The Pastor's Book by R. Kent Hughes Douglas Sean O'Donnell

Author:R. Kent Hughes,Douglas Sean O'Donnell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Crossway Books

Each Sunday, as we gather with God’s people in God’s presence, we renew our vision and communal identity. And when we recite one of the historic Christian creeds, we take a few minutes to remind ourselves of our story, one drawn from the great storyline of Scripture itself. We begin by announcing God’s creation and end with his awesome eschatology. And between the start and stop, we announce the gospel: our salvation in the birth, sufferings, death, resurrection, ascension, and return of the God-man, Jesus Christ. What could be more important than that!? “[C]reeds are central to Christian doxology.”11 What a wise way to spend but two minutes out of our 10,080-minute week.

ORIGINS

While there is no command in the Bible to recite creeds, the earliest church—that of the New Testament—speaks often of commonly held theological truths by a variety of different names: “the gospel” (Rom. 1:1; 1:16; Gal. 1:6), “the/our confession” (Heb. 3:1; 4:14; 10:23), “the tradition” (2 Thess. 3:6), “the faith” (Acts 6:7; Col. 2:7; Jude 3), “the testimony of Jesus” (Rev. 1:2; 12:17; 19:10), and “the teaching” or “doctrine” (1 Tim. 4:16; Heb. 6:1). And texts such as Matthew 28:18–20 and Ephesians 4:11–16 (printed below) imply the imperative of Christian leaders disciplining through a recognizable set and summary of doctrine:

And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Matt. 28:18–20)

And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love. (Eph. 4:11–16)

Moreover, the New Testament does offer imperatives to confess (homologein). We are to confess Jesus before others (Matt. 10:32)—to confess that he is “Lord” (Rom. 10:9–10) and God’s Son who has “come in the flesh” (1 John 2:23; 4:2–3; 4:15; 2 John 7). This is our corporate “confession” (see 2 Cor. 9:13; Heb. 3:1; 4:14), one that bears witness to our basic beliefs (John 18:37; 19:35; Acts 2:40; 8:25; 1 Cor.

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