Welcome to our first edition of Five Minutes in Church History. Let's start with one of the towering

figures in church history, Augustine. Now, first things first, how do you pronounce his name?

I had a church history professor in seminary who liked to say, St. Augustine is in Florida,

St. Augustine is in heaven. So let's go with that. I'm struck by the very

first word in Augustine's classic book, The Confessions. The word usually gets translated, great. A recent

translation has the word as vast. The Latin is Magnus, and Augustine uses it to refer to God. This is why we need church

history. We need to be reminded of what matters and what matters most. Do you know a sociologist

of a few decades ago called us the belly button generation? We are so consumed with our own selves, so captivated by our own selves.

This sociologist was saying we're like infants when they first discover their own belly button.

They're utterly fascinated by it.

Okay when you're an infant, but as we grow up, if we fail to see there's a whole world around us,

we are living pretty

shallow lives.

If we're still fascinated by our belly buttons, something is definitely wrong.

Enter Augustine and his opening word, Magnus.

There is something and someone far greater than us, the greatest, in fact. This first word and the truth it represents

controls Augustine's great book.

After Augustine calls God the greatest,

he refers to himself as a mere segment,

as a dot.

Now that's perspective.

Historians tell us that Confessions is the first true autobiography.

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