We must pay attention to God’s deeds in history. And we teach our children to do it. We do it because God commands us to do it. If we are enlightened by the Holy Spirit, we do it also because of inward motivation from the Spirit. We see that the record of God’s works is good for our souls.

The Rejection of History

Is history important? Should it be important to Christians? What is a Christian view of history? And how should Christians study and write about history? We want to explore these questions.

Some strands in modern Western culture want to forget about history. One strand of the culture says that the new is always better. So, allegedly, we have nothing to learn from the past. Is that right?

It is true that new technologies and gadgets may be better than the old ones. But that does not mean that human nature is getting better. Are our hearts any purer than those of the previous generation? Are we more righteous than the people who lived in the Roman Empire? Are we free from greed, selfishness, lust, envy, and pride? To think that we are in every way better people than in the past is a sign of arrogance.

In addition, new gadgets or trends will not satisfy the deepest desires of human hearts. If, as the Bible indicates, the deepest need of humanity is for fellowship with God, the craving for the newest things within the world will never give ultimate satisfaction.

A second strand of Western culture urges us to ignore the past because we deserve instant gratification. We become impatient with the learning process. In our impatience, we refuse to pay attention to history or to study it. We think that our desires of the moment are enough to guide us in decisions. But this urge for instant gratification is a sign of immaturity. It is childish. It is sinful. We have this urge because we, like human beings before us, are sinners. The urge is strong because many people have become mature in their bodies but remain childish in their hearts and desires. Their parents never disciplined them properly, or they rejected that discipline.

Children want things now. But if they do not mature, their childish foolishness leads to disaster.

One who is wise is cautious and turns away from evil,
but a fool is reckless and careless.
(Prov. 14:16)

Desire without knowledge is not good,
and whoever makes haste with his feet misses his way.
(Prov. 19:2)

We cannot trust these impulses of modern Western culture. Who can we trust? We need to see what the Bible says about history. The Bible is the word of God,¹ so it gives us judgments that are faithful for all time. What does the Bible say about history and the knowledge of the past?

God’s Commands Concerning the Past: Old Testament

God says that history is important, and it should therefore be important to us. In the Bible, God commands his people to pay attention to what happened in the past. He tells us to remember the past, to learn from it, and to tell the next generations about it:

Only take care, and keep your soul diligently, lest you forget the things that your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life. Make them known to your children and your children’s children—how on the day that you stood before the Lord your God at Horeb, the Lord said to me, “Gather the people to me, that I may let them hear my words, so that they may learn to fear me all the days that they live on the earth, and that they may teach their children so.” And you came near and stood at the foot of the mountain. (Deut. 4:9–11)

When you father children and children’s children, and have grown old in the land, if you act corruptly by making a carved image in the form of anything, and by doing what is evil in the sight of the Lord your God, so as to provoke him to anger, I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that you will soon utterly perish from the land that you are going over the Jordan to possess. You will not live long in it, but will be utterly destroyed. (Deut. 4:25–26)

To you it [the deeds of the exodus] was shown, that you might know that the Lord is God; there is no other besides him. (Deut. 4:35)

The larger context in Deuteronomy 1–5 reinforces these verses by its repeated emphasis on what God did in the past to bring the Israelites to the place where they now are. It contains a summary of much history; in chapter 5 in particular, it includes a remembrance of the time when God gave the Ten Commandments.

God’s Commands Concerning the Past: New Testament

We see a continuation of this concern for the past in the New Testament. The New Testament often presupposes that we already know about what God did in former times in the Old Testament. It concentrates on telling us what God has done more recently, in the life, death, and resurrection of Christ. The four Gospels are books of history, the history of the life of Christ. The gospel, the good news of Christ, which is at the heart of the New Testament, is about history. Here is a crucial summary of the gospel:

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