looking back at church history

I've really enjoyed church history this semester...even more than I thought I would. :-)

It's been great to see Christians in other times wrestling to figure out what it means to be a Christian.

We've been looking at early church history from 70-451AD.  A lot happened in this time!!  It was very formative.  The church was expanding.  The church was being persecuted.  The church was figuring out how to do church.  The collection of authoritative writing was being recognised and developed.

As some people expressed their opinions others thought, "I don't think you've got that quite right."  So then over time orthodoxy developed and heresies were combatted.

Looking back at this history now, almost 2000 years later, it can be easy to criticise, but I've been really grateful for our lecturer encouraging us to be sympathetic to people as we read about them.  Generally they had good aims.  They may have come up with something we consider to be incorrect, but they may have had good intentions when they came up with their explanation.  We also have the benefit of 2000 years of reflection on Christianity, whereas they were pioneers.