The past is ever-present. You may not be interested in history, but history is interested in you. That’s because none of us can escape the past. The events of the past are relevant to the present. Past causes produce present effects that compel the living to reckon with the legacies left by the dead. Someone may enjoy historical movies, documentaries, novels, or tourist sites but not see much relevance to the pressing events of the day. Whether or not we understand the past, appreciate it, and find it personally interesting, we cannot escape the perennial relevance of what is past. Historian John Lukacs describes history as “the memory of mankind” and “the remembered past.” Acknowledging that all sentient animals have some sort of memory, Lukacs observes that only human persons intentionally remember their past. We tell stories, sing songs, write books, build statues, memorialize significant sites, bury our dead in cemeteries, and dedicate things to past people or events. We do these to make sense of what is past in our present. This is especially significant for Christians, because our faith has been handed down to us from the past by the saints (Jude 3). Christianity is a faith rooted in history, so we Christians have a primary interest in the study of the past for both temporal and eternal purposes. It’s vitally important that we conduct our historical investigations with virtue. History as Human Endeavor Humans have a historical consciousness because we’re created by God in his image. He’s the Maker of time, and he gave us the ability to mark time—the past, the present, and the future. Not only did he give us a historical consciousness, but he placed the sun, the moon, and the stars in the sky to “be for signs and for seasons and for days and years” (Gen. 1:14). God made the great lights to be an immutable frame of reference for our marking the passage of time. So to study the past for the purposes of the present and to base aspirations for the future is one of the most essentially human activities we do. You may not be interested in history, but history is interested in you. We study history to make sense of the past. To study history is to pursue truth. History doesn’t give us a God’s-eye perspective on the truth of the past, but it directs us to truth. Since history is the pursuit of truth, it’s a moral exercise. And for that reason, historical thinking requires virtue. The apostle Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 13:6 (NASB), “[Love] does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth.” All the classical virtues find their perfect expressions in the theological virtue of love. Virtues in History The classical virtues are wisdom, justice, courage, and temperance. Augustine of Hippo (AD 354–430) writes, “As to virtue leading us to a happy life, I hold virtue to be nothing less than perfect love of God.” He sees wisdom as love differentiating that which drives a person toward God and that which compels a person to abandon God. Justice is love that gives every person his or her due: God first, and others second. Courage is the bearing of all things for the love of God and for others. Temperance is the love for those things that God loves, resulting in a holy life and the enjoyment of the good, the true, and the beautiful. It may sound strange to say we owe the dead our love. After all, they aren’t here to receive, or return, our love. We can’t know them in relationship, because they are no more. How can we show love to the dead? We can tell the truth about them. We don’t idealize their lives and actions to deify them, nor do we emphasize their faults to demonize them. We bring their lives, actions, and intents into the light as best we can in the interest of representing them with truthfulness. We don’t rejoice in wrong, thus we neither worship them nor condemn them. We rejoice in the truth, so we pursue the truth as we seek to make sense of their lives’ contributions and legacies. We get wisdom from the study of the past, but we must bring wisdom to our study if understanding is our goal. Thus, we humbly recognize our limitations as we approach the past. We acknowledge that the dead were once as we are now, and one day, we’ll be as they are. We also remember that we cannot know the things they knew in their time from their perspective. We have our own perspective, which gives us the ability to see their lives from start to finish, but we can never see the moments in their lives from their perspectives. We exercise wisdom to know when and how to make sound judgments of a past life and how to refrain from self-righteous condemnation. Measured Justice and Courage Justice comes into our study of the past when we give the dead their due. We don’t treat them as good guys or bad guys and thus idealize or demonize them. We in the present have the duty to speak for the dead, because they aren’t here to speak for themselves. We represent them truthfully as best we can, given the available evidence. And for those who never had anyone to speak for them, we rise to tell their stories truthfully, as the evidence leads us. We get wisdom from the study of the past, but we must bring wisdom to our study if understanding is our goal. Peering into the events, lives, and ideas of the past can be unsettling, uncomfortable, and disturbing. Slavery, genocide, war, poverty, pestilence, and all kinds of suffering are to be found in every civilization at every time. It takes courage to wade into the suffering of people across time, especially for someone who has an emotional, national, traditional, or familial connection to those who suffered or those who caused the suffering. Courage, according to Aristotle, is being afraid of the right things for the right reasons, and cowardice is fear of the wrong things for the wrong reasons. We should fear ignorance, self-righteousness, and short-sightedness more than we fear the passing sentiments of a transient zeitgeist. Finally, temperance in historical thinking is found in the exercise of self-control. We control our passions when we engage the past, and we take the past on its own terms. We don’t seek to advance a political agenda by using the past to our advantage, because to do so is intemperate, indecorous, and contrary to the pursuit of truth. Our times are marked by innumerable vices, all of which serve as obstacles to the attainment of truth. To be countercultural in the 21st century, think Christianly about the past. As you do so, you’ll treat the dead with charity and come to the past with virtue.

The new Spring 2026 issue of Themelios has 239 pages of editorials, articles, and book reviews. It is freely available in three formats: (1) PDF, (2) web version, and (3) Logos Bible Software. 1. Benjamin L. Gladd | Editorial: D. A. Carson’s Influence on Biblical Theology 2. G. K. Beale | The Temple in Biblical Theology 3. Richard Lints | A Biblical Theology of Image and Idol 4. Gary Millar | A Call for Biblical-Theological Reformation: Prayer and Biblical Theology 5. Karl Deenick | Righteous by Promise: Reflections on Circumcision 6. Stephen G. Dempster | Abraham’s Ominous Silence: Missed Opportunity or Settled Faith? 7. Sam Emadi | From Prisoner to Prince: The Typological Character of the Joseph Story 8. L. Michael Morales | A Biblical Theology of Israel’s Exodus out of Egypt 9. Oren R. Martin | The Land Promise in Biblical Theology 10. David G. Firth | Reflections on Including the Stranger 11. Peter H. W. Lau and Gregory Coswell | Ruth to Restoration: Tracing Temple and Kingship in Canonical Perspective 12. Ray Ortlund | God’s Unfaithful Wife: A Biblical Theology of Spiritual Adultery 13. Timothy S. Laniak | Shepherds, Here to Stay 14. Matthew S. Harmon | The Servant of the Lord and His Servant People 15. James M. Hamilton Jr. | The One Like the Son of Man Is the Highest One: The Two Most Highs in Daniel 7:15–28 16. Daniel C. Timmer | Friends, Non-Israelites, and the Surprising Grace of God: A Grateful Retrospective on New Studies in Biblical Theology at 30 17. Richard P. Belcher Jr. | Key Questions Concerning the Book of Ecclesiastes: An Explanation of the Negative Views of Qohelet 18. Graham A. Cole | The God Who Became Human 19. Matthew Emadi | A Better Priest and the Problem of Abiathar: Literary and Biblical-Theological Reflections on Mark 2:23–28 20. Peter Orr | Reflections on the Risen and Exalted Christ 21. Alan J. Thompson | The Acts of the Risen Lord Jesus 22. J. Daniel Hays | Ethiopians, Deliverance of the Gentiles, and Judgment on Jerusalem: Allusions in Acts 8 to Jeremiah’s Ebedmelech Narrative 23. Christ Bruno, Jared Compton, and Kevin W. McFadden | Reading the Bible with the Apostles 24. Brian S. Rosner | The Puzzle of Paul and the Law: A Hermeneutical Solution 25. Mark A. Seifrid | The Faith of Christ and the Message of Justification for Today 26. Brian J. Tabb | Seated on the Throne: The Centrality and Supremacy of God in Revelation 27. David G. Peterson | Sanctification Revisited 28. Andreas J. Köstenberger | Toward a New Testament Theology of Mission Featured Book Reviews: James M. Hamilton Jr. and Matthew Damico, Reading the Psalms as Scripture. Reviewed by S. D. Ellison. Craig L. Blomberg. Matthew, Christian Standard Commentary. Reviewed by Mark L. Strauss. The Greek New Testament, 6th Revised Edition. Reviewed by Peter J. Gurry. Written by Kenneth J. Woo. John Calvin, Refugee Theologian: Introducing a Reformer in Exile. Reviewed by Ken Stewart. Written by Gray N. Sutanto. God and Humanity: Herman Bavinck and Theological Anthropology. Reviewed by Devon Goings. Jonathan A. Linebaugh. The Well That Washes What It Shows: An Invitation to Holy Scripture. Reviewed by Mark Stephens. John D. Wilsey. Religious Freedom: A Conservative Primer. Reviewed by Blake Johnson. Brett McCracken and Ivan Mesa, eds. Scrolling Ourselves to Death: Reclaiming Life in a Digital Age. Reviewed by Matthew Wireman.

When we think about the loss of shared moral narrative, it’s little wonder our culture has lost its sense of virtue and purpose. The fairy tales that used to shape our imaginations have been largely drowned out by digital noise and their villains turned into heroes who are just expressing themselves. What we’re seeing is the fulfillment of C. S. Lewis’s warning about “men without chests.” The moral decline Lewis predicted has only accelerated because of individual absorption in the solipsistic universe of the smartphone, as Jonathan Haidt highlights in The Anxious Generation. It’s telling that in Haidt’s efforts to help children become resilient adults, he points to habits and structures that in many ways approximate ancient wisdom. That approach is helpful, but it’s limited because it lacks an objective reference point or historical grounding. Rather than trying to recreate a moral framework for modernity, we’d be better served by recovering the classical virtues. That’s what Alan Noble, associate professor of English at Oklahoma Baptist University, does in To Live Well: Practical Wisdom for Moving Through Chaotic Times. According to Noble, “Modern society has conditioned us to be full of ‘morality’—albeit shifting and ambiguous morality—but lacking in any virtues because it denies that we have a telos.” The culture has lost touch with the belief in an objective purpose for life, which leaves us “anxiously striving to do the right thing but never sure what the right thing is” (7). He argues that the seven classical virtues can help. Virtue Deficit The easy route in cultural critique is to rail against the lack of virtue in society. Yet the truth is that as technology has progressed, we’ve gradually eroded the elements of life that used to help everyone develop virtue. For example, Noble notes that it’s hard to develop fortitude in our world because “nearly every social force is oriented toward reducing our suffering and removing barriers to our goals at all costs” (65). Technology extends our reach and removes resistance, making life easier—but sometimes too easy. As a result, our wills atrophy just like a muscle when it goes unused. Like astronauts stuck in space without gravity, we need to find new ways of exercising our virtues to remain strong. As technology has progressed, we’ve gradually eroded the elements of life that used to help everyone develop virtue. On the other hand, our culture has made exercising the virtues we have much more difficult. The massive array of information and options available makes exercising prudence an incredible weight. “Every major life decision is an existential decision,” Noble argues. “The burden of your existence has been placed on your shoulders by society” (16). What we choose defines who we are, and we have so many variables to choose from that it’s impossible to be sure we get it right. Additionally, because our culture values comfort and control, “there is a moral weight to fulfilling our every desire” (84). Thus, temperance is despised because “in a society that demands you consume . . . you deserve what your eyes desire, and your addictions are just quirky forms of self-care” (85). In many ways, Noble’s arguments in To Live Well pick up where his earlier book You Are Not Your Own left off. He continually reminds readers that we belong to God and are joyfully restrained by the good things God gives us. Ancient Solutions It’s not enough to simply say we need to live virtuously. Our information-saturated culture makes defining the virtues difficult. For example, Ryan Holiday’s books on Stoic virtues use classical terms but with distinctly modern meanings. We need to look to more objective definitions for virtue, especially those rooted in Scripture. Virtues are “cultivated habits that align us with the God who created us to be” (7). It’s not enough for us to pick a couple of virtues from the shelf and emphasize them in isolation from other inputs. The virtues work together to align a person toward the good life as God created it. As Noble observes, “Fortitude requires us to suffer for the sake of the good, but first we have to know what that good is” (69). We need biblical definitions of justice and prudence to help direct our fortitude. Our information-saturated culture makes defining the virtues difficult. We’re not left to figure out these virtues by ourselves. Noble traces the ancient roots of virtue by looking back at how previous generations have defined it. For example, he writes that “[Josef] Pieper, drawing from Aquinas, who draws from Aristotle, says that justice ‘is the notion that each man is to be given what is his due’” (46). This formula reminds readers that when we see clearly, it’s only because we stand on the shoulders of giants. Yet virtue requires we also ask questions about those who help us to see. Many proponents of virtue don’t live up to their prescriptions. For example, Pieper, Noble’s primary conversation partner throughout the book, “failed to live up to the highest standards of justice and fortitude when the Nazis came to power in his home country” (8). The norming source for virtue isn’t human examples or scholarship; it’s divine revelation. Lived Virtue While Noble points back in time toward ancient virtues, he shows that the virtues are the way forward. Fortitude, in ancient culture, may have meant riding headlong into battle, placing a weary hand on the plow day after day, or even being martyred for your faith. Now, dying to self every day means that sometimes, “the act of rising out of bed and going to your family and friends . . . is a sacrifice of love” (74). As technology makes what was once difficult easy, it now takes courage to get out of bed and live with a real purpose. In our technique-driven culture, it’s tempting to see virtue as a “Rule of Life” from which true Christian living flows. Noble reverses that strategy, showing that pursuing the true, good, and beautiful in life grows from a believer’s identity in Christ and place within a Christian community. Virtue isn’t a means of attaining or maintaining our status with God; it’s the fruit of the Spirit built on God’s gracious adoption of us when we were vicious sinners. We live in chaotic times. People are looking for formation, habits, and techniques that can bring order from the mess. Noble’s approach to Christian virtue gives a better aim and holistic approach than the various forms of renovated Stoicism and modern monasticism on offer from the culture. To Live Well is a theologically robust and immensely practical guide for a virtuous Christian life in a turbulent world.

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