BIBLES * Bulldogs * & Beards

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Creeds Offer Succinct and Thorough Summaries of the Faith.

Is there anything that offers a more thorough summary of the faith than the historic creeds and confessions?

Two related aspects of using historical creeds:

First, creeds focus the church’s mind on the main things.

Longevity. Why is this important?

Is it unlikely for a church that holds to a historic creed to become sidetracked by the issues of the passing moment?

Does it help to focus instead on the great theological categories that touch on matters of eternal significance?

Second, the succinctness of creeds.

“Today we have the woeful influence of things like Wikipedia in leading some to think that all important knowledge can be swiftly grasped in short sentences and after a few minutes of cursory reading.”

“Would one really want to have a church confession that said nothing about the doctrine of Scripture, the doctrine of God, the nature of justification and sanctification, the definition of the church, and so on?”

“A church confession needs a level of complexity in order for each of its doctrines to be stable and to function correctly.“

Does the history of doctrine in the church give ample witness to this fact?

Creeds Allow for Appropriate Discrimination between Members & Office-bearers.

Should laypeople be required to subscribe to a church's doctrinal standards in the same way as an elder or deacon?

“Typically, Presbyterians set the bar for full communicant church membership very low: a simple but publicly coherent profession of faith in the line of Romans 10:9-10 is sufficient.”

Qualifications of teachers:

1 Timothy 1:1-7 - Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by command of God our Savior and of Christ Jesus our hope,

To Timothy, my true child in the faith:

Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.

As I urged you when I was going to Macedonia, remain at Ephesus so that you may charge certain persons not to teach any different doctrine, nor to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies, which promote speculations rather than the stewardship from God that is by faith. The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. Certain persons, by swerving from these, have wandered away into vain discussion, desiring to be teachers of the law, without understanding either what they are saying or the things about which they make confident assertions.

“the careful communication of the faith in a manner that focuses on the straight forward teaching of the gospel.” “maturity and discernment”

“He is also to make sure that his ambition is to teach, not to be a teacher.” What is the difference?

So, in order to teach, the teacher is to have a certain competence in doctrine that does not typically mark the church member.

Is the ability to teach nonnegotiable?

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