W. Robert Godfrey

Sproul, how much will books by R.C.

Sproul tell people in a thousand years about the state of the American church in the early 21st century?

We wish those books would tell us more about the reality of church life in America than in fact they would.

So there's always a divide between good theology in a period and what actually gets down to the people.

That's part of what we want to look at as well.

So we want to look at church history that I'm going to be talking about largely under the topic church and society, and then I want to look at paths to God, that is theology, and how people tried to think through how they are going to be related to God.

So, that's how we're going to be proceeding.

I hope that's clear, and if it's not, I'll be reiterating it as we go along.

So, warming up, first part, church and society, looking at something of church history.

I've already made the point that one of the mistakes that sometimes are made when we come to medieval history is to forget the continuing connection east and west.

to simply take the textbook date of 476, which almost any textbook will tell you is the date when the Roman Empire collapsed in the West.

So many textbooks say, well, when the Roman Empire collapsed in the West, that was the end of the ancient period in the West, and medieval history started in 477.

If history were that neat, it would be easier to write

And we'll actually talk in a minute about where that date 476 came from.

But it does raise an interesting question for us to pause a minute over.

When did the Roman Empire end?

And it turns out that's a little trickier question than you might have thought.

We know when the Roman Empire began.

It's when Octavian, the nephew of Julius Caesar, was able to defeat Anthony and Cleopatra, the last major resistance to his authority, and to establish himself as Augustus, as the worthy one, the honored one, the august one, and become emperor.

And this was in the period of 27 BC until his death in 14 AD.