Chronological History

Sometimes we speak of world history as though it belongs to people. It doesn't—it belongs to God, and though people play prominently within the historical narrative, it always remains under God's auspices and control. The problem with losing the right perspective isn't that we'll get the facts wrong, it's that we'll fail to understand what they mean, what the purpose of past events is, and what we can look forward to.

Human history began all at once in the same place: the Garden of Eden, where God made Adam and Eve as the crown of all Creation. He told them to fill the earth and take dominion of it, and He also told them not to eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. They ate the fruit anyway, and mankind was removed from paradise and introduced to tension, pain, and resistance.

The story of the world is in many ways simply the story of adversity. For the enemies of God, it's adversity in the form of the failure and futility of purely human endeavor; for God's people, it's the story of fighting for the truth against secular philosophies, fighting for holiness despite the pervasiveness of sin, and fighting for the Gospel in the face of persecution and death.

Jesus Christ is our only hope. He is the Prince of Peace, the defeater of Death, and the King of the Universe, the saver of souls and the punisher of wickedness. His kingdom is the restoration and glorious fulfillment of the paradise from which Adam and Eve were removed, and we work, wait, hope and pray for the quick fulfillment of His will in all things.

This is our framework for history. While it's important to study things like the Renaissance, the Industrial Revolution, and the ancient Near East, it's only important when investigated through the lens of God's ultimate sovereignty and plan. The story of mankind is the story of redemption, and only when we analyze battles, kings, treaties, and catastrophes from God's perspective can we truly make sense of them.

Otherwise, it's all fairly irrelevant and useless. Sure, there's Napoleon's dictum that those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it, but a quick survey of the past will show that each successive generation does repeat the sins of their fathers, and that without Christ's real physical life on Earth as a centering point, there's no real cause for optimism or hope of any kind.

Christ's love not only makes the trajectory of history cause for hope; it reveals the truly great moments of the past, events that to the secular eye seem insignificant or even pernicious. We're speaking of the progress of the true Church, of course, and of each soul that God calls and makes His own through the agency of His Holy Spirit. These are the milestones we look for and celebrate.

We carry a lot of world history products. Because it's the story of God's work in the world and our human responses, we believe it's important to know and understand. Not everything we carry is Christian; there are plenty of secular resources here. We encourage you to use whichever ones work best for your situation, but that you do so with a view to understanding the will and work of the One who made history in the first place.

Review by C. Hollis Crossman
C. Hollis Crossman used to be a child. Now he is a husband and father, teaches adult Sunday school in his Presbyterian congregation, and likes weird stuff. He might be a mythical creature, but he's definitely not a centaur. Read more of his reviews here.

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Admiral of the Ocean Sea
by Samuel E. Morison
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Amazing Mr. Doolittle
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Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl
by Anne Frank, translated by B. M. Mooyaart-Doubleday with an introduction by Eleanor Roosevelt
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Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
World's Greatest Literature
by Benjamin Franklin
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Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini
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Beyond Stateliest Marble
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Bombs and Blessings
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C. S. Lewis: A Life
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Call of Duty
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Captain Edward L. Beach: Around the World Under Water
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Cheer the Lonesome Traveller
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Christopher Columbus
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Comes the Comrade!
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Constantine the Great
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Edwardian Lady
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Endurance
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Forgotten Founding Father
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George Washington: Soldier and Man
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Give Me Liberty
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Great Adventures That Changed Our World
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Great Lion of God
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Greek Treasure
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In the Arena: A Memoir of Victory, Defeat and Renewal
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Inventing America: The Life of Benjamin Franklin
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Ishi: Last of His Tribe
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John Brown Russwurm
by Mary Sagarin, Introduction by Ernest Kaiser
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John James Audubon: Painting America's Wildlife
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Lady of Arlington
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Life & Times of Washington
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Life and Diary of David Brainerd
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Life and Letters of Benjamin Franklin
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Life of John Knox
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Livingstone and his African Journeys
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Longitude
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Maria
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Martin Luther
Penguin Lives
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Mathew Brady
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Memorial Volume of Jefferson Davis
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Never Dies the Dream
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Oregon Trail
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Oregon Trail
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Our Mountain Hermitage
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Plutarch's Lives Volume I
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Presidency of George Washington
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Queen Elizabeth I: Forging an Empire
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R. v. R.: The Life of Rembrandt Van Rijn
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Ranch under the Rimrock
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Revolt in the Desert
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Saint Jean-Marie Vianney
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Sam Houston
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Samuel De Champlain
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Scottish Chiefs
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Standing Like a Stone Wall
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Story of Polar Conquest
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Time Great People of the 20th Century
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TimeFrame #05: A Soaring Spirit
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TimeFrame #06: Empires Ascendant
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To Live Again
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Trails Plowed Under
by Charles M. Russell
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Twelve Seconds to the Moon
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Twilight Struggle
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Undersea Adventure
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Walter Reed: Vanquishing Yellow Fever
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Wild West
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Willa
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Wurmbrand: Tortured for Christ
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Zookeeper's Wife
by Diane Ackerman
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