Who Is the Most Significant Person from the Last Thousand Years?

When we watch the news, it seems like the most important people are alive today and the most important events are happening right now. In this video, Sinclair Ferguson explains why Christians need a much bigger perspective of what God has done through history.

Transcript

One of the major British newspapers published a poll in which they gave the results of a question they'd asked the great British public. The question was, “Who is the most influential male figure and who is the most influential female figure of the last thousand years of the previous millennium?” The answer to the question of the most significant male figure was Nelson Mandela, and the answer to the question of the most significant female figure was Princess Diana. It was amazing, really, to think that the most significant people in a thousand years would actually be the people I had seen on television. I think that underlined to me that in the media-conscious age in which we live, in a way we are fed a line that the most important things are happening to our nation and at our time. That underlined for me the difference it can make to the Christian that he has not only a two-thousand-year perspective, but an even bigger perspective than that. I thought talking about this might help to equip the people in the congregation I was serving—and then through the book, other people—to think in a much bigger picture and to have a sense of what God has done through history.

Learn more in his new book, In the Year of our Lord: Reflections on Twenty Centuries of Church History. Available now in the Ligonier store.