We are historical creatures, and we must steward our humanity by giving attention to history, recognizing that the world we see around us is not unattached from all that has come before it.

Should I be reading something else? The question rolled around my mind as I sat reading David McCullough’s 1776 while on vacation. Many other good things could have occupied my time. Should I really have given such dedicated time to reading a book on American history? C. S. Lewis once asked a similar question as World War II got underway:

…why should we—indeed how can we—continue to take an interest in [university studies] when the lives of our friends and the liberties of Europe are in the balance.…[The Christian student] must ask himself, how it is right, or even psychologically possible, for creatures who are at every moment advancing to Heaven or hell to spend any fraction of the little time allowed them in this world on such comparative trivialities as literature or art, mathematics or biology.^[1]

Or history, I might add. Lewis posits a crucial question: Is a discipline like history worth our time and effort when so many good and necessary things solicit our attention? America’s 250^th anniversary provides an excellent opportunity to ask why learning American history is worthwhile, if at all.

Some of us do not need to be convinced that history matters. Our appreciation and care for history are evident in how we maintain traditions, fund museums, visit cemeteries, and tell stories.^[2] In fact, if we were asked why history is valuable, we would likely give one of many good reasons that historians have given: it is instructive, helpful for evangelism and engaging culture, and informs our own Christian life.^[3] These are no secret. But knowing that history matters is different from pursuing it because it matters. It is easy to affirm history’s value without truly believing that time spent immersed in and pursuing historical understanding is worthwhile. This article aims to consider the value of pursuing historical knowledge afresh and to stir your soul towards gaining it. I argue that we should devote ourselves to pursuing history as God’s means for us to obtain wisdom and steward our humanity and faith. As Solomon says to his sons in Proverbs 4:7, so I say to all of us: get history.

What is History?

History is the interpretation and communication of past events achieved through the study of the past and its artifacts.^[4] This definition distinguishes between what happened in the past and how we perceive and record those events.^[5] It is easy to conflate the two, especially when discussing the value of history. Should we value events in the past (i.e., a peace treaty, or an invention) or the interpretation and communication of those events? The value in reading and digesting history is only valuable in so far as the past events which they record and interpret are valuable. Such value begins with a proper understanding of those past events.

Scripture teaches that all that happens in the universe—past, present, and future—is the work of God.^[6] Pharaoh is not defeated except by God’s hand (Exodus 14–15). Assyria does not plunder Israel except by God’s design (2 Kings 17). Jesus is not crucified and raised except by God’s plan (Acts 2:23). “Our God is in the heavens,” sings the Psalmist; “he does all that he pleases” (Ps. 115:3). The 1689 London Baptist Confession describes this reality when it affirms: “God hath decreed in himself, from all eternity, by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely and unchangeably, all things, whatsoever comes to pass.”^[7] As sovereign Creator, all that happens in the world is God’s work (Dan. 2:21), as he accomplishes all his purposes (Isa. 46:9–10).

This grounds and legitimizes historical knowledge. If the past is God’s sovereign work in the world, then to study the past is to study things from the hand of God. History is part of God’s general revelation. Eminent theologian Herman Bavinck (1854–1921) speaks of history this way and articulates it beautifully. His description is worth quoting at length:

But from this high vantage point the Christian looks around him, forwards, backwards, and to all sides. And, if in doing so, he lets his eyes linger on nature and on history, on heaven and on earth, then he discovers traces everywhere of the same God whom he has learned to know and to worship in Christ as his Father…

The Christian…looks over the whole earth and reckons it all his own, because he is Christ’s and Christ is God’s (1 Cor. 3:21–23). He cannot let go of his belief that the revelation of God in Christ, to which he owes his life and salvation, has a special character. This belief does not exclude him from the world, but rather puts him in a position to trace out the revelation of God in nature and history, and puts the means at his disposal by which he can recognize the true and good and the beautiful and separate them from the false and sinful alloys of men.^[8]

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