We Are Still Living in the Early Church

We are still living in the days of the early church.

God promised through Moses he would be faithful to (at least) a thousand generations (Deuteronomy 7:9). Moses died around 1400 BC. If a generation is 40 years, Moses promised God would show faithfulness to his people for (at a minimum) 40,000 years. We have at least 36,600 years to go.

Christians used to understand this and they thought in terms of generations to come, not just in terms of, say, 4 year election cycles.

Medieval Christians began working on cathedrals they knew they would not live to see completed. But they were thinking long term, in light of future generations.

When Christian entrepreneur Arthur Guinness started his brewing business, he signed a 9000 year lease on the land. He went on to built one of the best Christian companies in history.

Older versions of the Book of Common prayer included tables for calculating the date of Easter out to 8400 AD.

Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy said, “Anything worth doing takes at least three generations.”

Elton Trueblood said, “A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they know they shall never sit.” Making present sacrifices for future generations is critical to building a great civilization.

Church history is just getting underway. As Doug Wilson has put it, 5000 years from now, a seminary student taking a church history test will have a hard remembering who came first, Athanasius or Billy Graham. James Jordan made the point that those we call “church fathers’ are really “church babies.”

Christians have been at their best when they have been rooted in long term kingdom optimism. Time is on our side. The kingdom grows slowly, but surely it will grow to fill the earth.

Jesus is not coming back anytime soon — so get to work building his kingdom.