There's a tendency to refer to the Middle Ages as the Dark Ages.

What were the Middle Ages? What was the character of them? In textbooks, maybe 100 years ago,

they were often referred to as the Dark Ages. And that was a wonderful way of being able to say,

nothing important to happen and we can skip it. And there's a particularly a Protestant tendency to do that.

Okay, Augustine died. When exactly did Luther come along? Let's go from one good guy to another.

And let's ignore the fact that there are only about 1100 years between them. Surely nothing

much can have happened in those 1100 years. Let's get to the Reformation. Well, they weren't a dark age.

That's so true, and I think many of us in the modern church,

especially reform churches, have the impression that things kind of kicked off in 1517 with Martin Luther,

and we failed to deeply study the history of God's work from the first century to the 21st century.

This is renewing your mind on this Wednesday. I'm Nathan W. Bingham,

and we'll be spending three days looking back to grow in our understanding

of our family history as Christians, and to see what the Lord was doing in the world.

The messages you'll hear this week are from part two of W. Robert Godfrey's overview of church

history, in which he explores the hopes, challenges, triumphs and tragedies of

Christianity during the Middle Ages. And when you respond today with a donation at Renewing

Your Mind.org, we won't simply send you part two of this monumental study series. We'll send you

parts one through six, all on DVD. Plus, you'll receive digital

access to all the messages and all six study guides. All this to say thank you for supporting

the daily outreach of renewing your mind. So what were the Middle Ages all about? And why shouldn't we call them the Dark Ages?

Here's the Ligonier's chairman, Dr. Godfrey.

The Middle Ages, a controversial period in all sorts of ways when we come to a study of the history of the church.

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