The Here I Stand Theology Podcast - Creeds Confessions and Catechisms Ep10

Here I Stand Theology iconHere I Stand Theology

2 views

The Here I Stand Theology Podcast - Creeds Confessions and Catechisms Ep10

0 comments

00:36
Alright, and so, we are live.
00:42
Finally, finally, we are back. So, here I stand. I can do no other.
00:48
God help me. So glad to be here today. Super glad, super excited to have
00:55
Matt back. Good to be back after a little time off. Yeah, you know, we had been subliminally taunting and intimidating our audience with Toon Matt, the baddest man in Toontown.
01:14
Now, you will notice, as we mentioned in a previous episode, Matt and I are less bearded than we were.
01:22
And so, there is a very important lesson for the bearded to speak to other bearded men about when it comes to shaving their beard.
01:32
What do men need to say to one another when they are called out to repent of shaving their beard?
01:38
They need to make an admission like this. I'm stupid. You're smart. I was wrong.
01:44
You were right. You're the best. I'm the worst. You're very good looking.
01:51
I'm not attractive. Alright, as long as you're willing to admit that. Alright, enough with the beard jokes.
02:00
Enough with the beard jokes. I do look different though. You do, but you've got a good trim.
02:06
You've got a good shape on right now. I'm trying to keep it neat. Alright, so Kevin Michael is with us.
02:12
Super glad, super excited he's back with us. He does not have a beard, but he does have muscles. So, if you can't have one, it's good to have the other, right?
02:24
So, we are, again, just to give everybody an idea of who we are, what the point of the podcasts are about, we are the
02:31
Here I Stand Theology Podcast. We are a podcast focused on spirited and pointed defense of biblical doctrines with application to our day and to our time in which we live.
02:43
And today, we are going to be discussing creeds, catechisms, and confessions, or if you wanted to rather say it, creeds, confessions, and catechisms, or catechisms, confessions, and creeds, whatever makes you feel better, you say that any way that you want.
03:03
That's obviously a secondary issue. You are not going to be put under church discipline for that. So, Kevin, how are you?
03:13
Tell us a little bit about what's been going on with you, how you're doing, you and your family, and we'll just ease right into this.
03:21
We're doing very well. I'd say we do the same thing a lot of families do.
03:27
All of us, since we have older children, they're working, and we're working, and we're trying to coordinate schedules and spend time together.
03:35
It's a bit challenging at their age, and since everybody works different shifts, but by God's grace, we are able to spend some time together.
03:44
So, looking forward to being able to spend some time with my faith family here Sunday morning. In the
03:51
Lord's house on Lord's Day, and then it'll be back to the grind Sunday night like always. So, Kevin, you are an elder at Norwood Baptist Church, correct?
04:03
Yes, that is true. Still trucking along in Norwood. Good, good.
04:10
And Matt, so again, Matt's been on a hiatus. How are you, Ben? I've been doing good.
04:16
Just took a little time to just focus on some family things. So, just kind of had a little busy time, so needed to just focus on things on the home front.
04:28
Nothing bad or anything like that. Just wanted to just kind of reset my focus there, and then we had a little family vacation a week before last.
04:39
So, just had a little time away. So, things are good. Got refreshed a little bit, but as always back at it this week, it's always busy around our household.
04:52
No matter how long you're away from work, when it's like five minutes back, it's like, holy cow, did
04:58
I even leave? Overall, things are good.
05:04
Glad to be back, though. Praise the Lord. Been excited today and a little nervous.
05:10
I feel like I'm doing my first one again. It is scary.
05:16
It is scary, and there are people critiquing us, likely. So, it makes it a little bit more nerve -wracking.
05:25
All right. So, just as kind of a lead -in, Matt, I'll ask you.
05:33
So, as far as creeds, catechisms, and confessions go, actually, before we ask any questions, let's kind of set some parameters, right?
05:45
So, B .H. Carroll actually spoke about creeds, confessions, and catechisms.
05:54
A catechism, just by definition, is simply a learning tool. It's a learning aid.
06:01
Questions and answers meant to be set to memory specifically within the church concerning the doctrines that the
06:09
Scriptures teach. For example, basic, which is amazing. I think the children's catechism is actually like 140 questions, maybe 170.
06:22
Do you know, Kevin or Matt? I don't know the number. It just depends on the catechism.
06:27
Yeah. I think it's the Westminster, but the children's catechism, which they started at like three and four and five years old, 170 questions, but it's just basic questions and answers.
06:40
Is there more than one God? Question, right? Answer, no, there is but one
06:46
God. Question, in how many persons does this one
06:51
God exist? Answer, three persons. Question, who are they? Answer, the
06:57
Father, Son, the Spirit, right? But it's amazing how many adults can answer these questions.
07:04
This is why catechisms are good for the church. So, a catechism is just a learning tool, question and answers.
07:12
But B .H. Carroll gave a tremendously simple and pure definition of creed and confession, and B .H.
07:23
Carroll said this actually, a creed is what we believe, right? And a confession is the declaration of what we believe.
07:31
It's the stating of what we believe. And we all know this and understand the importance that it's very important not just to know what we believe, but why we believe what we believe, right?
07:46
Understand how it works, what it's about, which again,
07:52
I think that's one of the benefits of reform doctrine is the emphasis on not just knowing what you believe, but why you believe it.
08:01
What do you guys think about that concerning that those kind of that simple definition, a creed is what we believe and a confession is what a declaration of what we believe?
08:13
I agree. I think in doing some research, I think a lot of people, they are similar in nature, but I think that's a good definition.
08:23
Obviously, the confession is more extensive. Like I said, I think it lays out more in detail the belief and you've got the scriptural references generally to back those up while that statement is true.
08:40
Right. What about you, Kevin? Yeah, I think that's good. You both hit the nail on the head.
08:47
That quote was really good, but I think it's also important to note, and I had it in my notes, that the majority of the creeds, with the exception of the
08:56
Apostles Creed, they were written to combat a specific heresy that had become popular at the time.
09:04
And so that's important to note and to hold on to as well. And as you both had mentioned, the creeds will show basic tenets of the
09:13
Christian faith, and then the confession will take and break those down even further.
09:19
And these confessions, some of these documents are so long that they've become little booklets, but they're very good for the church.
09:31
I was going to say that too. I think the the creeds generally have a
09:37
Trinitarian and Christological focus, whereas the confessions break out into other topics within the faith and within the church specifically.
09:50
Exactly. Again, just a more extensive look into the Christian beliefs and doctrines.
09:56
Right. And I mean, the creeds go back, what, to 390, I believe is the date on the
10:02
Apostles Creed, and then the Nicene Creed was brought about in 325.
10:08
And Kevin, you had mentioned that the creeds were established to defend against the heresy that was being taught in the early churches, right?
10:18
Right. Do you want to talk about an example of maybe either the
10:24
Apostles Creed or the Nicene Creed, why that they were brought about? Sure.
10:30
If I remember correctly, and you brothers can correct me if I have veered off the path of truthfulness,
10:37
I do believe the Nicene Creed was written in response to the heretical teachings of a man named
10:42
Arius. And I do believe that he taught that that Jesus Christ did not exist coeternally with God, let me put it that way, but he was created by God.
11:00
And our more savvy listeners that have encountered Jehovah's Witnesses know and understand that that is a very common teaching at the
11:11
Jehovah's Witnesses organization. I don't call them church, but I will call them organization. The Nicene Creed was basically written specifically at the
11:25
Council of Nicaea, where these church fathers came together from the very, very early church, and the
11:31
Nicene Creed came about as a result to specifically say to refute the heretical teachings of Arius.
11:38
Yes. Yes. Do either of you know who the guy was that brought forth and really was a staunch defender of this creed and of that specific doctrine?
11:56
Athanasius. Athanasius. Historically, he was referred to as the Black Dwarf. Noah.
12:04
Noah. There's also the Athanasius Creed as well. Mm -hmm. Yep. Yep.
12:10
The Athanasian Creed. Actually, I don't have that in here. By the way, if you've got a
12:15
Reformation study Bible, most of the Reformation study Bibles have your creeds and confessions in the back of them, which is a great tool to have.
12:26
And I mean, as far as being confessional men ourselves, we hold it
12:34
Reformation to the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith.
12:39
Is that what y 'all hold to, Kevin? No, nor would we use the
12:45
Southern Baptist Faith and Message from the year 2000, but in addition to that, we also use the
12:52
Abstract of Principles. Now, I personally have used the 1689 to teach from on several different occasions, but we do not actually have that as our official creed at Norwood.
13:04
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's very sound. And so the
13:13
Athanasian Creed that you had mentioned, do y 'all want to take just a minute and kind of just read through it?
13:19
Certainly. You good? So again, it was to defend against the heresy of teaching that Jesus was a created being and not eternally with God and God in the
13:36
Jehovah's Witnesses. That's one of the things that you can, if you are a Christian and they come to your door,
13:43
I mean, it's exciting when you get them and they think they're going to give you their spiel and you say, well, let's go to John 1 .1.
13:53
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God, and the Word was with God, right?
13:59
To go to that because they interpret it that the
14:06
Word was a God, not a God. Yes. Yes. And that's the real challenge, and that's another reason why creeds and confessions and catechisms are so very important for us because it helps us kind of prioritize these things, right?
14:23
If you're anything like me and you're like ADHD, ADHD, ADHD, squirrel.
14:34
Oh, did I say ADHD? If you're anything like me, you've got all this stuff that runs around in your head, and it's hard to get it to slow down and to just put it in a systematic order.
14:49
It's very important. So let's look at that Nicene Creed real quick. So it was written in 325, I believe is the dating on that, but it says, we believe in one
14:57
God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible.
15:04
And then they added, and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten
15:10
Son of God, begotten of his Father before all worlds, God of God, light of light, very
15:18
God of God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the
15:24
Father by whom all things were made, who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven and was incarnate by the
15:34
Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary and was made man and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate.
15:41
He suffered and was buried and the third day he arose again according to the scriptures and ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the
15:50
Father. And he shall come again with glory to judge both the living and the dead, whose kingdom shall have no end.
15:58
And we believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and the giver of life who proceeds from the
16:05
Father and the Son. There's this, the Trinitarian doctrine coming in, being articulated, who with the
16:11
Father and the Son together is worshiped and glorified, who spoke by the prophets.
16:17
And we believe in one holy Catholic and apostolic church. That gets a lot of folks today, but we know that Catholic means what,
16:25
Matt? Universal. Universal, right? Not the Roman Catholic church. Orthodox.
16:31
Yes. Yes. We acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins and we look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.
16:42
So one of the questions in our communications throughout the last couple of weeks, just so that those who are watching know, we were kind of trying to figure out what kind of questions do we want to bring forth?
16:56
What kind of information do we want to set out? And one of the questions that I proposed to these men was, what does a creed actually say?
17:07
Do you remember that, Kevin? Yes. What was that? I actually wrote your reply in my notes.
17:15
What was that? What does a creed say? Let me find it here.
17:21
A good creed. Okay. The question is, what does a biblically sound creed, confession, or catechism say?
17:28
And I wrote, I will quote Claude from earlier this week in a conversation the three of us had when he said, it says the same thing that the
17:36
Bible says. That's right. Yeah. Because when we read that creed, that's like a sermon.
17:45
Boom, right there. As we would say, that'll preach. That's right.
17:50
Amen. Amen. So, I mean, in creeds, again,
18:01
I think today we live in a time where everybody wants
18:06
Christianity to be microwaved. They want it quick, they want it concise, and they want it short, right?
18:14
Yes. We deserve Christianity. Yes. And the church fathers did not want that for the church, because the church would not have survived on a piecemeal
18:26
Christianity, on a little bit here and a little bit there. There had to be a clear and a robust statement.
18:33
I'm going to go ahead. Like you said in your last podcast you did on your own about Bethel, these things need to be articulated well.
18:44
You can't just gloss over this stuff, and they need to be explained in detail to be understood well.
18:52
Yeah. If you go to a church's website, they may have two or three points where they can get everybody in.
19:01
Oh, everybody can agree with this. And then you get in and you realize, wait a minute, they didn't mention anything about that.
19:09
Right. Right. So what do y 'all think about...
19:15
I don't know if y 'all got to look any information up on this. I have something in the chamber ready if y 'all don't, but why robust confessions and creeds and catechisms are a healthy part of the church today?
19:33
Do y 'all have anything you want to say? I think, well, there's a bunch of reasons. I did some background information on that, but go ahead,
19:42
Matt. No, I was just going to kind of make a general statement. First is, I think these historical creeds and confessions and, as you said, a church's statement of faith or if they adopt one of these, it's important to have these in writing because whether people want to admit it or not, everybody has a creed and whether it's written down, whether it's in their mind, when you start speaking about these things, you're professing your creed.
20:18
That's right. If it's not written down, if it's not detailed, it's not robust, chances are it's going to change with the times.
20:28
That's right. I think that's one important, as you said, just in general, the reason church history is important, looking back at these things, is they've stood the test of time.
20:42
Amen. These heresies that they specifically addressed keep popping up.
20:48
That's right. We can look throughout history. This has been addressed. This is the church's stance based on Scripture.
20:56
That's how we can continue to refute it to this day. Right. Go ahead,
21:03
Kevin. What were you going to say? If I were going to use a bad analogy and not been guilty of that more often than I'd like to admit,
21:13
I would say that in a way, creeds and confessions and catechisms are kind of like cliff notes.
21:19
I'm sure you guys remember when we were in school and we were assigned a piece of literature to read and us being teenage boys in the way that we were, we didn't read it, so we went and grabbed cliff notes from Walmart or literature section, and we tried to read the cliff notes to get the gist of that Shakespeare or that John Steinbeck or whatever it was that we were assigned to read that we didn't want to read.
21:46
We used the cliff notes. Now, I would not recommend that you do that with creeds, confessions, and catechisms to figure out what the
21:54
Bible says, but I would say that it's important to remember the creeds, confessions, and catechisms, and I've taught this at Norwood.
22:03
People really like this. Another bad analogy, if you will. Those documents, they're kind of like guardrails, right?
22:12
Exactly. And they help. They really help to keep us as children of God from veering off the path of Orthodox Christianity into outright right heresy.
22:26
That they're really good for that, and I would encourage our listeners, if you're reading your
22:35
Bible, and you come upon something, and you think that you've received some type of new information, something that you haven't learned before, take the time to dig out some of these confessions, some of these creeds.
22:50
As he mentioned before, the Second London Baptist Confession of Faith from the year 1689, and compare what you think you have learned to what these people have confessed throughout the centuries, and if it doesn't line up, to be honest, you're probably wrong.
23:11
That's right. If somebody hasn't already thought of it, insofar as Scripture is concerned, somebody hasn't already learned it, then you're wrong.
23:19
That's exactly right. It's like their statement, any new revelation is just an old heresy.
23:26
That's right. There's nothing new in theology. I was going to say,
23:32
Kevin, along with your Cliff Notes example, I kind of had in my notes that these things provide us with a concise system of doctrine of the
23:43
Scripture that does kind of make it easier to learn these doctrines and kind of remember them, because at Refrom Auto right now on Sunday nights, we're going through a study of the 1689, and you can see in some of the sections you've got a paragraph's worth of information.
24:02
I mean, these paragraphs are packed full of doctrine and information, but then you go to look at the
24:08
Scripture references, and you might have eight or ten Scripture references, and you're getting all of that doctrine kind of packed into one concise paragraph that does kind of bring it all together and kind make it make a little better sense.
24:24
Like I say, obviously, you want to go to the Scripture, which we do. We read each one of the references.
24:31
Having those kind of just put together for you in a concise paragraph, you're encompassing a lot of doctrine together, and it does make it make sense and make it a little easier to remember.
24:46
That's exactly right. Yeah, and I appreciate your analogy there, the guardrails, because that is the truth.
24:55
And that's such a simple truth, but it's so powerful, because I mean, if we think about and we take that analogy and even make an application to our lives today,
25:06
I mean, what would it be like? Have y 'all watched a lot of Seinfeld? Watched it a little bit when it was...
25:13
This is not spiritual, but this is still good. So Seinfeld, I loved
25:20
Seinfeld when I was younger. I still like the reruns, but one episode, Kramer adopts a section of the highway, and so he decides that he's going to decrease the traffic flow by blacking over the lines that divide the lanes.
25:37
And of course, a traffic jam ensues, and there's chaos, right? We don't think about that.
25:43
We drive down the road, and those lines really aren't going to... If you cross the line, it's not going to hurt you.
25:49
What's going to hurt you is when you run into traffic coming the other way or when you run off on the ditch, right?
25:54
So I mean, these creeds, these confessions, these catechisms are those guardrails that keep us...
26:04
They're the bumps that start rattling your car when you start to veer off the way and to alert you to heresy and to alert you to falsehood.
26:14
Yeah, that's awesome. I would also add, if I may, that the creeds, confessions, and catechisms are also helpful in helping people know and understand what a specific church teaches and preaches.
26:29
For instance, if I were going to visit a church, say I were looking for a church in a new city, the first thing that I am going to do is pull that church's website up, and I personally am going to look to see to what confession they hold.
26:46
If they don't hold to a confession, I'm going to try to go over to... And Claude, you alluded to this earlier.
26:52
You said they might have a few... They might have a What We Believe section, have a few things in there.
26:58
I'm going to go to that section. I'm going to look and see if they say, this is what we believe about God, and this is what we believe about the
27:05
Trinity, this is what we believe and teach about salvation, the mechanics of salvation.
27:14
All of that is extremely important, and I would also add, if you go to a church's website and they don't have a
27:23
What We Believe section, be very careful. Be very careful, but just for example, at Norwood, when we do...
27:32
When a person comes to us and wants to join our fellowship, there's a class that they go through.
27:38
I went... My family, we all went through it together. You go through this class. It's about four hours over a course of several
27:46
Saturdays, and you go through the confession, the two confessions that we as a church to which we hold, and an elder goes through that with you and walks through that with you, and you look at that in Scripture, and at the end of the class, and this may seem excessive to a lot of people, but there's a document that you sign that say, as a member of Norwood Baptist Church, I affirm these two documents and the biblical truths that are held therein.
28:14
That way, there is no question whatsoever about what we believe and teach and preach at Norwood Baptist Church.
28:25
Yeah. I completely agree. That was going to be the next point in my notes. It said they unite us with other people around truths to which we all agree to adhere.
28:35
Amen. I think that does bring a unity within the church.
28:41
It should leave no room for the members to wonder what the elders, the leadership of the church believes, what they're going to be, the doctrines they're going to be preaching.
28:56
Again, I think that comes with that robust confession that you adhere to and not just skimming the surface on what you believe because, like you say, you go to some of these websites, and even what little they have on there might sound good.
29:13
You get there, and who knows what you might hear. Right. It passes the theological smell test, as Justin Peters would say.
29:25
By the way, we're hoping to have him on sometime. I've been trying to be in contact with him, but we're just a little fish in the big sea.
29:37
And I think going along with that, another thing I had in my notes is I think these things can be useful tools when considering people for church leadership.
29:49
Yes. Because if a church holds to one of these confessions, and someone who desires leadership is being looked to for leadership does not hold to the same beliefs that are expressed in these confessions, then they don't need to be in leadership at that church.
30:10
Right. And it brings dissension within the ranks. But by having, like you all have said, but by having that clearly defined understanding of what the scriptures teach, and there's agreement on that, because truly that has to be at the heart, in the very core, in the center of church as it is, right?
30:35
Because we're there to worship the triune God. And if there is modalism as one of those heresies that nobody even understands or knows, you say modalism, and most
30:47
Christians say, what's that? Right? They don't understand that. But as Christians, we should rightly be exposed and exposing, as elders, we should rightly be exposing those under our care to those theological terms.
31:07
And then going into these creeds, catechisms, and confessions and saying, see, this is what was taught historically.
31:14
These things creep in regularly. And you said it too, it's recycled, right?
31:21
How did you say that earlier? Any new revelation is just an old heresy. Yeah. Yeah. Because recycling has been around forever.
31:32
I think that kind of on another point goes to just the importance of knowing, studying church history in general, not just the creeds and confessions.
31:44
And as I say a lot on the podcast, I didn't know much about church history until probably the last five or six years.
31:54
And it's fascinating. It is. And like you said, to I think see, and I think under the two is kind of look to the conditions that these men were in when they wrote these documents, the persecution they were under and what they,
32:13
I mean, literally putting their life on the line for these things. And just like you said, just,
32:21
I think we would, we would do ourselves well to learn more about church history in general.
32:35
That's right. And appreciate those who have gone before us and not look at Christianity from an
32:46
American perspective. I think we've fallen into that trap of we're the, we're the center of Christianity in the world.
32:58
And we ain't. No, we ain't. So real quick here, let's take like a 30 second break.
33:09
We'll show the the here, the Righteous Wretch promo, and then we'll be right back,
33:14
Kevin. All right.
34:01
So if you get a chance sometime later this evening, we want to encourage you to go to righteouswretch .com.
34:07
Check out their gear. They're adding all kinds of gear. They've got gear, not only for men, but for women, for kids, they've, they've got all the bases covered.
34:14
So, and when you go use promo code HIS21, quick beard plug here as well.
34:21
Go to livebearded .com. If you've got, if you need some beard care products, use promo code.
34:29
Here I stand at checkout. They'll give you a 10 % discount. That'll help us out a little bit as well. So, all right.
34:35
So back to it. I'm going to go back to my BH Carroll quote. The longest creed of history is more valuable and less hurtful than the shortest.
34:45
He said, while the faith itself has many articles, there are unity in them.
34:51
They articulate, meaning they work together. And it is intensely important to bring all members of the church into unity, touching all the faith, right?
35:02
Well, what, let's ask this question. Um, what about specifically for, for, for, from your all's perspective and the creeds that you, that you all have read and looked at and studied, what about that specific creed?
35:19
And you can mention that guys, uh, whatever creed it is. Uh, what about that truly and personally affects you in your life and your application of the scriptures and living those out?
35:38
Right. Uh, can I take a swing at this one? Yes, sir.
35:44
Um, if you don't care, I'd like to share briefly how I came to understand what the creeds, confessions, and catechisms were in my own life.
35:52
And that'll kind of, you know, answer that question that you had asked. Um, I, like, like Matt said,
35:59
I didn't know. I just didn't. Um, I grew up in a Southern Baptist church.
36:05
Uh, every Southern Baptist church I ever attended was tiny. And, and, and I, it was,
36:10
I was, I would say I was in Bible college before I even knew what the Southern Baptist faith and message was.
36:17
Walk up to your typical Southern Baptist member right now, church member and ask them, what's your confession?
36:24
And to be fair, many of them don't even know that we as a denomination have our own confession, the
36:31
Southern Baptist faith and message from the year 2000. Most Southern Baptist just don't know that.
36:37
And it's not necessarily that they don't care. It's, they've not been taught.
36:43
They just don't know. But for me, I was pastoring a church literally, vocationally before I had ever even heard of, um, the reformed confessions.
36:56
And, um, I was, of all people, I was listening to a sermon on YouTube about Votibaka.
37:03
And he was preaching about predestination and election. And he was talking about, uh,
37:09
Jacob and Esau. And he's meant, he made mention in passing that their church and it's somewhere in Houston, not
37:18
Houston, somewhere in Texas, and maybe Dallas, but anyway, the church he used to pastor that they used the 1689
37:25
London, uh, Baptist confession of faith. And I thought, well, my goodness, what is that?
37:30
And I went home and I read it and my mind was blown. I, that was my introduction to, um, the reformed confessions.
37:42
And then, um, I had already been listening some to R .C. Sproul. Well, then I said, well, let me look at this
37:49
Westminster confession. So we're at the Westminster. And then I actually spent a great deal of time comparing them chapter by chapter to see how similar, uh, the confession of the
38:02
Presbyterian, reformed Presbyterians is to the confession of the reformed Baptist. And it's remarkably similar.
38:10
And for me personally, I have learned so much and have had a, a, a deeper understanding of scripture, a deepening, deeper understanding, deepening even continues to be, uh, of my, uh, of my, the
38:26
God that we worship, the triune Godhead that you mentioned earlier, my Lord and savior, um, and a better understanding of ecclesiology, how the church is governed, a better understanding of soteriology, the mechanics of salvation, and dare
38:41
I say, a, a, a differing understanding now than what
38:47
I was raised in eschatology. And so, and, and I just,
38:56
I just said all that to say this, it really has enriched, uh, my faith.
39:01
And, um, there were several members of different churches where I've, I've been a part of that.
39:08
I've, I've introduced to, uh, the, the, uh, Baptist confession of faith from 1689.
39:15
I actually, I got this one from RBC Louisville. They actually hold these in their foyer and give them to visitors.
39:21
I was very impressed with that. That's awesome. Yes. And, um,
39:27
I give people a copy of the confession and I say, read this. And people have, have contacted me and said, thank you for introducing me to, uh, confessions and creeds and catechisms.
39:39
And, you know, again, I got to give credit where it's due. Uh, Votie was the one that pointed me in the right direction, not personally, but through, uh, his ministry and the sermons that I found on YouTube.
39:50
And, and so I, I personally, I'm very grateful. Again, I spent, you know,
39:56
I'm a four -year graduate of Liberty University and not once did they ever say anything to us in Bible college quote -unquote about the reformed confessions.
40:08
Wow. Again, that's not a mark against Liberty. I'm not saying anything about my alma mater, just that it just, it wasn't, it wasn't something that we discussed in, in my theological training.
40:20
Wow. That, uh, I mean, that, that blows my mind. I mean,
40:26
I've not. Well, Liberty's not a quote reformed unquote, uh, institution either.
40:32
So. Right. Yeah. That's, I mean, my, I'm very similar to that.
40:38
I grew up Southern Baptist churches all my life. Never, never heard a thing about confessions, the creeds, catechisms, probably, but I can remember my first exposure to them was visiting what was a church plant at the time and they read one of the creeds each week, brought the kids up for catechisms.
41:06
And like the first week I was like, well, what's this, what's going on here? I mean, what popped into my mind was, are we doing, is this like a
41:16
Catholic church or something? What kind of sorcery is this? And then, so I was kind of looked into it a little bit then, but it still didn't like sink in, but similar to Kevin, as I started listening to reformed teachers and preachers, started hearing them mention these confessions just as part of their messages, not going into a lot of detail, but learning a little bit about them there, but really never took the time on my own to look into them until came to reformata and got involved in the study there.
41:55
And like, so I think the big thing, as you mentioned before, I think it helps you understand why we believe what we believe.
42:08
Here's the scripture, go read it. Here's what it says. So you, if you've got any issues, here's why
42:18
I believe it, because the scripture says it. And I think it's, that's, what's been helpful to me.
42:23
And I think seeing you get a doctrine and just seeing a multitude of scripture that points you to that doctrine.
42:35
And I think that's been the biggest thing is helpful to me.
42:41
Unity in the faith. Well, and I would add one more thing.
42:48
I know I do that a lot. Okay. That's what we're here for, brother. The apostle wrote in first Peter chapter three, verse 15, he wrote, but sanctify
43:00
Christ as Lord in your hearts. And here's the important part to this conversation, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you yet.
43:11
And this is also important with gentleness and reverence. And as a Bible teacher, as an elder, it is my common practice when somebody makes a statement and I will say, okay, where is that chapter and verse?
43:28
And people get frustrated with that. But I will go into it, but there are certain, there are certain beliefs that a lot of people, again, we'll use
43:38
Southern Baptist because that's where we all grew up. Southern Baptist, there are certain beliefs that many people have always quote, assumed, unquote, were biblical.
43:48
And I have actually, with kindness and gentleness, as much as I can muster, show them brother or sister in Christ, that is absolutely not biblical.
43:58
And I point to that text. And again, to use the word that Matt keeps using, and I like it, a robust confession that a church holds to very much helps those church members say, wow, this is not what
44:17
I always believed growing up. And then, like you said earlier, it's got a scripture reference.
44:25
Most of the time, 10 or 15 for that one paragraph, it's got different scriptural reference.
44:30
And you look each one up and say, okay, this is where they got that point. That's where they got this point. And you see all the crisscrossing lines throughout the entire canyon of scripture from Genesis all the way to the maps.
44:43
And you see how it all ties together. And you say, well, you know what?
44:50
I guess there is no such thing as the age of accountability. Well, I guess there is no such thing as this point.
44:56
But the other thing that I've always believed as a Southern Baptist, well, I guess there is maybe, dare
45:01
I say it out loud, no such thing as a secret rapture. Right.
45:07
What about the doctrine that says cleanliness is next to godliness?
45:13
Isn't that in there? Frankly, that's not God. Go ahead, Matt. What were you going to say?
45:19
I was going to say along with Kevin's point, in my notes, I had it. These confessions help us see the coherence of scripture.
45:28
And I think as we discussed a while back, we were talking about creation in the 1689.
45:37
Yeah. I think when you go through the whole scripture, you start there.
45:43
You build your foundation. And these things work you through the entire scripture.
45:49
And as Kevin said, shows how everything works together. And it's pretty cool to see, like you say, there's not just one place where a doctrine is talked about.
46:05
Like I said, I think Steve Lawson, he talked about, I think he grew up kind of Southern Baptist non -reformed.
46:13
It's like once he finally saw it, it's like you can't unsee it. You see it on every page of scripture.
46:20
These doctrines just stand out now. You can't say amen, you ought to say ouch.
46:27
Amen. I think this is, some people don't like this word, but it's what these are for.
46:35
It's a tool to teach people theology. And it's something,
46:43
I mean, we're called to love God with our mind too. That's exactly right.
46:49
A lot of people don't in this day and age, people either disregard it or some people are just against it.
46:59
I mean, you start talking about studying and getting knowledge and these things and they're like, whoa,
47:06
I don't know about that. I just love God. I just love Jesus.
47:13
Which Jesus do you love? You got to know who you love.
47:23
That kind of led to my next point. I think this, by learning the theology in these confessions and creeds, it supports our worship.
47:36
Amen. Because we are learning about God. We're learning about Christ. We're learning about the
47:42
Holy Spirit. And as we learn about them, we should love them more and want to worship them more.
47:50
And we know who we're worshiping. We're learning how to worship, what's acceptable worship.
47:57
And that's ultimately what we're pointing to. You got to know who you're worshiping to rightly worship them.
48:10
We're not worshiping the unknown God, thank the Lord. What was it
48:15
Paul said? I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day.
48:22
That's correct brother. Praise the Lord on that. Matt, I want to piggyback on just one quick thing
48:29
Matt had said. And I was thinking about this as I was in preparation for this podcast, and I hadn't thought about this for years.
48:38
But when I, and I want to be delicate how I say this, when
48:43
I left my first pastorate, there's a lot of sadness and mourning involved when you leave a pastorate.
48:51
And we were at a church just visiting. We did not become members, but they welcomed us.
48:58
They loved us. They had elders. It's a church down south of here, but they were
49:06
EFCA, Evangelical Free Church of America. And they, if I recall, they were 16, they held to the 1689 confession.
49:15
But what was important to this conversation is Matt was talking about the confessions and catechisms being used in worship.
49:24
At this church at River Oaks Community Church, they actually had these big banners that had the
49:33
Apostles Creed written on it. They had one that had the Nicene Creed written on it.
49:39
And as I'm sitting there in tears on some Sundays morning in a selfish way, to be honest, what
49:47
I consider to be the loss of my ministry, here I was and my family was encouraged by these biblical truths that we're confronted by these truths as soon as you walk into the worship center of this church.
50:01
And I hadn't thought about that for years, but I thought, man, that's relevant. Maybe I should mention that to these guys because what a powerful way to remind
50:11
God's people of God's truth. And Matt had actually said that he talked about the children coming down and reading a creed or a catechism out loud.
50:22
Reformed Baptist Church of Nashville, we visited a couple of years ago. They actually take a paragraph from the 1689 and read it out loud.
50:32
And one of the elders will stand and make comments on it. So, yeah, what an important part of worship that these confessions really hold.
50:45
They really play a huge role in worship, whether we know it or not. Amen. Man, we've covered quite a bit of ground, guys.
50:59
Go ahead. Well, I got a couple of questions. We kind of discussed this leading up, but I think as we've talked in general, kind of in Christianity today,
51:14
I would say there's probably a waning interest in these type of things in church history in general and something
51:23
I know that we've discussed. But what would you, just for our listeners, we can address this to them.
51:29
What would you all say to those who would, when confronted with this, their response would be,
51:36
I don't need any other creed but Christ? I was wondering if we were going to talk about that.
51:42
Go ahead, Kevin. No creed but Christ. Go ahead, brother. Knock it out.
51:49
I would say personally, and I've kind of tried to think about this for the last week or so, there seems to be, in my mind, there seems to be two reasons, two main reasons that people will make that quote, no creed but Christ, which, to quote
52:05
Joe Thorne, is in and of itself a creed. That's right. When you say no creed but Christ, you're making a creed.
52:13
Right. But I think there's two main reasons that people feel that way.
52:19
Matt kind of alluded to this earlier, and I'm really glad you did. Matt made mention of the fact that they had visited the church and somebody said the word catechism, and he said, oh, that sounds
52:31
Catholic. I think that's one reason, honestly, and we laugh and jest, right?
52:37
But I think that, honestly, Protestants, and I want to say that delicately, but especially
52:44
Baptist. You're on the Stand Theology podcast. There's no delicacy required.
52:49
Just say it, brother. But we, as Protestants, we are very wary about Catholic dogma, and to be fair, rightly so.
53:01
So when we, as, and I say Protestants, but I mostly mean Baptists, when we, as Southern Baptists, when we hear that word catechism, we hear that word creed, or we hear that word confession, we think that it, quote, sounds
53:16
Catholic, unquote, and so we shy away from it. Like, oh, wait a minute. That sounds Catholic.
53:21
I'm Protestant. I'm Baptist. I'm not Catholic, and I had talked about this before.
53:30
You know, like Southern Baptists, we, a lot of us, a lot of people don't realize we have a confession.
53:36
It's not as good as a 1689, but the London Baptist Confession of Faith is biblical, and that leads to the second reason.
53:48
I think it's just ignorance, and I don't mean that, I don't mean people are stupid. I mean, they're just uninformed.
53:56
They just flat out don't know, and that's the end of it, really.
54:04
Maybe, you know, first, people think it sounds Catholic, or even, you know, well, it sounds
54:10
Presbyterian. I don't baptize babies. I'm a Baptist. I don't want to have anything to do with that Presbyterian stuff, you know, and then that leads into the second point.
54:20
People just don't know, not because they're stupid. They're just uninformed. That's right.
54:26
Yeah, I would agree with that. Well, I think the important thing about that is, like, if somebody says that, then, obviously, the follow -up question is, well, who is
54:37
Christ? What do you believe about Christ? You have to explain your beliefs about Christ is to further your creed, to confess these things.
54:47
You can't just believe in no creed but Christ, because Christ entails so much that you have to start getting in to the details, and therefore, you're expanding your creed.
55:04
Which takes us back to the early creeds, right? The non -Trinitarian heresy and the modalism, those things of that nature that were brought up.
55:17
That brings us right back to the importance of church history, right? You mentioned Christ, so somebody asked who is
55:23
Christ. You said a follow -up question when somebody says, I don't have any creed but Christ.
55:29
I don't need me and nothing but a stump and my King James Bible. Right.
55:40
There's a term for that. It's called Biblicists, right? They think they only need the Scripture. But again, the number one rule, which we learned in the
55:52
London Baptist Confession of Faith for interpreting Scripture, is Scripture itself, right?
55:58
And that's true in a degree. However, church history is the kind of measure.
56:07
You both alluded to this earlier, right? If you've got a new idea, well,
56:13
I've never seen it quite that way before. I don't think anybody else in history has seen it that way before. It's not likely that there's not been anybody in history that's never seen that before.
56:22
But it's just been proved out that what they thought was incorrect because they weren't comparing
56:30
Scripture with Scripture. So somebody says, who is Christ? Well, of course, we're not going to have all this memorized.
56:37
But what if we just set them down and we said, well, first of all, when we talk about Christ, we believe
56:43
God was pleased in His eternal purpose to choose and ordain the Lord Jesus. What?
56:50
Now there's going to be, that's chapter 8, Kevin. Now there's going to be some thought required.
56:55
Oh, here we go. This is not easy Christianity. This is not what I, this is not what
57:01
I walked the aisle for. This is not what I said the prayer for, right? I prayed for my best life now and I'm done with it.
57:11
So, I mean. I would add. Go ahead. I'm sorry, brother.
57:18
No, you go ahead. You're good. I'm good. I would just say briefly, I would add, and this is not, this is being as gracious as I can.
57:29
I often feel some arrogance up from those that say,
57:34
I only, I have no creed but Christ. And for me personally, when
57:40
I look at the beautiful truths contained in the 1689 and then
57:46
I've also got the Heidelberg Catechism in this gray book. I've also got the
57:53
Westminster Confession in this blue book. When I read these beautiful truths,
58:00
I look at that and I'm dumbfounded and I realize I'm humiliated and I don't mean humiliated in a bad way, but I am humbled, if you will, by how much
58:13
God has revealed to these men in the past and how beautiful, how beautifully they express these truths.
58:19
And here I am trying to come in here as a redneck hillbilly from, you know, grew up in Mississippi and now lives in Tennessee.
58:27
And here I try to explain things from the pulpit. It just sounds terrible compared to how it's written and how much more better it's described in the, and you understand the point
58:42
I'm trying to make. I may not be doing a good job, but it's an humbling experience to read through these confessions and say, wow,
58:52
I just didn't know that. Or wow, I had never thought about it that way before.
58:58
Or wow, I never looked at it from that perspective. Let me go compare that in the
59:04
Berean fashion, as Paul mentioned in the book of Acts, compare everything to scripture to see if it's true.
59:11
And as you go through and look at those confessions and compare them to scripture and see that those confessions are true, it's an humbling experience to just really sit in the presence of biblical, you know, in the presence of God, as you've read biblical truth and just say, thank you,
59:28
Lord. That's an humbling experience. Yeah. It's like sitting through a sermon where you're just blown away.
59:37
Right. I mean, and again, because a biblically sound creed says the same thing that the
59:42
Bible says. Absolutely. People would, and it really just goes to kind of how people are set up.
59:51
But in general, I think people, some people would rather read through church history, read the catechisms and confessions and glean from that.
01:00:00
Other people want to sit under a preacher, right? But both, they're both the same thing, right?
01:00:07
A creed saying the same thing that the Bible says. And if a man of God is standing in the pulpit, that's exactly what he's going to be doing.
01:00:14
They are akin to each other. They go hand in hand. Correct. And I would argue that,
01:00:22
I'm sorry, let me just say this one thing, Matt. I would argue that a good pastor is pointing those in his congregation or a group of good pastors, they're pointing those under their care to the reformed creeds, confessions and catechisms.
01:00:38
Amen. I was going to say my kind of final point, which Claude touched on with people that say they're a
01:00:47
Biblicist. I kind of had a little different language. Some people might say that these creeds, confessions, things are incompatible with Sola Scriptura.
01:00:57
But we just kind of went through that discussion. And if you kind of go that route, you could say the same thing for sermons, commentaries, systematic theologies, anything.
01:01:11
And we know through Scripture that God's given us men as teachers and preachers to teach from his word.
01:01:21
So yes, obviously, Scripture is our final authority. We need to be reading and studying that ourselves.
01:01:30
But to disregard the teaching of men who
01:01:35
God has gifted with that ability is foolishness. If you can't say amen, you ought to say out.
01:01:46
And I think a lot of times, I think, as Kevin said, for a lot of people that would say that,
01:01:55
I think it is just a sense of ignorance and just not really logically thinking and taking their argument to its logical end, where that leads.
01:02:05
They probably, if you would explain that to them, they wouldn't necessarily end up thinking what they originally thought.
01:02:17
So I think it's just not grounded good to say,
01:02:25
Sola Scriptura, we got to get rid of all this other stuff. Because at that point, you just unless you're just sitting at home in your room by yourself, just reading the
01:02:36
Bible and not listening to anybody, which, again, is not good, because we know that the
01:02:41
Lord's gifted. That's right. People to teach and preach. That's right. With the express purpose of them being rooted and grounded in the faith.
01:02:51
Right. So we've talked about creeds, confessions.
01:03:00
We've mentioned catechisms, right? So the creeds, the Apostles' Creed, Nicene Creed, if you've watched and not had a chance to look at those, we encourage you to look at those confessions.
01:03:13
We've mentioned the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith. There's the Westminster Confession. And real quickly, we'll cover a little bit about the catechisms, right?
01:03:22
We kind of alluded to it earlier at the beginning to set the guardrails, the standards up for what these are.
01:03:32
But Kevin mentioned the Heidelberg Catechism. And the Heidelberg Catechism is actually set up to be read every
01:03:41
Sunday in church. If you look at the catechism, the catechism was, I guess, formed in 1563.
01:03:49
And each section of the catechism itself is set up, Lord's Day, number one, Lord's Day, number two, all the way up to 52.
01:03:56
We know there's 52 weeks in a year, right? So it was set up to be established.
01:04:02
And it is, in itself, is so beautiful.
01:04:09
I mean, just the question one and two, which are covered on Lord's Day one, it says this, the question would be asked.
01:04:20
And I think they are meant to be used responsibly. Church is a spectator sport for most folks, right?
01:04:29
We just go and we sit, the singer does their thing, the preacher does his thing, then we go home.
01:04:35
Worship is a corporate event. To use the word not to go into charismania, but it is an experience, right?
01:04:44
Because we are worshiping the true and the living God, and we are meant to do that. That's exactly right.
01:04:50
We're meant to do it together. I mean, have you ever tried to clap your hands, but only use one hand?
01:04:59
You'll drive yourself crazy, right? Your mind saying, put your other hand up, stupid, put your other hand up, stupid, hit them together, and you're looking like a seal, right?
01:05:09
But they go hand in hand. And the church, we're taught throughout Scripture, the church is many members, but one body.
01:05:16
And we function together. I mean, just going to the Scripture itself, when we read in Colossians, right?
01:05:26
Sing to yourselves, making melody in your hearts to the Lord. When we're at church, man,
01:05:32
I'm not turning around and facing you, and you're not turning around and facing me. But when we're singing, when we're singing hymns and songs and spiritual songs, we together, when we lift our voice together, we're magnifying
01:05:48
God. And I mean, it's a bummer when you go to a church, and the song leader's up there, and they're singing, and everybody else is, everybody's sitting up there, picking their nose and looking around, right?
01:06:03
We all know this. We've all seen this. Oatmeal, peppermint, butterscotch, whatever.
01:06:09
Yeah. But when we are united in our worship, and we lift our voices together, when we do responsive reading on Sunday mornings with the
01:06:19
Psalms, and just like this catechism, this would be ideal for us to do, right? Responsive reading sounds
01:06:26
Catholic. It does, don't it? All right. So the question in the catechism, sorry, guys, we'll move to a close here, but Lord's Day number one, the question is asked, what is your only hope and comfort in life and death?
01:06:45
Right. Man, just think about that. If you're a Christian, and you're watching this episode, ask yourself that question.
01:06:52
What is your comfort and hope in life and death? And then read the answer that I, with my body and my soul, both in life and death,
01:07:02
I am not my own, but I belong under my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ. Man, that'll make an
01:07:11
Episcopalian run out of his choir robe. That is exciting. I mean, that is,
01:07:16
I mean, seriously, for the Christian, we ought to be, these things that we have through church history,
01:07:24
I mean, we ought to take advantage of these. If there's Oreos in the pantry, guess what? I'm not looking at them.
01:07:30
I'm eating them. If there's ice cream in the freezer, I'm not thinking, I'm glad there's ice cream in my freezer.
01:07:35
I'm sticking my hand in there, and I'm scooping it out, right? So, we have a treasure that God has given us in creeds, catechisms, and confessions that every
01:07:48
Christian ought to be making the most of. That's my closing rant. I'm sorry, guys.
01:07:53
I got a little bit excited there, but... I was going to say, to close up on my end, one thing we've talked about on here before, we want to try to point everything to the gospel.
01:08:05
As we've said before, kind of a simple definition of the gospel is the good news of the person and work of Jesus Christ and how the benefits are appropriated to the believer.
01:08:21
These documents run you through all of that stuff.
01:08:27
You read through these, you're going to have a good understanding of who
01:08:33
Christ is, what he did, the nature of man, why we need a
01:08:41
Savior, who God is. You're going to get the gospel from these documents, and that's, again, the great stuff.
01:08:56
Kevin, you got anything to say in closing? Well, and just to piggyback on what
01:09:03
Matt said, to just kind of reiterate a bit, when I do street preaching, when
01:09:10
I'm able to do it and I go, I always try to focus my little short sermon on four pillars of the gospel.
01:09:16
I learned this from Nine Marks, which I recommend the Nine Marks material.
01:09:23
When I preach a sermon, and even in from the pulpit in the church, I want to talk about God, man, sin, and Jesus.
01:09:34
To me, those are the four pillars of the gospel as the Nine Marks material explains it.
01:09:40
And just exactly like Matt said, you're going to look at the 1689. It's going to tell you about God and his holiness, and the same with the
01:09:48
Westminster and the same with the Heidelberg. You're going to look and it's going to talk about man and how
01:09:54
God created man. It's going to talk about the fall of man in Genesis chapter three, how Eve was deceived and how
01:10:00
Adam chose Eve over God. It's going to talk about how all of Adam's progeny, all of us that came after, how
01:10:07
Adam is our federal head and how we're all born into sinfulness and wickedness and born deserving of hell and how we commit acts of wickedness that are cosmic treason against God and how
01:10:20
Jesus came as the second person of the Trinitarian Godhead. He suffered God's wrath upon the cross for the sins of those who would believe.
01:10:29
And the only hope that we have in life and death is that salvation that Jesus Christ offers to those who believe.
01:10:39
And I just took the long way around again, like I always seem to do, but that's the gospel.
01:10:47
That's the gospel. And like you both said, it is in these documents. Yes. Christ is crucified.
01:10:56
Amen. Amen. All right. Well, you have today, if you're watching this episode, we want to, again, say thank you so much for taking the time to spend this hour and 10, 11 minutes with us.
01:11:14
We want to ask you, we want to humbly ask you, if you would, please like and share this video on YouTube and as well on Facebook.
01:11:27
Really share this information, right? Because I know we gave a lot of information today.
01:11:33
Just have your friends, have your family members take a look at this. Have your friends and your family members go to Kevin's page and Matt's page and blow them up with questions.
01:11:45
They'll be glad, seriously, they'll be glad to answer any questions that you have.
01:11:51
And it's important, if you are a Christian, take the time to dig into this, to dig into church history, to dig into the creeds, confessions, and catechisms for yourself.
01:12:04
Kevin mentioned this in passing, and I'm going to mention this in closing because this is running around in my
01:12:09
ADHD mind. The confessions are largely alike.
01:12:17
Really, this is just something that you can, a nugget that you can take with you.
01:12:23
The difference, and I'll ask Matt to answer this question. What are the two primary differences between the
01:12:32
Westminster Confession and the London Baptist Confession? Baptism and church government.
01:12:38
Right. Baptism and church government. Those really are simple. They coordinate, they, what's the word, complement.
01:12:48
They complement each other truly through and through. Presbyterians, go ahead.
01:12:54
I was going to say they complement because they're scripturally based. Amen. Yep, that's true.
01:13:00
And it's almost like the scripture is coherent through and through. Kevin, I think you used the term, the big term, what's the, it's a
01:13:07
P word that means clear. Put me on the spot, I don't remember.
01:13:13
Matt, do you know? I don't remember. Purposcuity. The purposcuity of scripture.
01:13:21
Why would we say purposcuity of scripture? I don't know, but it means the clarity of scripture.
01:13:29
All right, guys. I don't think I said that. I've been practicing that all day.
01:13:36
Oh, yeah, of course you have. Well, guys, Kevin, truly, we love you, brother.
01:13:42
Thanks again, Kevin. Appreciate you being here. Appreciate our listeners. Those that are watching, again, please share, like, and promote this for the honor and for the glory of God.
01:13:55
Kevin, hang on just a minute. We'll play the closing graphic, and then we'll talk with you for just a second, okay?