Issue 857 – Credo, I believe – September 17, 2022
Christianity is a unique faith. In ways, it is so perspicuous (clear to understand) that simple a child can grasp it. In other ways, it is so deep that the most brilliant minds of all time have not come close to plumbing the full depths of meaning.
It involves the wholes person. Jesus said, “…you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.'” Mark 12:30 (and repeated in many ways throughout the Scriptures).
Our faith is relational. We are to love God and our neighbours. Christianity is not a solo experience; it involves others. We can have a personal relationship with God, but not a private one. If your “Christian” relationship is a secret between you and God, you are not following the teachings of Jesus.
Our faith is intellectual, and we must know what we believe. We must have sufficient understanding to understand when other people use the same terms. How can we love God if we don’t know who God is? How can we love others if we don’t know what love is? How can we share the gospel if we don’t understand what it means?
Our faith is experiential. Knowing about God isn’t enough; we must commit, and in our walk with Jesus and the lives of ourselves and others, we experience the presence and work of God.
Our faith is something we need to be able to articulate to live fully. Perhaps not articulate fully but be able to say what we believe.
Think of it this way, perhaps you and your friends or family share a private joke. It might be a phrase you use in a certain way that stems from a shared experience. Everyone gets it if you say it to those in the small group. People outside the closed group probably won’t understand it even if you try to explain it. You need to understand it enough to ensure you are on the same page as others.
Or I might speak of the big apple. Do I mean New York City or the large fruit on the tree in my backyard? I might say “the blue man.” Is his skin blue? Is he sad? Is he wearing blue clothes? Is it a game piece? Clear communication is essential and even more so with eternal matters. Creeds help us define and communicate our beliefs in ways others can relate to them.
Someone might say they believe in God. That doesn’t mean much unless you can articulate who/what/if God is.
The same can be said of every facet of the Christian faith. Even to say I love and follow Jesus doesn’t mean that the person is a Christian. What Jesus are we talking about?
Like it or not, the Christian faith is a credal faith. That means we have specific beliefs that we hold. Credo is from the Latin : [ˈkɾeːdoː]; Latin for “I believe.”
Even if we avoid theological jargon, if we claim the title Christian, it means that there are certain things we claim to believe.
The Bible is full of credal statements about God and the faith, articulated to varying degrees. The church has tried to express these beliefs in such a manner as to remain faithful to the Scriptures and coherently explain them.
No creed, other than the brief creedal type statements in the Scriptures, is inspired in the same way that the Scriptures are. They constantly attempt to articulate the faith and are accurate to the degree that they accurately represent the Scriptures.
These “belief statements,” these creeds, come in short and simple and very long and explicit forms. The earliest ones are dated to near the end of the very first century.
We dismiss them or remain ignorant of them to our peril. Creeds are always trumped by the Word but help us articulate what we believe easily.
For this morning, though, let me give you a sample of what the Bible declares about what we Christians can say, “I believe.”
Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Deuteronomy 6:4
In contrast to the cultures that surrounded them, this is an explicit declaration of the existence of one true God, of monotheism. It’s not a declaration unique to Christianity. The three largest monotheistic religions in the world, Christianity, Judaism and Islam, would all affirm it. Even demons believe it.
Now, there are a lot of critical points that those groups would disagree over. We would have to articulate our credo more to find the differences.
Still, we could all say, “I believe the Lord our God is one,” and mean it. If you don’t believe that statement, you are not an orthodox Christian, Jew or Muslim. I don’t know much about orthodoxy in demonic circles (nor do I want to know), but I suspect that if you cannot affirm that simple creed, you are probably not even an orthodox demon (if there is indeed such a thing)
Much more must be revealed and articulated to describe the Christian faith as it has been historically and orthodoxly believed. Simply affirming you believe in one God does not make you a Christian.
Until next time, take some time to think about what it truly means to you that you are a Christian. What do you believe?
Hallelu Yah / Praise God
Kevin
Gleanings From The Word
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Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture is from the English Standard Version (ESV).
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