History Department
Theophilus: The Newsletter of the Bethel History Department
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One Sunday last month, the church I attend began worship with a prayer
invoking the "God of history." Although this is not one of the dozens
of names that the Bible gives God, it reminded me of one of the most
distinctive features of our Lord: The Word became flesh and lived among us. (John 1:14, NRSV) God the Son was born, taught, healed, wept, prayed, suffered, died, and rose again within history, at a particular place and time, in full view of faithful men and women who could bear witness to those events. As a reminder of how our faith is inextricably linked with our discipline, we name this newsletter after the "friend of God" to whom Luke wrote both his gospel and his account of God the Spirit working in history, the Acts of the Apostles. Where Matthew begins with genealogy, Mark with prophecy, and John with theology, Luke starts his good news with methodology: Since I have investigated all the reports in close detail, starting from the story's beginning, I decided to write it all out for you... (Luke 1:3, The Message) Not a participant himself, Luke researched the events "using reports handed down by the original eyewitnesses who served this Word with their very lives," (1:2) painstakingly assembling the evidence into a historical narrative so that Theophilus might "know beyond the shadow of a doubt the reliability of what [he was] taught." (1:4) Luke's methodology is our own, and our prayer for all our students - past, present, future - is that of Paul for the church in Philippi: That your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ - to the glory and praise of God. (Philippians 1:9-11, NIV) - Chris Gehrz, September 2005 |
Issues
September 2005 (Volume I, Issue 1)
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