Church History

What do you know about your spiritual heritage?  Why do you believe what you do?

These two questions are the foundation for the subject I am teaching the first-year students this semester, the history of the Church from Pentecost to the Reformation (Part 1 of 2).  While it may not seem like a relevant subject for a missionary training program, it is fundamental to a good understanding of our theology and "how we got here."

Discussing the life of Justin Martyr

The fact is that we did not receive the Word of God in a vacuum.  Christ did not preach the Gospel to me personally.  So if I am going to trust it, I should know how it got from Him to me over the course of 2 millennia, through 3 continents, by way of several languages.

What is your concept of the Godhead, for example?  How do Jesus and the Holy Spirit fit into the clearly monotheistic Old Testament Scriptures?  Is Jesus God?  If so, is He the same person as the Father?  Is He different?  How different?  Did Jesus have a beginning, or has He always been?

Can you support your view from Scripture?  Or are you just repeating what you've been told?

This issue is at the core of the subject I am preparing for this week's class: the first council at Nicea in AD 325.

Sabellius and the other modalists had taught that one God has played different parts in the drama of history, expressing Himself in three distinct roles or modes.  Rejecting that view, Arius taught that Jesus had a beginning and was a distinct being, subordinate to the Father.  The majority of the Church was balanced somewhere between the two extremes, holding to some (perhaps) unexamined and (often) unexpressed form of our trinitarian view.

The upsurge of unbiblical heresy provided the catalyst the Church needed to refine and define its beliefs and understanding of Scripture.  It was nothing new in 325:  significant portions of the New Testament were written to combat the heresies of legalistic Judaism, mystical Gnosticism, and other deviations from the Truth.  And the Council of Nicaea was far from the last.  In reality, it was just the first of several councils that continued to debate different aspects of who Jesus was and is.

Constantine and bishops with the Nicene Creed

Reading about the lives of the Church fathers and the things they wrote are an important step in understanding our own theology.  However, we can't simply take their word for it.  We must follow the example of the Bereans in Acts 17 and examine the Scriptures for ourselves.  My desire in this class is to provide the balance and perspective of both, not just imparting knowledge of past events, but challenging each student to reflect on why they believe what they believe and change the way they pass that belief onto others.

Although I love and have always tried to be a student of history, I am definitely not well-read enough on the early Church to teach spontaneously.  This class is more an overview than anything, with only 32 class-hours to cover 1500 years.  Even so, I spend an average of 15 hours studying each week to teach 2 hours of material in class.  The students would be fortunate to absorb one-fifth of what I learn each week!

I'm thankful for good sources:

• Kenneth Scott Latourette's A History of Christianity
• Bruce L Shelley's Church History in Plain Language 
• Wikipedia and Wikipedia (Spanish)
• I spend a LOT of time here and it's great to be able to jump from one language to the other on the same page.  It saves lots of time translating concepts to Spanish.  The downside is that it is so easy to get distracted going down very interesting bunny trails. ;)
• Iglesia Pueblo Nuevo
• I don't know anything about this church in Madrid other than what I have read on their site, but they have a phenomenal section on Church history, including an amazing collection of biographies, all in Spanish.  It is my first resource for homework reading assignments.
• The Christian Classics Ethereal Library
• More resources than I can ever hope to read, including Philip Schaff's preeminent works
• Dave Barnhart
• My friend and Church History prof at Montana Bible College not only gave me a good foundation for CH in his classes, he graciously shared his notes with me.

I am also thankful for Kaylee's faithfulness and patience with me, as this has definitely been our most stressful semester so far.  Especially during our 6-week-long kitchen remodel (Details and photos here), I was under a lot of pressure to complete all of my responsibilities each week.  In preparation for Thursday morning's class, Tuesdays and Wednesdays are pretty solid study and Powerpoint design from dawn to dusk, other than breaks for meals and campus responsibilities.  I can't say that I've handled the strain very well, either, so you might want to pray for Kaylee's continued sanity.  At least her kitchen is in one piece now. ;)

Ladies Retreat

Over the weekend I, Kaylee, attended our church's Ladies Retreat. Three nights and three days of almost pure Spanish! I survived! It was such a good experience and really stretched me in the language. I skipped one session halfway through to take a break but other than that I participated the whole time. This is a huge step and was very encouraging for me!

Our time was spent listening to two speakers, devotions, crafts, conversations, a bit of time in a frigid pool, eating and generally having a good time. The two ladies that shared with us both work with Palabra de Vida (Word of Life) and both had great topics that I believe were really good for all of us to hear. One of the women is from Argentina and I struggled a bit with her accent but otherwise understood pretty well the majority of the teaching.

My roommates were my good friend Suellen and another older single lady in the church, Vicky. We were spoiled by only having three in our room (some had 11!). Each day we did the devotions together and I could tell that Vicky was trying to stretch me in the language, having me read and share my thoughts instead of just being silent. It was good for me.

I had the opportunity to have several one on one or small group conversations that allowed many of the women to see how much I have progressed in my Spanish. Many of them haven't had the opportunity to talk with me (and I have to say I'm pretty shy about using it on Sundays) so that too was very encouraging. I had many say, "You can talk now! And you understand!"

Another area that I was stretched a bit was teaching a craft. Upon arriving in Bolivia I quickly received the reputation of being a crafter so when there is an opportunity to craft in the ladies group I am often asked for ideas. Over the weekend I taught one of the four crafts. It was a little crazy but it worked and several accomplished what they had set out to do so I was pleased.

We ate very Bolivian foods over the weekend. To give you an idea: every morning we had some bread with tea, coffee or drinkable oatmeal. The last morning we were also served a drink that is pretty common here: cornstarch thickened water with a bit of orange juice mixed in for flavor! For lunch we had a full almuerzo: soup and seconds. The bowl of soup would be a complete meal for me usually but then we were also served meat, rice or noodles and always boiled potatoes as our seconds. For dinner (at 8:00pm) we were served more rice or potatoes and a very small amount of meat. They do not consume a lot of vegetables and we were given a piece fruit (banana or mandarin) as dessert or for refreshment between sessions.

Our pastor's wife and daughter with their crazy hair!

On Saturday we had some special events. First, I got my hair cut! One of the ladies took classes to be a beautician, although her job is cleaning, so she took the time to cut hair for several ladies. Then they had a competition that night that included crazy and original hairstyles. We all had a good laugh. I was one of the two judges. After the hair competition there was a long night of games. I was unable to participate due to a foot injury but had a great time watching them. I also retired early after too many late nights, early mornings!

All in all it was a great weekend. My pastor's wife's comment when we were leaving was, "You're tired but you're not stressed." That sums it up for me. It was really encouraging to walk away not stressed. That means that I am understanding the language and culture much more and communicating much more. I am no longer an island in the group, unable to participate. It's awesome to see how far I've come. God is good!