Preserving and Sharing Our Heritage: The Biblical Mandate (Part 1)
The Church of God will celebrate 125 years of Pentecostal witness on August 19, 2011. This is the first in a series of articles relating our commitment to preserve and pass on our heritage to our children and grandchildren.
When R.G. Spurling called us to sit together as the Church of God on August 19, 1886, he laid a foundation for the Church of God that we continue to build upon. His challenge served us well at our beginning, and it can continue to guide our present and future as we fulfill the mission God has given us. An important part of this mission is to preserve the memory of what God has done among our mothers and fathers and to pass that godly heritage forward to our children and grandchildren. The Bible itself is our model for preserving and communicating of God’s past actions and His continuing work today.
Even the casual reader cannot help but to observe that from Genesis to Revelation much of the Scriptures are a record of God’s work among and through His people. Genesis is the account of God creating the universe, populating the earth, mixing languages, purging the earth with a flood, and raising up His chosen people as priests to the nations. In the biblical text we read about the lives of real human beings and their interaction with God and God’s plan: Adam and Eve in the Garden; the people of Babel; Noah and the flood; Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in Canaan; Joseph in Egypt; the promise that God’s people would someday return home; and the fulfillment of that promise. Other Old Testament books preserve the on-going account of God at work among his people. In the New Testament the Gospels narrate the life and ministry of Jesus, the Acts of the Apostles record the expansion of the church, and The Revelation reveals the condition of local churches as well as a look forward to end times. We can only conclude that recording and remembering these events is important to the God who gave us the Scriptures.
God used historical accounts in the biblical text to communicate His nature. When Moses first encountered God at Horeb, God instructed him to take off his sandals and said, “I am the God of your father—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob” (Exodus 3:6, NKJV). In this passage God identifies himself as a God in relationship with specific individuals in particular moments of time. By recalling the past God assures Moses He will continue to work in the life of Moses and Moses’ generation.
Despite centuries of bondage the descendants of Abraham knew and remembered the wonderful works of God. Moses and the Hebrews knew their heritage sufficiently well enough that an invocation of the memory of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob communicated something important about God. God said to Moses, “Thus you shall say to the children of Israel: ‘The LORD God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob has sent me to you. This is MY name forever, and this is MY memorial to all generations’” (Exodus 3:15, NKJV). Thus God’s very name, the most visible sign of His nature and works, connects the history and culture of the pioneers of the faith with the generations that follow.
This connectivity of past and present continues in the New Testament. The text of the New Testament begins with a record of Jesus’ genealogy in Mathew chapter 1. Matthew makes it clear that Jesus’ identity and heritage is important to readers. The record of Jesus’ genealogy links Jesus to the whole of God’s salvific work among His people. It documents His royal lineage and connects Him to the vital persons of His heritage and culture including Abraham, the father of the nation, and King David to whose throne Jesus would succeed. The genealogy in Matthew is structured so that the heritage of the faith community can be remembered and passed to future generations. This record and its structure reveal the importance of the ongoing faith community receiving and participating in the heritage of Jesus. Elsewhere in the New Testament Luke’s genealogy goes even farther back into the biblical past and connects Jesus to Adam and the creation (Luke: 3:23-38). For Luke as well as Matthew, knowing the heritage of Jesus is important to understanding His nature, His ministry, and His significance to every generation.
God also instituted worship practices as means of communicating the culture and heritage of His people. We see in the biblical narrative that on the night God freed Israel from bondage in Egypt, He took that occasion to institute a means of teaching future generations about His nature and His promises. Within the institution of the Passover meal God instructed Moses, “So this day shall be to you a memorial; and you shall keep it as a feast to the LORD throughout your generations. You shall keep it as a feast by an everlasting ordinance” (Exodus 12: 14, NKJV). With these words God established a continuing practice with the specific purpose of passing to succeeding generations truth about Himself and the surety of His covenant with His people.
In the Gospels the celebration of the Passover was a regular occurrence in the life of Jesus up to the week of His crucifixion. For Christians this act of worship that connects the past work of God with His ongoing work in the Church was transformed into the Lord’s Supper. When Paul gave instructions for the Lord’s Supper in 1 Corinthians 11, he wrote, “For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you….” Here Paul’s language is that of passing on a religious tradition to the succeeding generation. In Paul’s account we hear the command of Jesus “do this in remembrance of me” (v. 24) and the conclusion of Paul “For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup you proclaim the Lord’s death til He comes” (v. 26). Today the Lord’s Supper remains a powerful and universal practice connecting Christians everywhere. Through our continuing remembrance of Him the Lord’s Supper communicates the work and nature of God from generation to generation.
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Dr. David G. Roebuck is director of the Dixon Pentecostal Research Center and an assistant professor of the history of Christianity at Lee University. He also serves as church historian for the Church of God. This article is drawn from David G. Roebuck and Darrin J. Rodgers, “Preserving and Sharing our Heritage: The Biblical and Institutional Mandate” published in Spirit-Empowered Christianity in the 21st Century, ed. Vinson Synan (Lake Mary, Florida: Charisma House, 2011), pages 217-236.
