Not many Christians today appreciate the value of church history. In the minds of some people, the study of church history is simply a dull and arduous academic exercise that is overly preoccupied with irrelevant archives of the past. Nothing can be further from the truth. To the contrary, church history has special value for all Christians. It is the key to the present understanding of Christianity. For the church to grow and move forward, she needs to plant her feet firmly in the soil of history while craning her neck to peep into the future. The past is a storehouse of warning and encouragement, of consolation and counsel, giving us a sense of direction and hope for the future. C.S. Lewis compared the reader of history to the man who has lived in many places. This man “is not likely to be deceived by the local errors of his native village; the scholar has lived in many times and is therefore in some degree immune from the great cataract of nonsense that pours from the press and the microphone of his own age.” (”Learning in War-Time,” in The Weight of Glory).