're gonna pray together every meal. Uh, we're also not gonna eat in and out and dominoes every meal, which would have helped both of us tremendously too, having some shared soup and and bread and stuff. Yeah. But uh I think that's such a cool thing I see throughout history, and it makes me sad that there's really not we're really nothing of that sort in the Protestant world today.

SPEAKER_00 54:27

Um so I think that's great. I think I I feel like poor John Mark Colmer. If you don't know who he is, I would encourage you guys to look him up. He's a he's a really interesting guy. I think he's a good, wise Christian.

SPEAKER_01 54:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 54:42

He's kind of like a I I've been when I've been grumpy towards him, my wife loves him. And sometimes when I'm overworking and putting myself in the hospital because of stress, my wife will be like, you know, John Mark Homer suggests and I'm like, John Mark Homer's not gonna get his PhD. I hate that hippie. Anyway, I don't hate, I don't hate you, John Mark Homer. I know you don't. Yeah. I know you don't, big dog. Anyway, uh I I feel like he totally would want to do this. He'd be like, let's he probably has a blueprint written in a book, like in a you know, saved on a file somewhere of like how to get how to get monasteries going in the modern world. The problem is is I think it would be so radical. I think that's what people want, though. I I'm not I'm not pushing. I'm just saying it would be looked at as like some weird cult thing. And isn't that sad? Isn't it sad that it's like a weird cult thing?

SPEAKER_02 55:37

But imagine we imagine we all hate our phones. We hate our phones so much. Like we hate the the restlessness, and like what what do the monastics value? They value silence, they value stillness, they value prayer, they value like taking control over bodily urges, you know, it's gonna help a young dude kick his porn habit, kick his overeating habit, kick his, you know, mindlessly on Instagram habit. Like, what a beautiful what a beautiful year that a young dude could have as he's like fresh out of high school before he starts looking for a career. That formative, life-changing. Right, right.

SPEAKER_00 56:17

Yeah. I I agree actually. Uh I have a good friend at the seminary who, you know, you were we were like doing a long road trip, and it's like, what would you do with a hundred million dollars? And his answer was so fast. I had some complicated, you know, scheme of how I would take over the world of theological education slowly, you know, whatever. And and he's just like, I'd start monastic orders for men.

SPEAKER_02 56:41

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_00 56:43

It was just so fast for him. And he's like, Yeah, it'd be just really cool. Just give guys a a chance to escape.

SPEAKER_02 56:50

Yeah. No, I love it. I think it's so like, man, yeah, there were there were a few years of my life where I'm not gonna say God was doing nothing because God was clearly doing a lot, but I'm like, I could have I could have sat in a cell. I could have spent some more time like meditating or just listening to Jesus.

SPEAKER_00 57:10

And then imagine, imagine how counter it'd be so beautiful, counterculture. Then then maybe they take a pilgrimage. Right.

SPEAKER_02 57:18

Where would they go?

SPEAKER_00 57:19

Oh dude, you could you could go anywhere. You well, you'd probably want to walk somewhere. Make it like a the journey that actually costs you something. And yeah. But that's what I mean to put a bow on this, we gotta start landing the plane, I guess. Uh Land the plane. Yeah. And uh, you know, the pilgrimage one. You study church history, you look at okay, what how do they interpret pilgrimages? Well, uh, they had different views and then you you read some of them were very wrong, other ones were like, I kind of just want to go see where Jesus walked. Yeah. And and and then, you know, we we talked for a while about how the Catholics, even the modern day, you get the um the indulgence, not the same as what we were talking, uh, the crusader indulgences. You get the plenary indulgence, which is like a special grace, which we would say in Protestant circles is almost like this is a sanctifying activity. Right. But if you do this, this is sanctifying. And yeah, I think you and I both acknowledged, hey, uh, it's probably better to use your vacation funds to go and see where Jesus walked and be reverent and think about those things and focus on those things than going to Santa Monica, Santa Monica Pier and getting a bunch of churros. Yeah.

unknown 58:43

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 58:44

Yes. Exactly. Yeah. So all that to say, the the church history is amazing because it's it's the story of God's people. It's just it's a continuation of the book of Acts, and it's full of junk, it's also full of beauty, and uh my my my hope is that everywhere there's sin, there's repentance, and every good thing blossoms, and every bad thing corrects, and yeah, it's the spirit of God, it's a beautiful thing. Uh sometimes it's depressing, but it's a beautiful thing.

SPEAKER_00 59:15

That's right. They could be the new like they were already closed off from Christianity for like a hundred years prior to this. Don't pull that anyway. Uh if you want to sponsor uh so August is claimed, September is open, October is claimed. Yeah. So if you want to sponsor September, Lincoln bio.

SPEAKER_02 59:44

Yeah, hit us up. And if you want to throw us a couple dollars, maybe for nothing, maybe just as a as a as a little indulgence, you know what I'm saying? You know, so we can indulge ourselves in paying our production costs. That'd be great. Yeah, yeah. Yes. Right. Yes. But make sure you hit follow, make sure you follow us on Spotify and hit us up on our social medias or Discord will be going live by Tuesday, boys. It sure will. Yeah, make sure you follow us though, or maybe one day this podcast will be future history.