8 minute read
Sharing His Story: Yesterday's Blessings for Today and Tomorrow
by Mathew Block
Many years ago, I was reading the story of the martyrdom of Polycarp, an early Christian bishop who was arrested in his old age. Asked to recant his faith in Christ under threat of death, Polycarp replied: “Eighty-six years have I served Him, and He never did me any harm: how then can I blaspheme my King and Saviour?” It was a beautiful declaration of faith.
Polycarp, of course, dies at the end of the story, and the document concludes with an encouragement to readers to follow Polycarp’s example of faith. Or rather, it almost ends that way: the edition I was reading also includes a postscript of sorts. “These things Caius transcribed from the copy of Irenaeus,” one writer says. “I Socrates transcribed them at Corinth from the copy of Caius,” another adds. And one final scribe, Pionius, concludes: “I have collected these things, when they had almost faded away through the lapse of time, that the Lord Jesus Christ may also gather me along with His elect into His heavenly kingdom—to whom, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, be glory for ever and ever. Amen.”
These words made me think seriously for the first time about the process of how the stories of the past make their way down into the present—about the people who have preserved those stories and events for us today. It is certainly edifying, as the story of Polycarp reminds us, to reflect on the saints who have gone before us and imitate their faith. But without faithful scribes like Caius and Socrates and Pionius to pass on such stories, they might indeed “fade away through the lapse of time.”
The story of history is ultimately the story of God’s providential care for His people in all times and all circumstances. But what we sometimes forget is that the preservation of that story has also been accomplished through God’s providential care, God working through everyday human beings. Without the work of countless scholars and scribes down through the ages, these stories might eventually be forgotten. Such people “copie fair what time hath blurr’d,” as the great English poet George Herbert wrote, and “redeem truth from his jawes.” In other words, these human beings are the instruments, the means by which God blesses us in the present with the riches of the past.
In a sense, this isn’t surprising: this is how all communication works. If there is a message to be delivered, then there also has to be someone to deliver that message. Think, for example, of how the good news of Jesus’ death and resurrection for the forgiveness of sins is shared with people. How, St. Paul asks, are people supposed to believe in Jesus unless someone is first sent to preach Jesus to them (Romans 10:14-15)? And the good news that we receive from those messengers, we turn around and pass on to others (cf. 1 Corinthians 15:3). That transmission—that embracing of what we have heard and believed, and then telling others too—is at the heart of Christian evangelism. The same model of communication also applies to the broader task of sharing the story of God’s work across history.
When we thank God in our prayers for our daily bread, we are thanking Him not only for the food in front of us; we are also thanking Him by extension for all those whose labour produced that food and brought it to our tables. In the same way, it can be a healthy practice to thank God not only for His blessings in the past but also for those scribes and scholars who preserved that history for us. Most of these people, of course, we do not know—although some (like Pionius above) we know through their “colophons” or comments at the end of a text. When there is a colophon at the end of these old manuscripts, they often include a prayer that God would remember the scribe, and that those readers who benefit from his work would also remember the author in prayer.
Tell your children of it, and let your children tell their children, and their children to another generation. — Joel 1:3
When you are edified or learn something from a book, it’s good to thank God for the good he has brought you through the author. But don’t stop just with authors. Remember everyone they relied on for information. Remember the chroniclers who kept careful record of historical events. Remember the monks and scribes who ensured copies of this knowledge and wisdom would come down to you in the present. Remember the translators who bring you that knowledge in a language you can understand. Remember archivists and librarians, archaeologists and historians, publishers and proofreaders who have made it possible for you to read all the things we can read today.
But don’t stop there either! Remember the farmers who grew the food which fed the authors and scribes. Remember the loggers who cut down trees, and the workers who turned them into paper. Remember the computer programmers who made the software used in modern publishing, and the electricians who make it possible to even turn the computers on. Remember the teachers who taught you to read, and the lens-makers who made your reading glasses. Remember the pastors who still bring you God’s story today, and the congregants who finance that ministry with their gifts and offerings. Remember them all—and thank God for them!
That anything—any scrap of knowledge and wisdom— should make its way down from the past into the present to you is a miracle. How many things had to work in concert to ensure its survival? How many things could have stopped it in its tracks? And yet God in His kindness has allowed the story of His people to be remembered, so that we too can learn and be edified by it today.
God also invites us to be part of sharing that story with future generations. Of His laws, He says: “You shall teach them diligently to your children” (Deuteronomy 6:7). Of His judgement, He says: “Tell your children of it, and let your children tell their children, and their children to another generation” (Joel 1:3). How much more are we to share the good news of His acts of mercy! “We will not hide them from [our] children,” the Psalmist writes, “but tell to the coming generation the glorious deeds of the LORD, and His might, and the wonders that He has done” (Psalm 78:4). Why? “So that they should set their hope in God and not forget the works of God, but keep His commandments” (78:7).
When we think of history in a Christian sense, it’s natural to think of the big events and people first. We think of Old Testament history—about Moses and Pharoah, and the salvation of the Jews out of Egypt. We think of New Testament history—the death and resurrection of Jesus for our salvation, and the spread of the infant Church under the Apostles. We might also think of Church history—the councils that led to the Nicene Creed, for example, and Martin Luther and the Reformation.
While it’s both natural and good to reflect on the big events, your reflections shouldn’t end there. Celebrate your church’s local history too—the individuals and events which have led to your own part in the story of God’s people. Do as the author of Hebrews encourages you, and “remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the Word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith” (Hebrews 13:7). Do as St. Paul encouraged St. Timothy, and reflect on “the faith that dwelt first in your grandmother… and your mother” and which now “dwells in you as well” (2 Timothy 1:5). Do as the Fourth Commandment bids you: “Honour your father and your mother” (Exodus 20:12, Deuteronomy 5:16). Rejoice in the stories of those who have gone before you, and seek to follow in their footsteps.
And don’t only look backward. What you have received, pass on to others! Consider volunteering to help maintain your congregation’s archives, so that the testimony of God’s work in your own church is recorded for generations to come. Tell your friends about the salvation Jesus has won for you and for them. Write a letter to your children telling them how Jesus has carried you through difficult times. Share the story of Scripture and your own story of faith!
Be, in other words, the link, the means by which God continues to bring the blessings of the past into the present. For the story of God’s people—the history of His Church— is ultimately the story of Christ. In Him, past meets present, and present meets future—for Jesus is “the same yesterday and today and forever” (Hebrews 13:8). He is “the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end” (Revelation 22:13). To Him, then, “the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honour and glory forever and ever. Amen” (1 Timothy 1:17).
