Lesson 8: The Confessional Horizon
What Is the Confessional Horizon?
For centuries, Christians have been wrestling with the whole teaching of the Bible. They have forged statements of its unity and beauty as a sword to fight against church-destroying deceivers. They have swung theological summaries as a hammer to build up a citadel of sound doctrine for the church. Each generation has passed on these tools to the next generation as the church continues to guard the good deposit and live as faithful witnesses of our Lord Jesus Christ.
So when we pick up our Bibles today, we do so as heirs of a rich tradition of faithful witnesses. We do not start at the beginning, as if we were the first to read the Bible.
The fictional demon, Screwtape, described the spiritual reality we experience today:
[T]he Church as we see her spread through all time and space and rooted in eternity [is as] terrible as an army with banners. That, I confess, is a spectacle which makes our boldest tempters uneasy.
—C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters, Chapter 2.
For us, that spectacle saturates our souls with humble joy.
The Confessional Horizon
One way to experience this joy is by using historical theology as a tool for Bible study.
Definition of the Confessional Horizon: The horizon that studies the history of Christian interpretation of Scripture
So historical theology looks back at creeds, confessions, and the writings of “significant exegetes and theologians” of the last 2,000 years.¹ It does this to describe how they “understood the Bible and theology” so it can prescribe how we, too, ought to understand the Bible and theology.²
Goal of the Confessional Horizon: To employ centuries of Christian thought to shape our interpretation of the Bible and protect us from error
You may have guessed that historical theology overlaps significantly with systematic theology. After all, creeds, confessions, and catechisms are summaries of systematic theology. But since many of them were written long ago, they fall under the category of historical theology as well. There is no theological dividing line between the two—only a temporal one.
And that line itself is blurry: does historical theology include everything written earlier than 50 years ago? 100 years ago? I’d say that it should be removed enough to feel “foreign” to us, part of a different era.
The lack of a theological dividing line means that even though different types of resources are recommended in different lessons, you can use historical resources when studying systematic theology—and biblical and practical theology as well, for that matter.
Historical Eras
One way to categorize church history, from a Western Church perspective, is with four basic ages:
- The early church (first century–600)
- The Middle Ages (600–1500)
- The Reformation and post-Reformation (1500–1750)
- The modern period (1750–present)³
Another way is based on different characteristics of the writings of different eras. Six basic ages have different strengths, and offer complementary benefits when you explore their writings.
Benefits of Reading Orthodox Christian Authors⁴
Historical Era
Characteristics
Encouragement for Today
Apostolic Fathers and Apologists
unsystematized exhortation through Scripture
holy living in an anti-Christian age, including martyrdom
Early Church Authors
development of creeds, liturgy, and church structures
boldness in defining pure doctrine
Medieval Writing
precision in systematic thought as well as departures from biblical and partistic writings
specificity in thinking about fundamentals in theology; doctrinal development in new areas, e.g. Mariology
Reformation Writing
recovery of justification by faith, biblical patterns of liturgy, and a biblical view of marriage
passionate exposition of the doctrine of salvation; the first modern systematic theologies
Pietists and Puritans
preaching Christ in all of life; emphasizing heart-religion
Christ-centered, warm-hearted exposition and application
Post-Enlightenment Writing
posture of resistance to the meta-narrative of modernity; an emphasis on revival
defense of many important doctrines in combat against Enlightenment errors; the promotion of revival as well as ecumenicity
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If you open up one of the writings of any of these ages, you will be surprised at the riches hidden inside!
Our brothers and sisters from the past, indwelt by the same Spirit who indwells us, have left us a rich inheritance. It’s locked away inside a treasure chest. It’s layered in cobwebs. It’s rusty and in some ways not very appealing. But inside [are] … diamonds, emeralds, gold sovereigns and chains of Spanish silver. If you have ever wanted to go on a treasure hunt, you’ve come to the right place.
—D. Jeffrey Bingham, Pocket History of the Church, Kindle ed., 12.
