Here is a short summary of the Small Catechism, which is a description of the Christian faith that all communicant members of the Biblical Lutheran Church confess.
—> Read the Short Catechism in full here.
We hear God’s Word in the Bible, which speaks to us in two ways:
We respond to God’s Word in prayer. Jesus taught us to pray in:
- the Lord’s Prayer.
We receive God’s Word in the Sacraments, which are God’s Word attached to physical things. There are two Sacraments:
- Baptism, which gives us the right to Confess our sin and be forgiven;
- and the Lord’s Supper.
We live out God’s Word in the Christian life, which involves:
- Daily Prayer in the Home;
- and our Vocations
The Law
is summarised in the 10 commandments. They describe how we must live:
- We should trust and love God
- so that we pray,
- listen to his Word,
- honour those in authority,
- not harm but help others,
- keep sexual activity purely for heterosexual marriage,
- not steal but give,
- honestly speak in the best way of others,
- and not craftily seek to get our neighbour’s house
- or anything that is his.
Attached to the first commandment is God’s summary of the commandments: If we break them, he will be angry and punish us. But, if we obey them, he will be kind and bless us.
All of us break these commandments all the time. And so, without Jesus, everyone is lost and condemned.
The Gospel
is summarised in the Apostles’ Creed. The gospel is God’s pure unmerited Grace. It has three parts:
- God the Father made us and preserves us without any merit or worthiness in us.
- God the Son, Jesus Christ, being true God and true man, bought us with his blood, died and rose again, setting us free from sin, death and the power of the devil to live in his kingdom and serve him.
- God the Spirit calls people by the Gospel, gives them faith, gathers them as the church, which he keeps in the faith, and on the last day will raise up all the dead and give eternal life to all who believe in Jesus.
The Lord’s Prayer
is how we respond to God’s Grace by speaking to him as our true Father, and so ask seven things:
- his Word to be taught in truth and purity,
- his Spirit to give us faith in his Word,
- we would remain steadfast in his Word and in faith,
- to give us everything we need,
- to forgive us because of his grace not because we deserve it,
- and to keep us from temptation
- and evil.
Baptism
- is God’s Word connected to Water [Matthew 28:19],
- it works forgiveness of sins [Mark 16:16],
- not because of the water but only because it is God’s Word received by faith [Titus 3:5-8],
- and signifies a daily drowning of the old Adam in us by repentance and a daily new person rising from death [Romans 6:4].
Confession
is the power of the keys given by Jesus to the church [Matthew 16:19], so that by confessing our sins the confessee receives absolution from the confessor, as from God Himself, helping us firmly believe that our sins are forgiven.
The Lord’s Supper
- is God’s Word connected to bread and wine and is the true body and blood of Jesus under the bread and wine [Matthew 26:26-28; Mark 14:22-24; Luke 22:19-20; 1 Corinthians 11:24-25],
- it gives us forgiveness of sins, life and salvation,
- not because of the eating and drinking but only because it is God’s Word received by faith,
- and so is only received worthily by faith.
Daily Prayer in the Home
is an essential part of our Christian faith. So we use, recite, and sing God’s Word daily in our homes, and keep reminding ourselves of God’s Word to us in our Baptism by saying the Baptismal formula and crossing ourselves as a reminder this formula.
Our Vocations
Every Christian has a vocation to live out their Baptism, which is their identity in Christ. The Small Catechism ends with lists of passages from scripture summarising the duties required of us in our different vocations.
We only call bishops, pastors and preachers who are male, monogamous, godly, holding firm to the Word as taught and able to teach it. [1 Timothy 3:2-4, 6; Titus 1:9] We strive to pay our pastors a living wage [1 Corinthians 9:14; Galatians 6:6; 1 Timothy 5:17-18], and obey them [Hebrews 13:17].
We recognise that civil government has been ordained by God [Romans 13:1-4], and so pay our taxes [Matthew 22:21; Romans 13:1, 5-7], pray for the King and other civil rulers under him [1 Timothy 2:1-2], obey the law and are submissive to human institutions [Titus 3:1; 1 Peter 2:13-14].
Husbands among us strive to be gentle [1 Peter 3:7; Colossians 3:19], wives to be submissive [Ephesians 5:22; 1 Peter 3:5-6], parents to raise their children in the Christian faith [Ephesians 6:4], and children to obey their parents [Ephesians 6:1-3].
In the workplace, those of us who are employees strive to work with integrity [Ephesians 6:5-8; Colossians 3:22], and employers to be fair [Ephesians 6:9; Colossians 4:1].
Those of us who are young strive to be humble [1 Peter 5:5-6], and who are widowed to trust God in prayer [1 Timothy 5:5-6]. All of us strive to love our neighbour as ourself [Romans 13:9], and to pray for all people [1 Timothy 2:1].