Table of Contents

Foreword
Abbreviations
Introduction

Part One: How We Understand the Tradition
1. What Is the Tradition?
2. How Have We Understood Tradition Historically?
3. How Do We Understand the Tradition Today?

Part Two: Expanding Circles of Inquiry
4. Who Am I? History and Christian Identity
5. A Great Cloud of Witnesses: Christian Community across the Centuries
6. Accountability Partners: Sharing Accountability with Historic Christians
7. Mentors and Friends: Historic Christians Broaden Our Horizons and Fill Gaps in Our Understanding

Part Three: Tradition Serving the Church
8. Rightly Dividing the Word of Truth: Christian Exegesis across the Centuries
9. Tradition and Ministry

Celebrate the Body of Christ

Recommended Resources for Ministry
Notes
Name and Subject Index
Scripture Index

About the Author

Robert F. Rea (PhD, St. Louis University) is professor of church history at Lincoln Christian University in Lincoln, Illinois.

Reviews

"Rea explores how the church has understood its tradition throughout history and how it's understood today. He explains why the study of Christian history is essential to forming personal and corporate identity, experiencing broad Christian community, providing contemporary accountability and bringing theological balance by expanding horizons and filling theological gaps. He identifies specific ways church history can help in the study of the Bible and in other ministry areas. . . . Recommend Why Church History Matters especially to pastors and seminary and Bible college students."
*Daniel Johnson, CBA Retailers + Resources, July 2014*

"A thoughtful introduction to the use of the history of Christianity within our Christian lives and Christian communities. Rea deserves our thanks for a thoughtful and useful book."
*Mark Granquist, World World, 37/1, Winter 2017*

"I agree wholeheartedly with Rea: we need church history, and we can use it while affirming our commitment to Scripture. . . . I welcome that call, and I echo many of his explanations for how church history helps and how neglect of it impoverishes our churches. This book is a useful starting point for the pastor and layperson who want to know and discuss why church history matters."
*Matt Shrader, Baptist Bulletin, November/December 2015*

"This is a helpful volume that belongs in religious library collections. It is a perceptive treatment that convincingly argues about the significance of Christian history."
*Michael W. Campbell, Journal of Asia Adventist Seminary, 16.2 (2013)*

"Rea provides an accessible and compelling case for why and how the study of church history can actually serve the faith of Bible-focused Christians. Therefore, it would serve as an excellent textbook in a Christian college or seminary class, when many students are only beginning to taste the riches our historic faith has to offer."
*Shane Shaddix, Themelios, April 2015, 40:1*

"Rea is to be commended for making a cogent argument for the importance of historical theology to an audience that typically neglects it."
*Jeremy Sabella, Catholic Historical Review, Winter 2016*

"Robert F. Rea has prepared for us a small appetizer which invites us to the table to enjoy a feast with many other prominent Christians—sages, theologians and ministers—and to taste selected dishes of Ancient, Medieval, Reformation, and all the way to modern theological desserts, prepared by our elderly brothers and mentors such as Karl Barth, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and their works."
*Vatroslav Zupancic, Evangelical Journal of Theology 9, no. 2, (2015)*