Travel – Page 4 – Gregory Scott Blog

England Travel Journal – Prologue

If you have never journeyed vicariously with the GSB Team on a study tour, I encourage you to do so, starting tomorrow.

There are four reasons you should check in every day for the next 14 days.

First, you will travel with us vicariously. Sure, you may still have to go to work every day; your summer may be over and the kids back in school.

But there is no law against imaging yourself on a journey to a far-away land every morning for 3-5 minutes. There is no law against it unless, of course, you are driving a car or operating other heavy machinery. Augustine of Hippo (not Canterbury) said the world is a book, and those who don’t travel read only a page. But if you read this blog every day for the next 14 days, even if you don’t physically travel, you will have read at least two pages.

Second, if I do my job you should be able to use each blog post as a devotional. So, bring your Bible or your phone. If the Lord anoints what I write, who knows what He might do in you. If you don’t like devotionals, you are at the right place. I don’t like devotionals either, and I never use them. But this will not be like any devotional you have read. There will be Kingdom history, commentary on the lives of men and women who changed the world for King Jesus, and the foundation of it all will be the Word of God, which is sharper than a two-edged sword and able to cut between soul and spirit, joint and marrow, and judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. Hebrews 4:12.

England Travel Journal – Reading List

If you are GSB regular, you know that in anticipation of GSB Travel Journals I publish a reading list.

Keeping that tradition alive, I offer the following books in preparation for following the GSB Team as we travel across the pond and back through history to study the christianization of England.

The books are as follows:

Bede’s Ecclesiastical History, The Venerable Bede. I love this book for the same reasons I love Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History-it is written by a man who loves God and is looking for His hand in history. I also like that Bede finished this book in 731 A.D., which makes him a lot closer to the events he describes than modern historians. The Venerable Bede has served as our posthumous tour guide before, and I expect we will lean hard on him again this time.

The White Horse King, Benjamin Merkle. The author had me hooked in the first few pages when he explained how historians are always looking for a new angle on popular historical figures to knock them off their perch but that in the case of Alfred the Great, there was a reason he is the only English monarch ever given “the Great” tag-he was truly a great man. The rest of the book did not disappoint.

Announcement: New GSB Travel Journal

Decisions have been made in smoke-filled rooms, and the GSB team will be departing soon on its next adventure.

This time we have chosen England as our destination and the first millennium of Christianity as our subject. There will be a focus on Alfred the Great but with detours that will include Augustine of Canterbury and William the Conqueror.

We may even stray outside the confines of the first thousand years of Kingdom history in places like Oxford and Bath as we do what we always do: mine the Christian history out of a vacation destination.

On Diverting Astroids and Jesus’ Return

So, today for the first time in history, man intentionally hit an astroid with a projectile and altered its course. Humanity will now breathe a sigh of relief knowing man has a fighting chance against the greatest threat to global annihilation.

When I heard the news today, my mind went to a completely different place. I thought, what if 1,000 years ago, we had told Christians that before Jesus returned we would be able to launch a rocket 7 miles into space and intentionally hit an astroid less than 200 yards wide with enough force to alter its course.

I believe most Christians would have said that was impossible, either because the necessary technology was inconceivable or that by the time it took mankind to achieve such technology, Jesus would have already returned. Yet, here we are.

Early Christian, Medieval Travel Journal-Epilogue

Painting of Savonarola at San Marco Convent

As we have slipped back into our lives at home, I’ve thought through what we read, saw, and learned related to our Early Christian, Medieval Travel Journal tour.

The first two three hundred of the years of the Church was marked most conspicuously by persecution. We discussed some of those first century martyrs, including Ignatius who gave the ultimate proof of his discipleship in the Colosseum in Rome. After the Apostle Paul addressed in his New Testament letters some of those teachers who were painting outside the lines, with the exception of Gnosticism, we don’t hear much about heresy during the first three hundred years of the Church. Never was the Church more united than when it was most persecuted.

Constantine the Great’s vision, conversion, and his victory over Maxentius at the Milvian Bridge changed everything. The Church was finally free to worship in the Roman Empire, and more than that, the full support of the Roman Emperor, who assisted in the building of new churches and baptistries and in restoring to Christians and churches what had been taken from them during the persecutions that preceded Constantine.

But with that new freedom, dissension suddenly became a luxury the Church could seemingly afford. Heresies like Arianism, which had been simmering beneath the veneer of Christianity’s public face to the empire now bubbled to the surface. Others followed, Donatism, Pelegianism, and Nestorianism are just some examples.