Welcome to a special edition of Real Christianity. I'm your host, Dale Partridge, and over the past several months, I've had the privilege of interviewing 12 of the top theologians of our time.

We discuss everything from apologetics and church history to the biblical family and standing firm on sound doctrine.

The objective of this series was to strengthen the theology of listeners and give them the tools they need to boldly proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ.

So listen up, focus in, and prepare your mind for volume 1 of the Theologian series.

In this episode of the Theologian series, I interview Dr. Dustin Benge about why all Christians should study church history.

Dr. Benge is the provost and professor of church history and preaching at Union School of Theology in the United Kingdom.

Dustin and I became friends over social media through his incredibly powerful Twitter feed that's just filled with punchy, bold, one-liners that just make you want to shout amen when you're looking at your phone or your computer.

Dr. Benge is the author of several books and is the host of the Walking Were the Podcast. In our interview, Dustin and I are going to be discussing why Christians must seek to have a working knowledge of church history, and how having this knowledge can protect themselves and their families against false doctrine and bad theology.

So guys, grab your Bible and sharpen your pencil because it's time to tune into another powerful episode of the Theologian series.

Welcome to the Theologian series, Dr. Dustin Benge.

Hi, Dale. It's so nice to be with you today. Thank you so much for the kind invitation to join you.

Yeah, I'm excited to have this conversation about church history. It is so critical. You and I even before interviewing are this interview we're talking about church history, we could probably go on for hours.

It's so important for Christians to know so that they can have a strong relationship with God. They can guard themselves against heresy.

They can fix themselves upon sound doctrine and theology. I want to talk to you, Dustin, about this. We live in a time where the church at large just avoids the field of church history.

Now, the seminary world doesn't, but the church in general does. In fact, I'd say many modern Christians can't tell you much about the axe church or the early church fathers or the middle ages or the reformation, the Puritans, the great awakening, the revivalists.

There's just an absence that is sensed among the modern church. Can you tell us why church history is something that we should all as Christians be eager to study?

Well, that's such a large question. Through the years I've met so many people in the church, just like you have described. I've even met some that want to completely detach themselves from history.

All together, just believing that they perhaps have a better way to do things in our modern and technologically advanced culture. However, that's so impossible to do. It's impossible to separate ourselves from church history.

And if I could just in thinking about this, let me mention a few things to consider really just to kind of pinpoint if you will why Christians should study church history and the importance of it and really the vitality that it can have in our lives and thinking in our Christian walk.

First of all, I would say, Dale, history has meaning. Like it or not, each one of us are historical beings. That is, we are living in history.

I remember a quote by Cicero who said or who observed that history regulates our lives. And I've often thought about that and think that he's right. In other words, no one is able to escape the effects of history.

The government, politics, economy, art, literature, all the rest of it, it has the essence of shaping the current culture that we're in. So we are products at the moment of what has happened in the past to us.

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