Past is Prologue

1 Corinthians 10: 11, 13  "Now these things happened to them as examples, and they were written as a warning to us, on whom the ends of the ages have come...No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to humanity..."

Some people love history and some do not.  Those who love it are generally a believer in the statement, "Those who don't know history are bound to repeat it."  Those who don't like history might argue that the world is a different place today, and what happened in the past has no instructive value to help us now.

The difference in those who love history and those who don't might also lie in an underlying belief that events are interconnected (our history determines our future) or that events are unrelated, random occurrences of luck or chance.

I fall more in line with the former position, and believe history is valuable in dealing with the present and the future.  Although the specifics of today's world are different than the past, the motivations and failings of humans are timeless.

There are no new temptations or problems today that catch God by surprise and send Him scrambling to develop a response or solution.  As Solomon said, there is nothing new under the sun.  The surface level mechanism by which an issue is raised may be different today (the Internet, for example), but the underlying temptation or issue that befalls humans is generally one of the same issues that have existed throughout human history.

God knows what we are dealing with and, more importantly, has an answer and a solution.  Paul goes on in his letter to the Corinthians to say that God will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you can handle.  He will always provide us a way of escape. 

Part of His provided means of escape is human history as it has been recorded in the Bible.  Stories of how God provided a way for our Christian ancestors to overcome a whole variety of challenges are not included in the Bible simply for our reading pleasure.  One way of escaping a problematic situation is to never get ourselves in the situation to begin with.  A knowledge of history allows you to recognize similar situations as what people in the past have dealt with and avoid those situations altogether.

God's Word is useful and instructive, and it is our privilege and responsibility to study it.  He has sent the Holy Spirit to live inside of us and provide us with constant, real-time counsel.  But He also allows us to benefit from others' experiences and the solutions arrived at through their dealings with God and the Holy Spirit.

Knowing what is in the Bible is not just for impressing our friends with the ability to recite Scripture.  Knowing our Bible is an important part of how God helps us navigate tricky waters and overcome the challenges of today's world.