作者: Burk Parsons 譯者: Maria Marta
今天，許多基督徒有一種普遍，但很不幸，卻是滑稽可笑的教會歷史觀。他們認為，教會开始於第一世紀，但隨後不久便落入背道之中。真信仰喪失，直到第十六世紀馬丁路德才把它恢復過來。之後，在二十世紀葛培理 (Billy Graham) 開始主辦其布道會之前，根本沒有發生過任何重大事件。很遺憾，由於我們對歷史的無知，我們便成了歷史的笑話。我們往往嚴重缺乏歷史意識。除此之外，我們也不完全知道我們在哪裡，因為我們不知道我們的過去在哪裡。我們可能知道某些歷史人物、事件，但我們常常不了解我們掌管主權的上帝在整個歷史上所做的工作，尤其在那些我們不太熟悉的時期。
今年是第十七年，我們在Tabletalk雜誌製作教會歷史的特定世紀的專題，我們這樣做的目的，是讓二十一世紀的教會能更好地了解，上帝在整個歷史是如和作工和信守祂的應許的。因為基督應許要建造祂的教會，陰間的權柄不能勝過它（太十六18）。每一個世紀都有一個關於耶穌基督信守祂的應許的故事，甚至包括那些相對來說我們還不太了解的世紀。
我們恰當地慶祝馬丁路德、約翰加爾文、和其他改教家的生活和事奉，上帝使用他們來幫助教會回歸從前一次就全交給了聖徒的信仰。然而，宗教改革並沒有隨著第十六世紀的結束而結束。第十五世紀的宗教改革先驅撒下福音的種子，第十六世紀的改教家繼續澆灌、護理。然而在第十七世紀，我們才開始看到宗教改革的教義、虔誠、與實踐的全面成熟。在第十七世紀，成為新教和改革宗的意味著什麽，大部分內容都編纂在今天我們所肯定和認信的信經和信仰告白裡。
羅馬天主教不是一天建造起來的，但它也不是認信、宗教改革、与新教的教會。第十七世紀的忠心信徒（包括男女）延續第十六世紀改教者的工作，将全部教義、所有實踐、一切心意都奪回來，臣服於上帝的話語之下。當我們站在他們的肩膀上，堅定持守他們為基督的教會、國度、榮耀而忠心宣講上帝啟示的真理時，願他們成為我們的榜樣。
本文原刊於Tabletalk雜誌2017年四月號 。
Every Thought Captive
by
Burk Parsons
In
our day, many Christians have a view of church history that is a popular, but
unfortunate, caricature. They believe the church started in the first century,
but then soon fell into apostasy. The true faith was lost until Martin Luther
recovered it in the sixteenth century. Then, nothing at all significant
happened until the twentieth century, when Billy Graham started hosting his
evangelistic crusades. Regrettably, we form caricatures of history on account
of our ignorance of history. Too often, our historical awareness is sorely
lacking. What’s more, we don’t fully know where we are, because we don’t know
where we’ve been. We might be aware of certain historical figures and events,
but we are often unacquainted with what our sovereign Lord has been doing in
all of history, particularly in those periods that are less familiar to us.
This
is the seventeenth year that we at Tabletalk are focusing on a specific century
of church history, and we do so in order that the church of the twenty-first
century would better understand how the Lord has worked throughout history to
keep His promises. For Christ has promised to build His church and that the
gates of hell will never prevail against it (Matt. 16:18). Every century has a
story to tell about Christ’s faithfulness to His promise, even those centuries
that are perhaps less well known to us than others.
We
rightly celebrate the lives and ministries of Martin Luther, John Calvin, and
other Reformers whom the Lord used to help bring the church back to the faith
once for all delivered to the saints. Yet the Reformation did not end with the
passing of the sixteenth century. The gospel seed planted by the
fifteenth-century forerunners of the Reformation was watered and tended by the
Reformers in the sixteenth century. However, it is in the seventeenth century
that we begin to see the full flowering of Reformed doctrine, piety, and
practice. During the seventeenth century, so much of what it means to be
Protestant and Reformed was codified in the creeds and confessions that we
affirm and confess today.
Rome
was not built in a day, and neither was the confessional, Reformed, Protestant
church. The faithful men and women of the seventeenth century continued the
work of the sixteenth-century Reformers by bringing every doctrine, every
practice, and every thought captive to the Word of God. May they serve as a
model to us as we stand on their shoulders, holding firmly to the divinely
revealed truths they faithfully proclaimed for the sake of Christ’s church,
kingdom, and glory.
