I'll check that out later. Here we are. I wouldn't say by popular demand necessarily, but this one seemed to have the most interest of the few things that I suggested for where to go forward with, and that's doing a study of historical theology. So going to work on introducing that tonight. Three questions, I think, that need to be answered in introducing it. First of all, what it is, right? What is historical theology? I think there are some misconceptions. It's not merely church history. And then answering the questions, why we should study it, and then how we should study it. And I said, I hope we get to those first two this week. We may not get through those. Let's see, I was supposed to find a book photo. I don't have it for you. So I've chosen an outline from a book. I've got a copy of it in there if you want to see it. It's green, called Historical Theology by Greg Allison. I'll try to get a picture to place up there if anybody wants to get that. It's pretty common and easily found. and written contemporaneously, so the language is more understandable than a lot of the older books and stuff, so that's why I chose to go with this one. So if anybody wants to get that and follow along, we'll be following a basic outline from it. So, answering the first question, what it is, this comes from that book. Historical theology is the study of the, two things there, the interpretation of scripture, and the formulation of doctrine by the church of the past. So it's not church history. It's not the study of church history. It's the study of the way scripture has been interpreted and doctrine has been formulated by the church in its history, right? So it's not a historical study. It's a theological study. Well, it's kind of both, but more theological. This is from another dictionary, Nelson's. It describes it as a branch of theology concerned with the evolution, the evolving, the changing, and the migration, the moving around of theological doctrines, concepts, and ideas, and with establishing their historical context. So in other words, to really properly understand what an idea is and what people meant by it, meant by what they said, we have to understand their context to some degree, why they said it, right? If I just threw out the word homoousius to y'all, probably, not saying this to be mean-spirited, but probably not many people are gonna be familiar with it. But if you ask somebody in the fourth century Christianity if they knew what the word homoousius mean, everybody would erupt, right? Maybe we'll talk about that in a few months, not months, but weeks or something. But my point is, right, like the context of some of these discussions really matters. Or that's what I think what they're getting at. This historical theology book, it elaborates on that concept in a helpful way, I think. It says historical theology embraces, we're going to get in a lot of Bible, don't worry, but I'm just trying to get us to really distinguish between what this study is and what just a study of church history is, meaning dates and times and people and geographic locations, et cetera. Historical theology embraces ecclesiastical history, church history, in its whole compass, or the history of the kingdom of God within and without the scripture, including all that belongs to the church, its antiquities, ceremonies, jurisprudence, judgments it makes, but especially Notice, the progress and development of Christian doctrine through the ages of controversy and formation, right? So, is that making sense so far? I don't want to put everybody to sleep, but I do want us to understand what this area of study is, like what it's about and how it's different from just a plain church history study. Any questions on kind of what it is before we move forward to why we should study it? No? Y'all are better than me. Took me a while to wrap my mind around this when I first became acquainted with it. All right. Why we should study it. I'm gonna break that up into two The first is going to be defending its propriety, meaning defending the idea that it is proper for Christians to study historical theology. because there can be some errors you can fall into if you put too much emphasis on it, not enough emphasis on scripture, but we'll talk about that. And the second would be, in answering why we should study it, would be answered by examining its practical benefits. In other words, how is it beneficial to a church? How is it beneficial to Christians? The number one reason for me is is simply the fact that the Holy Spirit is always at work in the Church of Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit is still at work in the Church of Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit has not ceased His work. Now let me clarify that. This is important. Hear me, hear me, hear me, hear me. God's self-revelation, His authoritative self-revelation in the Scriptures has ceased. The canon of Scripture is closed. What do I mean by that? There's no new revelation from God coming. So when I talk about the ongoing work of the Holy Spirit in the church, I'm not saying He still gives people fresh new revelations of Himself that are equal with Scripture. That's over with. Here's why. We talked about it a lot in other places. Hebrews 1. See, we're already in Scripture. Remember this, long ago at many times in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, talking about the Old Testament period of Revelation. But in these last days, these final days of Revelation, He's spoken to us by His Son. Remember? And of the Son, He says, verse 3, He's the radiance, the outraying of the invisible glory of God, the exact imprint of the invisible divine nature. So if God, who's invisible, who can't be seen by men, has revealed himself in the person of his incarnate son, who's the outrang of that invisible glory, who's the exact imprint of that invisible nature, how can he be more fully revealed? Can you reveal him more than that? Right? So the fullness of God's revelation is contained in Jesus Christ, right? And the, maybe I should, hard to know how much to bog down here. Christ's apostles, so you say, well, what about beyond the gospels? What about the apostles? What about the rest of the New Testament, right? Is that not the exact count? We have to understand what an apostle is. What's that? It's just the Greek word for our Latin and English word, emissary. What's that? That's one who took the orders from the king and carried it with the king's authority and delivered it to whomever the king sent him to. It had the full authority of the king. And that's why nobody's an apostle today, among other reasons, like nobody can qualify to be an apostle today. because they haven't seen the resurrected Lord and haven't been called by him in person and they can't raise people from the dead. But, even if, which the scripture says all that. So, yeah, when people start literally raising people from the dead, we might can revisit this question. Until they do, the canon is closed, right? And really, even if they did, it would be lying signs and wonders, right? Because God has revealed himself in his son. It ain't getting any clearer than that. So, following with me so far? Okay. Now, here's the but. John 16, 15. So remember, I started this by saying the number one reason to me why I think we ought to study historical theology is because the Holy Spirit continues to work in the church of Jesus Christ to this day. He's never stopped working, even though I separated that from the revelation of scripture that came through Jesus' incarnation and was given to the apostles, the emissaries. But, remember this, John 16, 5, but now I'm going to him who sent me, who's talking, Jesus, what was he talking about? Who sent him? The Father, right? So he's predicting his death, burial, resurrection, ascension. I'm going back to the Father. He says, but because I've said these things to you, sorrow has filled your heart. Never talking to his disciples. Nevertheless, he says, I'll tell you the truth, it's to your advantage that I go away. If I do not go away, the capital H helper, the paraclete in the Greek, will not come to you. But if I go, I'll send him to you. So what's he saying? You're mourning because I'm saying I'm gonna depart from the earth, but you need to understand, because I depart from the earth, I have the authority now to send you the gift of the Father, the promise of the Father, which is the paraclete, the comforter, the Holy Spirit, okay? And he says, that, the sending of the Holy Spirit, that's actually going to be to your advantage, church, Christian, right? When he comes, remember, you'll convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment, dot, dot, dot, having to skip for sake of time, Remember, He says, I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now, but watch. And we saw this big time. The disciples, they just, they couldn't wrap their minds around the truth until the day of Pentecost. They just, they asked silly, goofy questions. They struggled with unbelief and cowardice and fear and denial. And son, when the day of Pentecost happened and the Holy Spirit was given to them, it was a totally different world for those men. They got the gospel, they understood it, and they faithfully proclaimed it unto the death, right? Big changes, big changes when the spirit of God began to work inside the church. Anyhow, when the spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into, this is a big phrase, into all the truth. And he will not speak of his own authority, but watch, whatever he hears, he will speak and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. So what's the relationship of the work of the Holy Spirit and the deposit of truth revelation? That was funny. Madison. You know better, don't you? That Jesus laid down in his earthly ministry. See, the Spirit is gonna testify to that truth, right? He's not revealing new truth, per se. He's bearing witness to that deposit of truth that Jesus is laying down. Now, that's probably a specific reference to the apostolic deposit of truth when he says this here, meaning he's going to attest, he's going to, in the hearts of the believer, He's going to attest to the truth and veracity of Scripture. But, we also have this. A couple chapters before, remember Jesus says, John 14, 16, I'll ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, capital H, to be with you, notice what? You there being plural, I think. I can't look it up, my technology failed. Internet's killed me today. Don't have it anywhere and there's no phone service or anything. So I can't do my normal preparations With you forever, right? So the spirits gonna abide with the church Forever, right? So he's going to be doing this work of help intercession this paraclete work Forever and look even the spirit of truth. So it has a doctrinal component to it. I So he's gonna lead you in that. Whom the world cannot receive because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him for he dwells with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans. I will come to you. He goes on a few verses later. If anyone loves me, verse 23, he will keep my word. and my father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him." Great Trinitarian verse, right? But the helper, a few verses later, verse 26, the Holy Spirit, whom the father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I've said to you. See that? Is that a big statement? He will teach you all things. Bring to your remembrance all the things that I've said to you. See? So there's that deposit of truth that's laid down by Christ, taken out by His apostles. And guys, were any of us alive when the apostles laid down that deposit of truth? No, right? So it's the Spirit of God that works throughout the who-ever-knows-how-long millennia of the Kingdom of God and its growth and expansion on the earth, testifying to those whom Christ has redeemed about that deposit of truth that Christ laid down, right? Making it real to them, giving them faith and trust and helping them understand it, right? That's that ongoing work of the Holy Spirit. Let me be clear about something. Remember this, the second sentence, Paul says, Romans 8, 9, anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. See, the connection to those two statements. It's saying the Spirit's work is absolute. In the church, the Spirit's work is absolute and universal. You following along with me? It doesn't manifest itself now through infallible revelation of scripture like he did through the apostles and Jesus, but to some capacity, the idea is that the Spirit of God's still steering the ship. The Spirit of God, the ship being the church, collectively. The Spirit of God's still guiding her into truth. protecting her collectively from falling into error. I mean, think about, like, how is it, like, what's the means through which Jesus' promise is realized? You're Peter, and on this rock, I'll build my church, and the gates of hell won't prevail against it, won't withstand it. It's because of the Spirit of God. In time and space, how's that going to be accomplished? It's through the indwelling Spirit of God. It's through the Helper, right? So that's the idea here, I think, of what we're observing when we study historical theology. I think we can learn a lot by seeing the process that the Holy Spirit is used to guide the church collectively away from these grave errors. Guys, you know, you have these little, usually cult or sectarian groups that arise. The 20th century was full of them. And they all, think about what this means. They all have this similar idea that the church at large is wrong. And this tiny little group of Christians, you know, maybe a few thousand or depending until they get big, right? 144,000 for the JWs at one point until they outgrew that. But they're the only ones that know the truth of God's word and the gospel. And the church has lost it for 2,000 years. Guys, what's that saying about the promises we just read about the Holy Spirit preserving the church in truth? You see that? I'm stumbling all over myself for weeks to come, but let me just go on. But we gotta think through these things, right? If the gospel's been lost completely for 2,000 years, what of these promises? Okay, this is from a guy whose last name I don't know how to pronounce, because I've only read it, never heard anybody speak it. I imagine it would either be concert cancer. If anybody knows, please tell me. Cancer. That's Kenneth Cancer. Two syllables, three syllables. Cancer. Anywho, don't know the man like his quote though. He says, while it is not infallible, meaning you know, historical theology, how we can see the Holy Spirit steering of the ship throughout church's history. It's not infallible. It must be acknowledged as God's guidance of his people in accordance with his promise to the church of all ages, right? That's what I was trying to say in succinct form. Is that something we can learn from? I think so. And in fact, I've told some of you, the study of historical theology has been one of the unexpected blessings of my life. It wasn't something I expected to derive as much benefit from as I did. So hopefully you all will come away from this study with that same disposition of mine. All right. We have to keep this in mind. You know me. I like those qualifiers. Okay? So having acknowledged that, I think this comes back from our main book, Greg Allison. He says, at the same time, Church tradition must always have reference to Scripture. Hence, historical theology must be either approved or chastened, corrected, by the Word of God. It's not authoritative in and of itself. I think the Spirit of God has led the church to reject a lot of heresies and preserved it from falling off the cliff. Even the church's formulations that we all agree on are themselves not infallible, apart from the Scripture that attests to them. Does that make sense? He quotes J.I. Packer, Scripture must have the last word on all human attempts to state its meaning. Right? Scripture has to, or else, who has the final and ultimate authority? The one who says what Scripture means, right? Ergo, Roman Catholicism. They claim magisterial authority. I think he's going to talk about that right now, actually. He says, and tradition, meaning the church's dogma about Scripture, he says it ought to have a ministerial rather than a magisterial role. I'm going to let the next part define that. In determining doctrine and practice, the magisterial or authoritative role belongs to Scripture and Scripture alone. There is no church magisterium. The magisterial authority lies in the Scripture itself. The church's authority over Scripture is ministerial, meaning what? the taking and the giving it, right? Minister means what? A servant, one who waits tables. Well, that's a deacon, but similar concept, right? One who serves. So we don't have the authority to determine doctrine and dogma. That comes from the scripture, right? Church ministers, their role is to serve it, right? To put out what the scripture says. Everybody following along with me so far? Any questions? Did I make anybody uncomfortable? No? Okay. Melissa? They're afraid to speak up. I got nothing either. All right. Practical benefits to the study of historical theology. That was my number two defense on why we should study it, right? This is long. probably aren't gonna even finish this section. In that section, here's my number one thing. It helps us to distinguish between orthodoxy and heresy or heterodoxy. Those are almost synonymous, heresy and heterodoxy. And that, brethren, is something that the word of God calls us to do explicitly, right? We're gonna look at a lot of that 1 Timothy 1, 3 through 11. Sorry, technology differences. As I urged you, Paul says, when I was going to Macedonia, writing to Timothy, who he left as a, I think, in the position of an evangelist, overseer of a group of churches, remain at Ephesus so that you may charge certain persons not to teach any different doctrine. And that word right there that the ESV's translated, or that phrase, or that word that the ESV's translated by that phrase, different doctrine, that's the Greek word behind our word heterodoxy. Or some use it loosely as heresy, though we gotta be careful with that. It's a compound word. Heteros means if you're heterosexual, you like same or the different sex. Different sex, right? He said homosexual like same. No, he said ladies. Ladies, yes. For you ladies, yes. But for ladies, men, so. I'm just trying to, like, that's the association that helps me remember these, right? And didoskalos is just teaching or doctrine or something like that. And so it's just a different teaching or doctrine. So what's Paul's charge in that? to not let false teachings be taught in the church. Now, when he says to not let anybody teach any different doctrine, what's that implying? That there's a standard by which all doctrines are judged, right? Well, what's the standard? Scripture right here. It'd be specifically the Apostles teaching or the apostolic deposit truth the New Testament Canon Right that was being laid down in real time here All right. So that's the charge. He gives to Timothy in Timothy's Oversight of the church and notice very early on in the book in the letter right begins like that in verse 3 right after the pleasantries and Not saying that in demeaning, but right after Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus, according to the will of God to Timothy, my beloved son, or whatever he says, he jumps right into that. I left you behind so that you would charge certain persons not to teach any different doctrine. Big priority, big priority. He goes on, verse four, charge them not to devote themselves to anything but scripture, right? to myths, to endless genealogies which promote speculations rather than the stewardship of the gospel from God that is by faith. A few verses later, certain persons by swerving from these have wandered away into vain discussion, desiring to be teachers of the law without understanding either what they are saying or the things about which they make confident assertions. So you see what's going on. There are people teaching in the church, saying they're Christians, but they're not holding fast to the word of God that was delivered by the Apostle Paul and the other apostolic delegates, right? They're bringing in these other ideas. That word swerving here, commentators tell me, is like a little pejorative Paul's using to refer to Gnostic idea, or not Gnostic, Platonic ideas. The Platonists had this concept of swerving of atoms that, I don't know, blah, blah, blah. Anywho, he's saying none of that, right? There's only one source of truth for the church. We don't bring anything else into it. It's just the Word of God. That's the point I'm trying to get you to see from that. Then he goes on, down here in verse 10. Remember he said the law was good if one uses it lawfully, etc. He says it's late. Yes, go ahead. Is he saying that no one can teach the law because they don't keep the impossible people? No, I think he's saying, so there's multiple things. One would be like people trying to synchrotize, bring in Greek philosophy in the church. And so that was a constant threat in those Roman areas like this, like in Ephesus was like modern day Turkey. Well, there's also a lot of Jewish influence, Judaizers, that came into the church trying to get people to act like Jews, essentially, right? And I think he's saying, hey, the law, we shouldn't call the law, it just needs to be used lawfully. And he says, it's not laid down for the just, but for the lawless and disobedient, sexually immoral, homosexuals, et cetera, and whatever else is contrary to There's our word, healthy doctrine. Sound doctrine, let's talk orthodoxy. But the point being is the law has a purpose and it's to show men their sin and condemn them and drive them to Christ. Like he's saying, yeah, don't give up preaching the law, but preach it in its right context, how it fits with the gospel. Does that make sense? Good question. Now here is where the antithesis of verse three is brought up, where it was a different doctrine. Here's sound doctrine, right? And that's not the word orthodoxy. It actually is just, the word is healthy. It's a medical term. and it shows up a lot in the scripture. When you see that word sound attached to doctrine, teaching, or words, it's usually the word healthy. It's a medical term, meaning anything but this deposit of truth is corrupt, sickly, and has a cancerous, decaying effect on the hearer, right? All right. Now, oh, sorry, verse 11. Here's how that's determined. Again, what sound doctrine is if it's in accordance with the gospel, right? In accordance with the gospel, that's a New Testament deposit of truth being laid down by Jesus and the apostles of the glory of the blessed God. He says, speaking as an apostle with which I have been entrusted." See, that shows us a lot about the nature and purpose of the apostolic ministry. Ephesians 2, Paul talks about the kingdom of God, the temple of God being built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets Jesus Christ being the chief cornerstone, right? So those two deposits of truth, Jesus being the center of them, that's what the church, the kingdom of God, is built upon. See that metaphor? It's all about revelation. So, just the ideal here. This is germane to our discussion. I'm trying to find a good stopping point. They got out early. Killing me small. Yeah, so remember, we're asking the question, why should we study this? And what I'm trying to show you is just that the church has a responsibility to measure doctrine, every doctrine that it formulates, every dogma that it affirms and asserts, every point of the confession, whatever, against the apostolic deposit of truth. And then we have the responsibility to affirm everything that's true according to that standard, but to discard and denounce everything that is false, right? And I'm just wanting us to see that that's a biblical requirement. It's not optional. Uh, you know, like, you know, we're kind of being forced out here, but, uh, I don't say that with angst. Honestly, I just was hoping to get a little further, but, um, I'm just wanting us to see, uh, um, from these things because essentially I'll have to do some summarizing here and I'll read two more verses at the end of this versus 13 and 14 before we break. But, um, Essentially, what is observed by historical theology is the church trying to do these commands, trying to obey these commands. They're taking ideas that people are coming up with and they're measuring them against the Word of God and saying, we reject this, we affirm this, this is okay, this isn't. These two truths are true, therefore, and these are false, that means the dogma here has to be this. That's what historical theology is observing, those doctrinal evolutions and migrations that take place throughout the church. Let me read these two and I'll give you an example. You think you need the example now? There's a great example that started really early in the church's formation of dogma. Nobody cares? Read two verses then do it or do it now? Now. Okay. Oh, we got split there. Already committed here. So the church from its inception saw very clearly from the scripture that there was only one God. The church, very clearly from its inception, saw that Jesus is God. What do you do with that? Eventually, from that, the formulation that we call the Trinitarian formula developed very early on. Right? eternally existing in three persons, Father, Son, Holy Spirit, co-equal and co-eternal. the three persons, right? Guys, does the scripture itself say all those words? A few of them, but it don't say Trinity, don't say co-equal, don't say co-eternal, right? That's historical theology. That's the church, people taking, usually responding to errors that people were saying, well, Jesus isn't fully divine because God is one, so he has to be a lesser deity. No, no, no, he's full unqualified deity. But God is one. Yeah, that's right. Oh, and it says, calls the Holy Spirit God. So what do we do with that? We harmonize it all together and come up with a dogma, a formula, a doctrinal statement that harmonizes all those things and refutes all the errors. That's what historical theology does. That's the kind of thing that we're going to be observing in this. Let me read the two verses. Does that make sense? Is that helpful? Does that make it a little less discouraging? Yes, Moses says to see there's like actually some practical benefit to it. Fascinating discussions. All right, reading on. It's just now 7.30. Follow the pattern of the sound words, the orthodoxy, the healthy words, similar concept, Notice what? That you've heard from me, Paul's saying. He's an apostle, right? So what's he pointing to? Not ecclesiastical tradition, but to the apostolic deposit of truth in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. Watch this. By the Holy Spirit who dwells within us, guard the good deposit entrusted to you. See that? So what's the means through which the church is gonna safeguard the apostolic deposit of truth? Through the power, leading, and guidance of the Holy Spirit, see? And that was my kind of premise at the very beginning of this, is this is what we observe happening in our study of church history. No, historical theology. Let me show you something cool here and then we'll be done. The pronouns here, gotta be careful talking about pronouns now, but they're singular. Now, this is Paul talking to Timothy specifically, that's why the pronouns are singular. But in a lot of other places where we've seen such charges, the pronouns were plural, meaning a collective. So my point is, we see this both as a collective duty of the church, working together corporately, and as an individual duty for the Christian, right? Does that make sense? And I think the one can help the other greatly. All right, any questions? We'll stop there. I'll try to remember we got to 2 Timothy 3. Any questions? Comments? Criticism, I can't believe you don't have any questions, wow. No, I'm not shaming you for it, I just, y'all are just more mature than I was when I first ran across this concept. My first thought's like, this is Catholicism! There's something like that, you know, so. No question? Okay, well, let's pray then, and we'll be dismissed. Lord, thank you for your word, of course. Thank you for the promises that you'll preserve it and that you'll keep your church from being conquered by error, from falling away, from failing to fulfill its commission. We look to the power of your spirit for that. Please pour him out upon us to even greater degrees and help us to be led and guided and empowered by him. We ask in Christ's name, amen.