Matthias Stom, “The Evangelists St Mark and St Luke,” c.1635. Wikimedia Commons. Public Domain. As I said in the first post in this series, none of the churches I attended as a child affirmed creeds or confessions of faith. The Bible alone was said to be our rule of faith. While I remain grateful for the spiritual …
Are there creeds in the New Testament?
One of more than 50,000 baptisms performed at Saddleback Valley Community Church, California, since its founding in 1980. The baptismal formula of Matthew 28:19 is seen by many as an early credal statement. As a child, I encountered Christianity in the context of various independent churches in Australia and Papua New Guinea. None of those …
The first Christian creeds
One of the earliest statements of trust in Jesus is beautifully captured by the author of the Fourth Gospel. In John 9, Jesus encounters a man blind from birth, and heals him. Later, the man shares his personal testimony with the Jewish religious leaders: “I was blind, and now I can see!” (v. 25). Later …
What is a creed?
The second in a series of posts about religious creeds and confessions. A creed is a short formal statement expressing religious truth. The English word “creed” derives from the Latin credo, “I believe.” This implies both assent to concepts and trust or reliance upon the implications of such concepts. A creed, therefore, is firstly a personal confession of faith, and a personal …
No creed but the Bible
The first of a series of posts about religious creeds and confessions. Creeds as we know them do not occur in Scripture. They began to appear toward the end of the first century and the beginning of the second century of the common era. Gradually, creeds adopted a standard trinitarian form and became more complex …
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