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Those who lead churches into apostasy
frequently play fast and loose with church
history. They do so in two ways. Some false
teachers simply don't know church history
themselves, but pretend to. Worse yet, some
false teachers who should know better take
advantage of others' lack of familiarity with
church history to distort that history in
support of their false teachings. In either
case, the false teacher often gets away with it
because most churchgoers, as well as many
ordained men, don’t know any better.
Admittedly, not everyone has the
time or desire to become a student of church
history, much less an expert. But Christians
must recognize the fact that just because
someone quotes the Protestant Reformers or some
other figure in church history, that does not
make that person a careful student (or honest
reporter) of church history. On the contrary,
far too many in the 21st century church are all
too willing to manipulate the facts of church
history and the words of past stalwarts of the
faith to advance their agendas.
In Reformed circles, advocates of
the Federal Vision and New Perspective on Paul
frequently erect “straw man” versions of the
teachings of Augustine, Luther, and others on
which to launch their attacks. They frequently
distort the words of Calvin and the Scottish
Reformers to portray them as legalists and
baptismal regenerationists, when nothing could
be farther from the truth.
In the broader Evangelical
church, advocates of the Purpose-Driven Church
and the Emergent Church movement employ snippets
from the writings of men from such diverse
church backgrounds as George Müller,
Arthur W. Pink, Charles Spurgeon, A. W. Tozer, and B. B.
Warfield to support theological positions and
inclusivist agendas that none of them would
ever have countenanced.
If a Christian does not know what
men of the past said and did, he is vulnerable
to believing someone else's ignorant or
deliberately revisionist version of church
history.
Christians need to understand
that the heretical movements of our time, and
the churches' often-ineffectual responses to
them, repeat the errors of church history. They
need to understand that Scripture-submissive
vigilance is the price of the preservation of
sound doctrine. Those who refuse to understand
and learn from the errors of the past are bound
not only to repeat them, but to suffer the
resulting spiritual damage. Those who remain
committed to authentic Biblical Christianity
need to carefully examine, expose, and refute
false teachers' twisting of church history as
well as their twisting of Scripture.
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