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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Abraham Lincoln: Great Speeches
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by Abraham Lincoln & John Grafton, editor
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Adventures of Theodore Roosevelt
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Alfred the Great
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Band of Brothers
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Benjamin Franklin: The Autobiography and Other Writings
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Betty Before X
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Bonhoeffer
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Early Church
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Elizabeth I
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Evidence Not Seen
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First Voyage to America
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Forgotten Founding Father
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Francis Schaeffer
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From Jerusalem to Irian Jaya
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Gladys Aylward: The Little Woman
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God and Ronald Reagan
by Paul Kengor
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God's Samurai
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God's Smuggler
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Governor of England
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Great Adventurers of the Twentieth Century
by Ron Tagliapietra
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Greek Lives
by Plutarch, translated by Robin Waterfield
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Hannibal
Makers of History Series
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Harriet Tubman: Moses of Her People
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Heavenly Man
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Heralds of the Reformation
by Richard Hannula
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Here I Stand
by Roland H. Bainton
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History of King Charles II of England
by Jacob Abbott
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by Jacob Abbott
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Hudson Taylor
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In the Land of the Blue Burqas
by Kate McCord
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Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
by Harriet Jacobs
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James I
Sacred Fool Quartet Volume 1
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Joan of Arc
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John Buchan
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John Knox: Stalwart Courage
by Douglas Wilson, foreword by George Grant
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Jonathan Edwards
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Jonathan Edwards
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Journals of Lewis & Clark
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Journey and Ordeal of Cabeza de Vaca
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Jungle Pilot
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Kon-Tiki
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Laura Ingalls Wilder: Pioneer Girl
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Life and Diary of David Brainerd
by David Brainerd
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Life of Andrew Jackson
by John S. Jenkins
from New Leaf Press
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Life of Christopher Columbus
by Edward Everett Hale
from Living Book Press
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$8.49
Life of John Calvin
by Theodore Beza
3rd edition from Back Home Industries
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Life of John Knox
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Life of John Newton
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Life of King Alfred
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Life of Washington
by Anna Reed
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Life on the Mississippi
Signet Classics
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Lives of Famous Romans
by Olivia Coolidge
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Lives of Thomas Becket
by Michael Staunton
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Luther by Those Who Knew Him
Reformation Trail Series #20
by Elizabeth R. Charles
from Inheritance Publications
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$19.95
Martin Luther: Selections from His Writings
by Martin Luther
from Anchor Books
Biography for 11th-Adult
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$20.00
Martin Luther: The Man and His Work
Reformation Trail Series #19
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Meditations
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from Modern Library
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$11.00
Mein Kampf
by Adolf Hitler, translated by Michael Ford
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Autobiography for 9th-Adult
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$29.95
Memoirs of the Second World War
by Winston S. Churchill, abridged by Denis Kelly
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$25.99
Memories of a Berlin Childhood
by Marianne Buchwalter
First Edition from Premier Publishing
Biography for 7th-12th grade
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Miracle in the Hills
by Mary T. Martin Sloop with Legette Blythe
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Mornings on Horseback
by David McCullough
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Mountain Men and Fur Traders of the Far West
by LeRoy R. Hafen & Harvey L. Carter
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Narrative of the Life of David Crockett of the State of Tennessee
by David Crockett
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Naval War of 1812
by Theodore Roosevelt
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