20 “Go, stand and speak to the people in the temple the whole message of this Life.” Acts 5:18-20.
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Today’s Scripture, particularly the phrase “the whole message”, reminds me of The Apostles’ Creed. But, I want to be even more general than covering just The Apostles’ Creed. This devotion will focus on the general importance of creeds. However, in passing, I will specifically refer to The Heidelberg Catechism as being very helpful to explain the meaning of each phrase of The Apostles’ Creed (to which there is a link at the bottom of this devotion).
In summary, creeds systematically state “the whole message”. Creeds eliminate the necessity of the Church “reinventing the wheel” every time a particular subject is encountered. Creeds help the Church rightly understand Scripture. Creeds help believers present and teach the points of their Christian faith. Creeds help protect the Church against heresies.
Here is a quote from what Rev. Ronald Hanko, in his article “A Plea for Creeds”, states about the importance of doctrine and creeds. His article in full can be read at the following link – http://www.prca.org/articles/plea_for_creeds.html
“Here is a brief quote from the article explaining what happens when a denomination or church dismisses or minimizes the importance of doctrine: ” … by cutting herself off from the church of past, the church today says in effect that every generation must start all over in its searching of the Scriptures and pursuit of the truth. Thus she sets herself an impossible task – a task that is either set aside as too great so that there is little knowledge of the truth in the church, or which leaves her no time for other things.”
‘This is well-stated by the Presbyterian author, G.I. Williamson:
The Bible contains a great wealth of information. It isn’t easy to master it all – in fact, no one has ever mastered it completely. It would therefore be foolish for us to try to do it on our own, starting from scratch. We would be ignoring all the study of the Word of God that other people have done down through the centuries. That is exactly why we have creeds. They are the product of many centuries of Bible study by a great company of believers. They are a kind of spiritual “road map” of the teaching of the Bible, already worked out an proved by others before us. And, after all, isn’t this exactly what Jesus promised? When he was about to finish his work on earth, he made this promise to his disciples: “When He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He will guide you into all truth” (John 16:13). And Christ kept his promise. When the Day of Pentecost came, he sent his Spirit to dwell in his people. The Holy Spirit was poured out – not on individuals, each by himself, but on the whole body of Christian believers together ( Acts 2). And from that time until this, he has been giving his church an understanding of the Scriptures. It is no wonder that the church expressed itself from very early times through creeds (p. 3).4
He adds:
And right here we see one of the most important things about a creed that is true to the Bible – it remains true down through the ages. It does not need to be changed again and again, with each generation, because it deals with things that are unchanging. Thus, an accurate creed binds the generations together. It reminds us that the church of Jesus Christ is not confined to one age, just as it is not confined to any one place. In other words, there is a unity in what Christians have believed, right down through the ages. Just think of it: when we confess our faith together . . . we join with all those believers who have gone before us. Does not this demonstrate that there is indeed just one Lord and one true faith? (p. 3).”
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In conclusion, here are some links that may help the reader.
Here is a link to a web site titled “Daily Confessions” which contains a daily dose of a Reformed catechism, confession, or creed –
Here are links to four of the major creeds. Don’t be intimidated by them. They were written to be easily readable and understandable and inspiring and otherwise helpful to even children.Click here: Historic Church Documents at Reformed.org (The Westminister Larger Confession)And, here is one final link to The Center for Reformed Theology and Apologetics which has links the The Apostles Creed and other creeds –Click here: Historic Church Documents at Reformed.org (It appears to be the same link as above, but it links to the foregoing The Apostles Creed and other creeds.)
Reformed Doctrine Daily Devotions 