Introducing Gospel Patronsনমুনা

We look to History

We can imagine some of you asking, “But why history? History can be so dry — dates and facts, wars and maps, stuff we don’t care about and can’t remember anyway.”

My eighth-grade history teacher, Mr. Martin, knew many of us thought this way about history, so he spiced up his lectures with mythical tales about his six-foot-six-inch wife who weighed 300 pounds, thundered when she walked, and would come sit on us if we acted up. For the record, I loved those stories, but since the days of the monstrous Mrs. Martin I have come to see history sing, dance, and even fly on its own wings, when I can see that the people who shaped the ideas and won the battles were real people like me.

History becomes powerful when we see that the main characters were not outdated, dusty saints, but rather modern men and women in their time like we are in ours.

Success inflates our pride and quietly derails our focus on God. Thankfully, there is another way, an approach which puts both God and success in their rightful places. The Bible and history show us that our prosperity is not a curse, but an opportunity — an opportunity we believe many people miss out on.

The histories in the Gospel Patrons book are not dry essays or even cradle-to-grave biographies. Instead, they are stories of friendships between real people who thought and spoke much like we do. I have chosen to record dialogue in contemporary English because modern speech helps close the gap between us and history like nothing else.

“Is this book only for the rich?” some have asked. No. God wants to see our faithful stewardship in little or much. Remember Jesus’ parable of the talents? The person who originally received five talents and the one who had two talents received equal praise for their good stewardship. They each heard their master say, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” (Matthew 25:14–23).

The Bible tells us that God cares less about how much we have and more about what we do with it. This message of Gospel Patronage is not something new for a select few, but a focused application of the gospel for all of us.

The truth is no matter how much or how little you have been given, there is eternity to think about what you did with it, and hearing Jesus say, “Well done,” will be the only thing that matters.

Take time to reflect on these three questions:

1. When you think about history, do you tend to see it as distant and irrelevant, or as stories of real people like you whom God used in their generation? How might seeing history this way change your perspective?
2. In seasons of success or prosperity, how do you guard against pride and forgetfulness of God? What practices help you keep both God and success in their rightful place?
3. Whether God has entrusted you with little or much, how are you currently stewarding what you have so that one day you might hear Jesus say, “Well done, good and faithful servant”?