Theological Term of the Week

catechism
A systematic instruction of the basic doctrine and beliefs of the Christian faith, usually written in the form of questions with answers to be memorized.

• A catechisms helps fulfill commands of scripture: 

  And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. (Deuteronomy 6:6-9 ESV)

• From Kim Riddlebarger in The Need To Recover the Practise of Catechism:

Catechism (from the Greek word catechesis) is simply instruction in the basic doctrines of the Christian faith. Instead of replacing or supplanting the role of the Bible in Christian education, catechism ideally serves as the basis for it. For the practice of catechism, as properly understood, is the Christian equivalent of looking at the box top of a jigsaw puzzle before one starts to put all of those hundreds of little pieces together. It is very important to look at the big picture and have it clearly in mind, so that we do not bog down in details, or get endlessly sidetracked by some unimportant or irrelevant issue. The theological categories given to us through catechism, help us to make sense out of the myriad of details found in the Scriptures themselves. Catechism serves as a guide to better understanding Scripture. That being noted however, we need to remind ourselves that Protestants have always argued that creeds, confessions and catechisms are authoritative only in so far as they faithfully reflect the teaching of Holy Scripture. This means that the use of catechisms, which correctly summarize biblical teaching, does not negate or remove the role of Holy Scripture. Instead, these same creeds, confessions and catechisms, as summary statements of what the Holy Scriptures themselves teach about a particular doctrine, should serve as a kind of springboard to more effective Bible study. When this is the case, these confessions, creeds and catechisms are invaluable tools to help us learn about the important themes and doctrines that are in Scripture.

The practice of catechism also serves as an important safeguard against heresy and helps to mitigate some of the problems associated with the private interpretation of Scripture. How many times have you been forced to sit through a Bible study in which the goal was not to discover what the text actually says, but instead to discover what a particular verse means to each of the studies’ participants? When we remember that virtually every cult in America began with an open Bible and a charismatic leader who could ensure his or her followers that they alone have discovered what everyone else, especially the creeds, confessions and catechisms, have missed, we see perhaps the greatest value of catechism. These guides protect us from such errors and self-deluded teachers. As American evangelicals have moved away from the practice of catechism for subjective and experiential modes of meaning, it is no accident that biblical illiteracy has risen to embarrassing levels and that false doctrines have rushed in like a flood. These important safeguards of basic doctrine have been removed, and since Satan is, of course, the fathers of all lies, we are most helpless against him when the truth is not known.

Learn more:

1. Wikipedia: catechism
2. Covenant of Grace RPC: Catechism, what is it?
3. Zacharias Ursinus: What Is Catechism?
4. Kim Riddlebarger:  The Need To Recover the Practise of Catechism
5. Tom Nettles: An Encouragement to Use Catechisms, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

A few Protestant catechisms:1

• Luther’s Small Catechism
• Luther’s Large Catechism
• The Geneva Catechism
• Bunyan’s Catechism
• Keach’s Catechism
• A Puritan Catechism (Spurgeon)
• Two Short Catechisms (John Owen)

Related terms:

• Heidelberg Catechism
• Westminster Shorter Catechism
• Westminster Larger Catechism

Filed under Creeds and Confessions.

1I’ve not listed the Heidelberg Catechism, which already has it’s own Theological Term entry, nor the Shorter or Larger Westminster Catechisms, which will soon have their own entry, too.

Do you have a term you’d like to see featured here as a Theological Term of the Week? If you email it to me, I’ll seriously consider using it, giving you credit for the suggestion and linking back to your blog when I do.

Clicking on the Theological Term graphic at the top of this post will take you to a list of all the previous theological terms in alphabetical order.

Theological Term of the Week

London Baptist Confession of Faith of 1689
A statement of faith written by Particular Baptists in England to articulate what they believed to be biblical teaching on the things most important.

• From the London Baptist Confession: 

  Chapter 29: Of Baptism

  1. Baptism is an ordinance of the New Testament, ordained by Jesus Christ, to be unto the party baptized, a sign of his fellowship with him, in his death and resurrection; of his being engrafted into him; of remission of sins; and of giving up into God, through Jesus Christ, to live and walk in newness of life.

  2. Those who do actually profess repentance towards God, faith in, and obedience to, our Lord Jesus Christ, are the only proper subjects of this ordinance. 

  3. The outward element to be used in this ordinance is water, wherein the party is to be baptized, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. 

  4. Immersion, or dipping of the person in water, is necessary to the due administration of this ordinance. 

• From the introduction to A Faith to Confess:

Between the years 1644 and 1648 an Assembly of Puritan Divines of England and Scotland had drawn up the Westminster Confession which was and is highly esteemed by believers. But its church Order was that of Presbyterianism, and Baptists differed from it on important matters such as the nature of the gathered church, baptism, the Lord’s supper and church government. Hence, when opportunity arose, they drew up their own Confession of Faith, accepting the fundamental doctrines of the Westminster Confession but making such adjustments to, and correction of, that Confession as seemed to their minds and consciences to be demanded by the pure Word of God. Thus a comparison of the two Confessions will reveal many word-for-word similarities but also sundry changes.

A dozen years after the Baptist Confession was drawn up by persecuted ministers a new era of liberty dawned, and in 1689 thirty-seven leading Baptist ministers re-issued the Confession. In England and Wales it became the definitive Confession of the Particular or Calvinistic churches and remained so for the next two centuries. Its alternative title was the Old London Confession. In 1744 it was adopted by the Calvinistic Baptists of North America, and called by them the Philadelphia Confession of Faith.

Learn more:

1. Theopedia: London Baptist Confession of 1689
2. James Anderson: A Tabular Comparison of the 1646 WCF and the 1689 LBCF
3. Tom Ascol: Interview on the London Baptist Confession of 1689
4. Michael Haykin: The 1689 Confession: The Message (mp3); The 1689 Confession: The Men (mp3)
5. Greg Nichols: Studies in the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith (mp3 series) 

Related terms:

• Belgic Confession
• Heidelberg Catechism
• Second Helvetic Confession
• Canons of Dordt
• Westminster Confession of Faith

Filed under Creeds and Confessions.

Do you have a term you’d like to see featured here as a Theological Term of the Week? If you email it to me, I’ll seriously consider using it, giving you credit for the suggestion and linking back to your blog when I do.

Clicking on the Theological Term graphic at the top of this post will take you to a list of all the previous theological terms in alphabetical order.

Theological Term of the Week

Canons of Dordt
The doctrinal statements adopted by the Synod of Dordt (1618-1619), consisting of the judicial decisions on disputed doctrinal points from the Arminian controversy.

• From the Canons of Dordt: 

  THIRD AND FOURTH HEAD: ARTICLE 12. And this is that regeneration so highly extolled in Scripture, that renewal, new creation, resurrection from the dead, making alive, which God works in us without out aid.  But this is in no wise effected merely by the external preaching of the gospel, by moral suasion, or such a mode of operation that, after God has performed His part, it still remains in the power of man to be regenerated or not, to be converted or to continue unconverted; but it is evidently a supernatural work, most powerful, and at the same time most delightful, astonishing, mysterious, and ineffable; not inferior in efficacy to creation or the resurrection from the dead, as the Scripture inspired by the Author of this work declares; so that all in whose heart God works in this marvelous manner are certainly, infallibly, and effectually regenerated, and do actually believe.  Whereupon the will thus renewed is not only actuated and influenced by God, but in consequence of this influence becomes itself active.  Wherefore also man himself is rightly said to believe and repent by virtue of that grace received.

  THIRD AND FOURTH HEAD: ARTICLE 13. The manner of this operation cannot be fully comprehended by believers in this life.  Nevertheless, they are satisfied to know and experience that by this grace of God they are enabled to believe with the heart and to love their Savior.

  THIRD AND FOURTH HEAD: ARTICLE 14. Faith is therefore to be considered as the gift of God, not on account of its being offered by God to man, to be accepted or rejected at his pleasure, but because it is in reality conferred upon him, breathed and infused into him; nor even because God bestows the power or ability to believe, and then expects that man should by the exercise of his own free will consent to the terms of salvation and actually believe in Christ, but because He who works in man both to will and to work, and indeed all things in all, produces both the will to believe and the act of believing also

• From Reformed Confessions Harmonized edited by Joel R. Beeke and Sinclair B. Ferguson:

The Synod of Dordt was held to settle a serious controversy in the Dutch churches initiated by the rise of Arminianism. Jacob Arminius (1560-1609), a theological professor at Leiden University, differed from the Reformed faith on a number of important points. After Arminius’s death, forty-three of his ministerial followers presented their heretical views to the States General of the Netherlands on five of these points in the Remonstrance of 1610. In this doc- ument and even more explicitly in later writings, the Arminians, who came to be called “Remonstrants,” taught (1) election based on foreseen faith; (2) the universality of Christ’s atonement; (3) the free will and partial depravity of man; (4) the resistibility of grace; and (5) the possibility of a lapse from grace. They asked for the revision of the Reformed church’s doctrinal standards and for government protection of Arminian views. The Arminian-Calvinism conflict became so severe that it led the Netherlands to the brink of civil war. Finally in 1617 the States General voted four to three to call a national Synod to address the problem of Arminianism.

The synod held 154 formal sessions over a period of seven months (November 1618 to May 1619). Thirteen Arminian theologians, led by Simon Episcopius, tried to delay the work of the synod and divide the delegates. Their efforts proved unsuccessful. Under the leadership of Johannes Bogerman, the Arminians were dismissed. The synod then developed the Canons which thoroughly rejected the Remonstrance of 1610 and scripturally set forth the Reformed doctrine on these debated points. These points, known as the five points of Calvinism are: unconditional election, limited atonement, total depravity, irresistible grace, and the perseverance of saints. Though these points do not embrace the full scope of Calvinism and are better regarded as Calvinism’s five answers to the five errors of Arminianism, they certainly lie at the heart of the Reformed faith, particularly of Reformed soteriology, for they flow out of the principle of absolute divine sovereignty in saving sinners. They may be summarized as follows: (1) Unconditional election and faith are sovereign gifts of God. (2) While the death of Christ is abundantly sufficient to expiate the sins of the whole world, its saving efficacy is limited to the elect. (3, 4) All people are so totally depraved and corrupted by sin that they cannot exercise free will toward, nor effect any part of, their salvation. In sovereign grace God irresistibly calls and regenerates the elect to new- ness of life. (5) God graciously preserves the redeemed so that they persevere until the end, even though they may be troubled by many infirmities as they seek to make their calling and election sure. 

• From The Canons of Dordt by R. Scott Clark:

The Canons of Dordt represent a remarkable consensus of conviction among the Reformed churches on essential doctrines. Indeed, the very Reformation was at stake. If God’s favor is conditioned upon anything in us, then we are lost because we are dead in sin. If the Gospel is reconfigured to include our obedience, then it is no longer the Gospel. If atonement is merely hypothetical, if the elect can fall away, then grace is no longer grace. 

The synod’s response was careful, pastoral, and firm. The synod concluded that it does not help piety or assurance to make our salvation depend on anything in us. The Gospel is Christ for us. The Canons of Dordt are an inheritance to be treasured, but they are also to be used in our congregations, in our catechism classes, and as an example of how to respond to challenges. 

Learn more:

1. Theopedia: The Canons of Dordt
2. Christian Reformed Church: The Canons of Dort
3. Believe Religious Information Source: Canons of Dordt
4. R. Scott Clark: The Canons of Dordt
5. Dr. Kim Riddlebarger: Introdution — Canons of Dort, First Head, First Head — Rejections, Second Head. Also, a series of notes on the Canons of Dort.

Related terms:

• Belgic Confession
• Heidelberg Catechism
• Second Helvetic Confession
• Westminster Confession 
• London Baptist Confession

Filed under Creeds and Confessions.

Do you have a term you’d like to see featured here as a Theological Term of the Week? If you email it to me, I’ll seriously consider using it, giving you credit for the suggestion and linking back to your blog when I do.

Clicking on the Theological Term graphic at the top of this post will take you to a list of all the previous theological terms in alphabetical order.