With a new year comes a new blog series! For the next three months, we’re going to go line by line through the Apostles’ Creed, reflecting on its confessions, and unpacking what they mean for our faith. But before digging into the creed itself, let’s take a thirty-thousand-foot view by answering two questions you might have.
What is the Apostles’ Creed?
The Apostles’ Creed is one of the Christian church’s earliest statements of faith. Despite the name, there’s no evidence that the actual Apostles had anything to do with crafting this document. The earliest mention of the creed is in a letter from 390 A.D. That’s long after the last living Apostle would have died, but it’s still a very old document and dates back to some of the earliest years of the New Testament church.
C.S. Lewis wrote a popular book concerning what he called “mere Christianity.” To him, that is the essential tenants of the faith that all believers have in common. This idea wasn’t unique to Lewis. The goal of the Apostles’ Creed is to identify that mere Christianity and church history tends to evaluate it favorably. Christians disagree on all sorts of things, but the contents of this creed are something we share in common with believers throughout the world and throughout history. If you agree with the big doctrines in this creed, you’re in. If not, your religion is something other than Christianity.
Why Study the Apostles’ Creed?
Cool history lesson. But why spend three months writing blogs about this old creed? Here’s just a few reasons why I think this is worth our time:
1. Focus on the essentials – It’s easy for us to get hung up on the “advanced” questions of our faith. When and how should someone be baptized? Is the millennium in Revelation a literal thousand-year kingdom or a symbol for something else? All of these are questions worth answering (though I might be less enthusiastic to discuss the millennium with you). However, none of them are at the very core of what we believe. The creed draws our attention back to what’s most important.
2. A sense of history – Old creeds and catechisms remind us that Christianity didn’t show up on the scene yesterday. Christianity has flourished on the same message for thousands of years: Jesus Christ died and rose again to save sinners. It’s tempting sometimes to give into panic at some of the pressures we face for our faith today. But Christianity isn’t a flash in the pan. It has been around for a long time and it’s here to stay.
3. A bigger perspective – I won’t presume to speak for you, but I get pretty selfish sometimes. I can evaluate everything based on how it affects me. Creeds like this remind me that Christianity isn’t just about me or even about our local church. We’re a part of God’s family that is way bigger than our zip code. God is on a mission that spans the whole world and the all of history. I get to be a part of that mission, but I shouldn’t be so arrogant as to think it’s all about me.
Creeds are worth our attention. If you’ve never read the Apostles Creed, you can find it here. If you’ve read it before, this is a good time to give it another look.