Now last week, those of you who
were here were informed that one of the standing assignments
for this class for this year will be that of the memorizing
and studying of the Shorter Catechism using the study manual of G.
I. Williamson as a guide. And at the conclusion of our
class today, those who do not yet have copies of those two
volumes of the study manual will be able to pick them up. Now
my lecture today is intended to provide a general introduction
to the discipline of catechetical instruction and I trust also
to be an instrument to motivate you to the study of the same. The main lines of thought that
I propose to develop are, first, a brief historical survey of
catechizing as a teaching tool in the Church, and I'll repeat
these heads as I go along so you don't need to catch them
all now. Secondly, the benefits of catechetical instruction in
general. Thirdly, the specific advantages
of memorizing the shorter catechism in particular. and then I'll
conclude with some practical suggestions for the task before
us. First of all, then, a brief historical survey of catechizing
as a teaching tool in the Church of Jesus Christ. In the October
1962 edition of the Banner of Truth magazine, there was printed
an excellent essay by John J. Murray. That's not Professor
Murray, but John J. Murray. who was Ian Murray's
right-hand man for a number of years. I guess you would call
him the managing editor of the Banner of Truth. The title of
the essay was Catechizing a Forgotten Practice. Now, I believe we have
the bound volume of the Banner of Truth magazine in our church
library. That's volume two, issues 17
through 32. This was found in issue number
27. And as I seek to give a brief
historical survey of catechizing as a teaching tool in the church,
What I'm going to do is simply read from this article some of
the material in the first two sections entitled The Origin
of Catechizing and The Development and History of Catechizing. And
so the material you'll get in the next three or four minutes
is quoted from the article by John J. Murray. I read then from page 15 of that
edition of the Banner of Truth magazine, the term catechizing
is derived from the Greek word, catecheo, which means to sound
over or through or to instruct. In the New Testament, this word
is used, Mr. Murray says seven times, I checked
my Greek concordance and found eight times, and in each instance
refers to oral instruction in religious matters. For example,
Luke, in addressing his gospel to the most excellent Theophilus,
expresses his purpose thus. that thou mightest know the certainty
of those things wherein thou hast been catechized, that is,
instructed, or as it can be literally translated, orally instructed. The word catecheo is used there. The teaching of our Lord and
of the apostles was of necessity oral and partly interlocutory,
that is, by question and answer or by inter, between, locution,
speaking, speaking between people. And in the early church, the
converted Jews and heathen who received instruction in the rudiments
of Christianity with a view to being admitted to membership
were known as catechumens. Thus, what is meant by catechizing
is instruction in the Christian faith by means of question and
answer. Catechizing or interlocutory
teaching was regarded as indispensable in the early church. It is true
that the early catechisms were not constructed on the method
of question and answer, but usually consisted of manuals of doctrine
or brief creeds. These, however, were used as
the basis for catechizing. Recent researches have suggested
that there is common catechetical material in several of the New
Testament epistles, and that evidence is referred to, if any
of you have Hendrickson and his commentary on Timothy and Titus,
on page 308, there's a footnote, and then in F.F. Bruce's commentary
on Ephesians, page 286. And what these authors demonstrate
is that there is a very real possibility that we have resident
in the inspired writings of the New Testament some of the materials
used for this kind of catechetical instruction. There is no mention
in the New Testament of catechist as a separate office or order,
but it would seem that as the catechumenate developed, this
became a full-time work. Now, that's a little bit of the
background as far as New Testament times are concerned. Now, what
about its development in history? In the writings of the second
century, we find mention of catechumens and catechists, and by the fourth
and fifth centuries, we see that catechetics began to develop
its scientific theory. One of its chief exponents was
Augustine, and in his book called Catechizing of the Uninstructed,
he details the several steps in the process of wise catechizing. It is clear from the writings
of the early fathers that they attached great importance to
the interlocutory method of instruction. They were not unmindful of the
great commission given by the Lord to disciple all the nations,
teaching them all things that he had commanded. Continuing
to read from Murray's article, as the Church grew in worldly
prominence and lost in spiritual life, changes came in the method
of its training work. As its ritual services were expanded,
so its teaching exercises were diminished. And those two things
always run on an inverse curve. As its ritual services were expanded,
so its teaching exercises were diminished. As the ecclesiastical
spirit overcame the evangelical, catechetical instruction declined.
It stands out clearly in the history of the Dark Middle Ages
that where this kind of instruction was adhered to most closely,
Christian life remained purest. We have only to think of the
Waldenses, the Albigenses, the Hussites, and the Lollards to
prove this. It is to the last mention that can be traced the
earliest of catechisms. Of course, the Lollards being
the followers of the teaching of John Wycliffe, often called
the Morning Star of the Reformation, and what we know of catechisms
in their present form are traced back to the work of Wycliffe,
a catechism published back in 1372. With the dawn of the glorious
Reformation, catechetical instruction came back into its own in the
Christian Church, bringing with it a further development in the
science of catechetics and especially constructing the catechism as
we know it today. It is not surprising that Martin
Luther, to whom, humanly speaking, the Reformation owes its very
beginning, should be regarded as the father of modern catechetics. His claim to this honor is substantiated
not only by the catechisms which he himself prepared, but by the
writings in which he explained catechetics and gave an impulse
to their pursuit. Calvin, who so clearly systematized
the Reformation teaching, took a similar view of the duty of
the Church to instruct the young and the ignorant by interlocutory
methods, and he published a catechism shortly after Luther's appeared. In the latter half of the 16th
and the first half of the 17th centuries, catechizing occupied
a most important place in the Reformed Church and perhaps nowhere
more than in Scotland and England. Now this statement, this next
statement is amazing and it's given by Richard Baxter. It may
be said without exaggeration of the catechisms framed on the
system of the doctrinal Puritans and published in England between
the years of 1600 and 1645 that their name is Legion. writing in 1656, Richard Baxter
could say, quote, how many scores, if not hundreds of catechisms
are written in England. But the reformers and Puritans
did not stop at the compilation of catechisms. They enforced
the practice of catechizing. And then John Murray gives a
couple of interesting examples of this, of how central it was
in the mentality of the church at that time. In England, a canon
of 1603, that wasn't a big gun, that's a church rule, canon rule,
is church rule, and it's never been officially repealed, required,
quote, that every parson, vicar or curate, upon every Sunday
or holy day before evening prayer, that's the evening service, shall
for half an hour or more examine and instruct the youth and ignorant
persons of his parish in the Ten Commandments, in the Articles
of Belief, and in the Lord's Prayer, and shall diligently
hear, instruct, and teach them the catechism set forth in the
Book of Common Prayer. The General Assembly of the Church
of Scotland in the first year of its existence provided that
while there should be two public services every Lord's Day, the
first should consist of worship and preaching and the second
should be given to worship and the catechizing of the young
and of the ignorant. And then that was enlarged in
terms of parochial responsibilities where the minister was in every
home to catechize his people. However, as Murray says, the
history of catechizing from the beginning of the 18th century
to the present time is mainly a story of decline. Now Isaac Watts sought to check
this decline while on the one hand decrying just memorizing
catechisms without understanding, he did compiled two catechisms,
catechisms for children, and then explanatory notes on the
shorter catechism. Wesley saw the importance of
catechizing, but of course with the mentality that has inundated
the church since the, we say the middle, toward the end of
the 19th century, that is anti-dogma, why of course it has been anti-
catechetic, because the catechism has its genius in that it is
a precise statement of Christian dogma and belief. Now, one of the encouraging things
in this brief historical overview is that with the return of reformed
thinking and conviction, there is a return to a conviction concerning
the necessity of catechetical instruction. So let's trust that
the last chapter on the history of catechetics has not yet been
written, and that the chapter that will be written in our generation
might become, under God's blessing, a glorious chapter. So much,
then, for the first heading of the lecture this morning, a brief
historical survey of catechizing as a teaching tool. Now, secondly,
the benefits of catechetical instruction in general. And I
shall divide these thoughts into two major headings, the direct
or the immediate benefits of catechetical instruction, and
then the indirect or the more remote benefits of catechetical
instruction. First of all, then, the direct
or the immediate benefits of catechetical instruction, and
I have three subheadings under this. Number one, the mind is
forced to specific articulation of the truth of God. In catechetical
instruction, the mind is forced to specific articulation of the
truth of God. You and I are masters of deceit
in many areas, not the least of which is in kidding ourselves
that we know more than we really do. Often, as a father, when
I'm questioning my children about some point, either of religious
instruction or general instruction in life, I'll say, well, how
would you say that? Well, Dad, I... Well, I know
it, but I just can't say it. I say, no, until you can say
it, you don't know it. And that's a famous little saying in our
household, until you can say it, you don't really know it.
What you mean is, you have a vague notion, and when you look in
that direction, you see something that is second cousin twice removed
to the thing at hand, and because you see that, you think you see
the real thing. And it's not until you're forced
to focus thought upon that issue and articulate clearly that you
realize how indistinct your views are. And one of the great benefits
of catechetical instruction is that it forces the mind to articulate
expression. For instance, if I were to say,
do you men understand the biblical doctrine of justification by
faith? You'd all say, well, sure I do. But if I say to you, what
is justification? Well, yeah. You see, but when you can say
justification is an act of God's free grace, trace it to grace,
whereby he pardoneth all our sins and accepteth us as righteous,
You see what you're doing? You're beginning to give specific
articulation to what the Scriptures teach concerning the subject
of justification. Same thing with repentance, etc.
So one of the great benefits to be found in catechetical instruction
is that it forces the mind to articulate expression. Quoting
from Mr. Murray's article again, he says
under a heading, Catechizing and Preaching, Perhaps Henry
Moore overstates the position in the following words, but he
brings home the fact that establishing men in the gospel implies more
than is generally remembered. Quote, concerning preaching,
that which is most remarkable is this, that whereas there are
three chief kinds thereof, namely catechizing, expounding a chapter,
and preaching usually a so-called of topical sermon, the last is
the very idol of some men, and the others reject it as things
of little worth, but assuredly, assuredly, expounding a chapter
and catechizing are of most virtue for the effectual planting of
the gospel in the minds of men, and of the two, catechizing is
better because it enforceth the catechized to take notice of
what is taught him." You see? It forces the mind to articulation. Another quote, a minister may
preach and teach publicly for years and after all his labor
be surprised how little effect this has had on his people. Some
of the greatest preachers of all time have learned their lesson
in this matter. Richard Baxter, no mean preacher,
said, I have found by experience that some ignorant persons who
have been long unprofitable hearers have got more knowledge and remorse
of conscience in half an hour's close discourse than they did
from ten years public preaching. John Owen, no mean preacher again,
or theologian at that matter, made a similar discovery. Quote,
more knowledge is ordinarily diffused, especially among the
young and ignorant, by one hour's catechetical exercise than by
many hours' discourse. Why? Because catechetical instruction,
or instruction that is catechetical in form, forces the mind to specific
articulation of the truth of God. But then the second general
advantage, direct advantage, is this. The mind is furnished
with concise definition of the truth of God. Not only forced
to articulate expression, but it is furnished with concise
definition of the truth of God. Words are the vehicles both of
conveying and capturing thought. How do you capture thought? when
you turn it into specific words. How do you convey thought? By
means of words. That's why we believe, as we
shall see when we move next week into the biblical doctrine of
Scripture, why we believe in verbal inspiration, because in
the language of Paul in 1 Corinthians 2, no man can penetrate the mysteries
of God, they must be revealed, and Paul says these things are
revealed, and we speak them not in words, which man's wisdom
teacheth, but in words, which the Holy Ghost teacheth. Why?
Because words are the vehicle of thought, and words capture
thought. Therefore, if a wrong word is
used, a wrong thought will be conveyed and a wrong thought
will be captured. Now, one of the great benefits,
then, of a well-framed catechism and study of the same is that
the mind is furnished with concise definition of the truth of God. Since God's truth is a fixed
reality and substance, concise definition is vital in order
accurately to think of that area of truth and to communicate that
area of truth. As the Church Universal has wrestled
with expressing the unformed mass of biblical teaching, she
has been guided by the Holy Spirit in articulating the truths of
Scripture that come to us, as it were, in suspension. and in
catechetics there's an attempt then to take the whole range
of teaching and in the light of the history of the church
and the controversies of the church and the great disciplines
of exegesis and theology and all the related subjects to give
concise definition of that facet of divine truth. In a book on
the confession of faith by an old Reverend John McPherson,
MA, a Scotsman He makes a statement that perhaps some of you, if
you've seen this book, thought maybe I quoted without giving
due acknowledgement. So I quote him now to underscore
something that has been said here quite frequently, but needs
to be said again in this reference. While careful to avoid the Romish
notion of the indefiniteness of scripture, which led to the
introduction of an infallible interpreter, we must guard against
the abandonment of those definite views of Scripture truth which
the Church has attained by painful discussion and sustained investigation. Though we do not with Rome say
that the Church, as it were, is the guardian of the truth,
we do say that the Church has been the handmaiden to truth
as she has articulated what God has revealed in Scripture. Ashbel
Green, in the introduction of his two volumes to the expositions
of the Shorter Catechism, says in his introduction something
very similar. Someone brings up the objection,
well, doesn't it cramp the human mind to memorize definitions
and then come to the Bible, as it were, to support them or to
see them illustrated? Doesn't this constrict us in
our investigation of truth? He responds to that objection,
as to cramping the human mind, we have to remark that we do
not believe that great discoveries are yet to be made in regard
to the doctrines of the Word of God, that prophecy, that is,
Scripture, may hereafter be better understood than it is at present,
and that particular passages of Scripture may be illustrated
by learned criticism, historical investigations, by geographical,
geological, and such like researches and discoveries we readily admit.
You see what he's saying? the more the spade unearths the
Middle East, the more certain obscure passages are going to
come into sharp light. The whole science of philology,
as well as some of the related physical sciences, he said, of
course, passages of Scripture will open up that hitherto have
been closed, but we have no belief that any one leading doctrine
of Christianity or any one point that we now hold as an important
practical truth of the revealed system will ever be changed by
any discoveries yet to be made in the meaning of the Word of
God. You get what I'm saying? No one point that is of great
importance as to objective revealed truth or practical duty will
be opened up because of some new insight in the area of exegesis. We conceive it to be in the highest
degree improbable that any such doctrines and truths as these
should have been hidden from the people of God from the time
of the apostles to the present. and that they will continue to
be hidden till the time when these supposed discoveries shall
be made. Some of you remember I used this
with regard to the hermeneutics of the feminist movement, saying
that we've misunderstood, and all the great exegetes for centuries
have misunderstood the teaching of 1 Corinthians 14, 1 Timothy
2, Genesis chapter 2, and all these other passages. It was
awaiting, some dame with close-cropped hair, dressed in a pantsuit,
looking over her glasses the size of frisbee pies, to tell
us, this is the real meaning, and the whole church has missed
it because of the blindness of its male chauvinist poison pulsing
through its veins. Well, we say no thank you. We conceive it to be in the highest
degree improbable. that any such doctrines and truths
as these should have been hidden from the people of God from the
time of the apostles till the present. Furthermore, he says,
it seems to us, on the contrary, that any pretension that a new
and important doctrine had been discovered in the Bible would
be proved false by its very claim to be both new and important. What is important in the doctrine
of Scripture has always been important to the Church. And
we cannot think it reasonable to believe that the whole church
has, for nearly 2,000 years, been deprived of truth important
to her edification. You see, it's the essence of
pride if Christ watches over His church and furnishes His
church with pastors and teachers for the perfecting of the saints
to say that some important truth which is essential to the life
of the Church, has been hidden for nearly 2,000 years, is to
cast aspersions upon Christ's commitment to care for His Church.
And then he goes on to develop that in a most masterful way.
So then, when we come to a well-framed catechism, its benefit in general
is that the mind is furnished then with this concise definition
of the truth of God. But then thirdly, The mind is
not only forced to specific articulation, furnished with concise definition,
but the mind is filled with comprehensive contemplation of the truth of
God. There is what the Apostle Paul
calls in Acts 20.26, the whole counsel of God. And a good catechism
attempts to touch on the whole spectrum of revealed truth in
all of its leading points. It does not purport to be an
exhaustive manual of the entire teaching of the Word of God,
but a good catechism seeks to be what I'm attempting to do
Sunday mornings in my preaching, to be a setting forth of the
major lines of revealed truth. It will not give you all the
details between the lines, but it seeks to focus on the major
aspects of revealed truth. Now, the benefit then of mastering
such a catechism is that the mind is then filled with this
comprehensive contemplation of the truth of God, and there is
not the danger of fragmentation and of distortion that comes
when we are simply conversant with one dimension or one facet
of the truth of God. And I quote again from John Murray's
article a very interesting thing. and I never had come across it
before in any of my reading. Most people, he says, think of
catechisms for children only. But Martin Luther, who drew up
a catechism, said, quote, as for myself, let me say that I
am a doctor and a preacher. That is, he was Dr. Martin Luther,
doctor of theology, and he was a very learned preacher, equally
at home in Hebrew and Greek. and all the ancient fathers.
He could read them in the Latin, knew them, could quote them profusely. He said, I am the doctor and
the preacher. I am as learned and experienced
as those who are so presumptuous and confident to despise the
catechism. Yet I do as a child who is learning
the catechism. I daily read and study the catechism,
and I am still not able to master it as thoroughly as I wish. I
must remain a child and a pupil of the Catechism, and this I
do very willingly." You see, it was Luther's concern to have
a grasp on the whole spectrum of divine truth, that there might
be that comprehensive contemplation of the truth of God. Those who
have prized Scripture most have usually been those who have valued
catechisms, and those who have ignored catechisms have generally
been those who have fallen into unscriptural teaching. A misguided reverence for the
Bible has prevented some from forming a systematic outline
of the main doctrines of the Word, and consequently, when
confronted with a systematic challenge to their faith, which
also alleges Scripture for its authority, they are ill-equipped
to defend their position. Matthew Henry, speaking of the
benefit of catechism instruction in this area, filling the mind
with a comprehensive contemplation of truth, here's what he said.
Hereby the main principles of Christianity which lie scattered
in the scripture are collected and brought together and by this
means they are set in much easier view before the minds of men. Hereby the truths of God, the
several articles of Christian doctrine and duty, are methodized
and put in order. Matthew Henry recognized this
third general benefit of catechetical instruction, namely, the mind
is filled with a comprehensive contemplation of the truth of
God. Now, the second major heading
under the benefits, in general, of catechetical instruction,
the indirect or remote benefits of catechetical instruction,
and I have three points and I'll touch on them very briefly. First
of all, general mental discipline. Sin has affected the totality
of our humanity. The mind, in a state of nature,
is called a darkened mind in Ephesians chapter 4, but it's
also a lazy mind. And in regeneration, just as
the initial or the fundamental darkness is replaced with light,
and the fundamental laziness with diligence, yet the remains
of corruption are qualitatively the same, though not quantitatively
manifested in the same way. So that as a believer, you not
only have areas of darkness in your mind, you also have an innate
indisposition to hard, careful, The best word I know is assiduous
application of your gray matter to any subject, and even more
so to any spiritual subject, for in the language of Romans
7, I find a law that when I would do good, evil is present with
me, and the more good the specific issue is, the more violent is
the opposition of remaining corruption. The living proof of this is you
can come home tired from a day's work, and if you want to pick
your feet up and pick up the newspaper and read the sports
scores, your mind is alert. Try to pick up your Bible and
read a chapter, and it's all dull and mushy. Now that's not
a physical phenomenon alone. Phenomenon. Thank you, Mr. Clark.
I've been saying phenomena, which is plural. It's a phenomenon,
and I've been checked on that, so I'm working on it. That's
the first time I've caught myself. So it's stuck, Mr. Clark. It's
stuck. That's not a physical phenomenon. No, it's a spiritual
phenomenon. And so this matter of anything
that helps me to general mental discipline is a friend of grace. And the discipline of memorizing
is like regular physical exercise. When you've got to do it and
you've bound yourself to do it, of the five days a week that
I usually go out and run my two miles, I'd say there's probably
only one of them any week when I really feel like doing it.
And I would say of the times when I complete my two miles,
there's probably only one in five when I don't start rationalizing
at the point where I can cut it off short at a mile and four-tenths
and head for home. And this debate goes on in me
all the time. Why? Because my physical body
hates the discipline of regular exercise. And I must bind myself
to things that will act as an external pressure upon me. All right, the same is true of
the mind. It loves to be lazy. It hates to think. And this is
why there's such an aversion to memorizing. And modern education
is a classic example of the fruits of the failure to learn by quote
wrote. And we've got PhDs who can't
think, can't spell, can't speak. All they can do is collect their
unemployment insurance and unemployment money and paychecks and complain
about the system. Now they're not all like that,
but they're an awful lot of them. So brethren, we will profit in
terms of general mental discipline from the learning of the catechism.
Secondly, the indirect remote benefit is we will have a growing
appreciation for the history of the church and Christ's presence
in the midst of his people. As you work through these study
manuals in the catechism and Mr. Williamson apprises you of
some of the reasons for certain of the phrases and certain of
the clauses you'll more and more stand back and say, thank God
for his care over his church. Thank God for the presence of
the Spirit in his church. Thank God for raising up the
Athanasiuses in that day to articulate the truth of God concerning Christ. And thank God for the Calvins
and for the Luthers and for the Owens and for the Westminster
Divines. And brethren, it's no little
thing to have that humility that is produced when you stand beside
the giants of the past who were God's front-ranked soldiers in
the battle for truth and realize that you and I are the recipients
of that great legacy that they've left behind you. And then thirdly,
the third remote or indirect benefit is an increasing ability
to convey the truth with accuracy and to detect error. Any of you
who've been with us regularly for the Sunday morning expositions,
you know that in a sense, I'd be lost without the shorter catechism
as I'm bringing these topical messages on fundamental biblical
doctrines, because they help me. They form a wonderful framework
in articulating the truth of God and in being able to detect
error. I've flushed out two heretics
in the past couple of days, and my wife knows it's a standing
joke between us. My wife was one of them and another
woman in the church whose name I won't mention. that when the
question was asked, is Jesus Christ truly a man now in the
presence of His Father? Well, He has a human body. I
said, no, that's not my question. Is He a man? Well, yes. That
means then He has a true human nature. Well, of course. That
means He still has His human mind, which is finite. Oh, no,
no, no, the Lord's not finite. He's God. Ah, but is He man? Yeah, but he can't be finite.
He's in the right hand of the... Is he truly a human being? So
you know what I went back to? I said, now look at the catechism.
Christ, the Son of God, became man, and so was and continues
to be both God and man in one person and two natures for how
long? forever. Is finity an attribute
of man? Yes or no? Does Jesus Christ
have a reasonable soul in the glory? Then he has a finite mind
existing alongside of, in the mystery of the hypostatic union,
a divine mind. Well, don't get sidetracked by
that. We'll get into that tomorrow. But I'm only using this to illustrate
that the catechism helps you to detect error even in your
wife, you see. We've just had a great time with this. As you
know, I'm saying this tongue-in-cheek. All right. Having considered
a brief historical overview of catechetical instruction, briefly,
some of the benefits of catechetical instruction in general, the direct
benefits, the indirect. Now, thirdly, what specific advantages
are to be gained by memorizing and studying the shorter catechism
in particular? of the many catechisms available,
why have I chosen to lay upon your backs the terrible, cruel
burden of verbatim memorization of the shorter catechism? Well,
let me give you two fundamental, or one fundamental reason, and
then I'll enlarge upon it. The fundamental reason is because
of the proven worth of the shorter catechism. Now, human testimony
is never the basis of faith or doctrine. But it is of worth
in seeking to ascertain the best and most helpful sources to open
up the basis of our faith, which is the Word of God. And it's
in this sense that I will use human testimony with reference
to the worth of the shorter catechism. In this very moving brief biography
of Professor Murray that Ian Murray put together shortly after
the death of the esteemed professor a short time ago, several, two
years ago now, or three is it now? Time passes so quickly. He has a very interesting, the
record of a very interesting incident. Someone is reflecting
back upon his experience with Professor Murray when he was
a part of Professor Murray's Sunday school class as a young
child. And Professor Murray was asking,
he was using the interlocutory method of instruction in this
case. I think we better put this up
or it's going to sound like rats chewing on my notes there on
the tape. In the midst of instructing his
class, the question came up, do you know the Shorter Catechism
to the end, all through? Do you, Richard? Do you, Martha?
Do you, Nancy? How old are you, Nancy? Thirteen,
she answered. Now, Professor Murray said, and
this is a quote, now every one of you children should know the
shorter catechism from beginning to end without a mistake by this
age, age thirteen. Now, that's without joking at
all. At the age of twelve, you ought to know the shorter catechism
from beginning to end without even making a mistake. You don't
know what you're missing. Get down to learning it, if you
haven't already learned it. Now here's the esteem of the
man who was considered by many people to be the most competent,
perceptive, exegetical theologian in our generation. The most perceptive,
competent, exegetical theologian in our generation. Thoroughly
committed to the reform standards, many believe the outstanding
Calvin theologian, that is, a student of Calvin, what Calvin really
thought, that none was his peer. in our generation. This is his
estimation of the Shorter Catechism. It will not only give you the
most perfect human compendium of Christian truth that there
is in the whole world, but it will be the finest mental exercise
and it will lay a foundation in your mind and in your life
for a hundred other things as well as for true religion. The
mere mental discipline of learning it with exactness down to each
preposition is one of the best disciplines that we know of in
this world in the field of education. The primary reason is to learn
it for the purpose of having in your mind a comprehensive
compendium of Christian truth. But even apart from that, there
are a hundred byproducts. It will be invaluable to you
through your whole life, and not only in this life, but in
the life which is to come. Now, why study the Shorter Catechism? I say because of its proven worth,
a la the testimony of Professor Murray. Well, what about Warfield?
No mean theologian? No mean exegete? When he's writing
in the book, The Westminster Assembly and its work, which
has a lot of dry, dusty historical detail, but it's got some rich,
juicy plums in the midst of that, He says on page 65 of this book,
no other catechism can be compared, that is to the shorter catechism,
with its concise, nervous, and he uses the word nervous in the
way that it's still, its first and second meanings in the current
dictionary, strong and sinewy, vigorous in expression. None
can be compared with its concise, strong, and sinewy, terse exactitude
of definition, or in its severely logical elaboration, and it gains
these admirable qualities at no expense to its freshness or
fervor, though perhaps it can scarcely be spoken of as marked
by childlike simplicity. Although set forth as milk for
babes and designed to stand by the side of the larger catechism
as a, quote, easy and short manual of religion, end of quote, for,
quote, new beginners, end of quote, it is nevertheless governed
by the principle, as one of its authors phrased it, that the
greatest care should be taken to frame the answer not according
to the model of the knowledge that the child hath, but according
to that the child ought to have. Its peculiarity, in contrast
with the larger catechism and the confession of faith, is the
strictness with which its contents are confined to the very quintessence
of religion and morals, to the positive truths and facts which
must be known for their own behoof by all who would fain be instructed
in right belief and practice. all purely historical matter
and, much more, all controversial matter. Everything which can
minister merely to curiosity, however chastened, is rigidly
excluded. Only that is given which, in
the judgment of its framers, is directly required for the
Christian's instruction in what he is to believe concerning God
and what God requires of him. It is a pure manual of personal
religion and practical morality. Now brethren, when men of Professor
Murray and B.B. Warfield's stature bow before
this, with all of their learning and with all of their ability
for independent, fresh, novel articulation, when they gladly
tip their hat and say it's been done better already, who in the
world are lesser pea-shooters to say, ah, we don't need man-made
documents? I tell you, the arrogance of
that is sickening. The proven worth of this catechism is such
as to warrant our laboring to master it." And of course, if
you read Warfield's article, you have a wonderful and very
interesting anecdote of the tremendous benefit and worth of this catechism. And he says, in summary, and
I trust if you underlined in your book at all, you underlined
that statement at the top of page 383 in the article, is the
shorter catechism worthwhile? Did anyone ever know a really
devout man who regretted having been taught the Shorter Catechism
even with tears in his youth? How its forms of sound words
come reverberating back into the memory in moments of trial
and suffering, of doubt and temptation, giving direction to religious
aspirations. Notice what the fundamental thing
is again. Here's the religious element in Warfield. Giving direction
to religious aspirations, firmness to hesitating thought, guidance
to stumbling feet, and adding to our religious meditations
an ever-increasing richness and depth." Well, I say, the specific
advantages of this catechism lie primarily in the fact of
its proven worth. Now, why is there this richness
to which Warfield addresses himself, to which Murray speaks, and to
which a host of other witnesses speak? May I suggest that that
richness is rooted in two basic things. Number one, because of
the precise time at which it was framed, and secondly, because
of the unusual competence of its authors. The richness of
the Shorter Catechism has something to do with the precise time in
which it was framed. As most of you know, the Westminster
Standards were drawn up in the mid-1600s. First of all, there
was a drawing up of the Confession, then the larger and shorter catechisms. Now think of that point in church
history. Here they were, approximately
200 years after Calvin appeared on the scene. No, not 200 after
Calvin, 120 so years after Calvin and Luther. You had that great
movement of the Spirit of God in the Reformation period. You
had the works of Luther and Calvin, who were seeking to articulate
the scriptures that for hundreds of years, apart from some of
these lights like Wycliffe, etc., had been lying in the rubble
of all of the traditionalism of Rome. And now with these writings,
then they gave birth to other theologians and exegetes and
preachers who further refined and articulated the truth of
scripture. Here they were, that far removed
from the Reformation. to be able to look back upon
not only the rich legacy that came out of the Reformation,
but the thorough exposure of all the errors that had kept
the Church in bondage for so many years, and, as we shall
see in the subsequent point, because of their acquaintance
with the Church Fathers, etc., to benefit from the struggles
of the Church in all of the patristic age, the age of the so-called
Church Fathers. The richness of that catechism
has something to do with the precise time in which it was
framed. It was able to draw upon all
the richness of the heritage that had now become part and
parcel of the Reformed Church, the church after the Protestant
Reformation, and secondly, because of the unusual competence of
its authors. Not one, but many of the greatest
pastor-theologians sat in the Westminster Assembly. Many of
them were excellent, proven catechists. Remember Baxter's statement made
in 1656, which was just ten years or so after the framing of these
catechisms, how many scores, if not hundreds, of catechisms
are written in England. So it was an age in which the
catechists was there in abundance. There were many men who were
known to be very competent, and so you had the cream of all of
that catechetical discipline. Men who had sat down with their
Bibles and their theology books and with their knowledge of church
history, ancient and modern, and with all of those tools,
proficient in Latin as well as Greek and Hebrew, Brethren, when
you read, just Mr. Fisher and I have been reading
through Bridget's Christian ministry, Friday afternoons when we get
together, and every time we read a little Latin quote, we're humbled.
Bridget assumed that anybody even aspiring for the ministry
was proficient in Latin. I mean, you just weren't considered
educated at all without Latin. Well, the educational standard
was even higher for these men who sat on the Westminster Assembly.
And these men, with their tremendous breadth of knowledge, but remember
now, they were most of them not academic theologians. They were
pastor, preacher theologians. So they had that experimental
sensitivity of how the truth operated when it impinged upon
real-life people. They came from living pastorates,
from living pulpits, to sit in that Assembly. And therefore
there is a richness of experimental as well as an accuracy of abstract
divinity that as far as I'm concerned is not to be found in any other
human document. I'll hide behind Professor Murray
when he says the same thing. There is not in all the world
a more accurate compendium of Christian truth. Well, so much
then for the specific advantages of memorizing and studying the
Shorter Catechism in particular, the fundamental reason because
of its proven worth, why this tremendous richness of thought
and expression, because of the precise time in which it was
framed, because of the unusual competence of its authors. Now,
finally and briefly, what practical directives can we give for your
study of the Shorter Catechism? Well, at the outset, I would
remind you of what Warfield says in the beginning of his article,
is the shorter catechism worthwhile? The shorter catechism is perhaps
not very easy to learn, and very certainly it will not teach itself.
Its framers were less careful to make it easy than to make
it good. Its framers were less careful to make it easy than
to make it good. No doubt it requires some effort,
whether to teach or to learn the shorter catechism. It requires
some effort whether to teach or learn the grounds of any department
of knowledge. And if the grounds of religion
must be taught and learned as truly as the grounds of anything
else, let's make no mistake about it, we're going to have to work.
at mastering the Shorter Catechism. Well, what about some practical
suggestions as to methods that will help you? Well, Mr. Fisher
is using one as he works on the catechism with his own wife that
I think is a good one. And it's the method that has
three parts to its aspect or to its effort to memorize the
catechism. It's always going back It's always
looking at the present and always going forward. Now, you've got
to learn at least one before you can do this. You've got to
get question one mastered. But when you do, then when you
come to apply yourself to question number two, you want to go back
over and review one, and then you want to read ahead and get
your mind at least familiar with the language of question number
three. Then, when you proceed to question
number three, go back to two, and also back to one. Focus your primary attention
upon three, but then, when you're about to nod off to sleep, look
ahead to question number four, and acquaint yourself with the
basic language, so that you're always reviewing, looking ahead,
and concentrating upon that which is the focus of your study at
any given point. Secondly, I would suggest that
you seek to discover the overall structure to the catechism. Now
again, Williamson is a help with this. Obviously, the question
that is asked, what do the scriptures principally teach, becomes the
framework of the entire catechism. The scriptures principally teach
what man is to believe concerning God, that's questions 1 to 38,
and what duty God requires of man, that's question 39 to 107.
They begin with the body of revealed truth, what we are to believe
concerning God, and then they lay upon us the various duties
that derive from that revealed truth. Well, within that broad
framework, there is a logical progression. Seek to fix in your
own mind, and we may give you some outlines, but I don't want
to make it too easy for you. You try to think through the
general structure of the catechism. All right, so much for those
practical suggestions. Now I want to give you your actual
assignment.