The ‘Apostles Creed,’ - 1.2 billion Catholics embrace it as their ‘Statement of Belief.’ But does this Creed reflect what Jesus, the Apostles, and the original Christians believed & taught? The word ‘Creed’ comes from the Latin word ‘Creedo’ meaning ‘I believe.’ There are numerous ‘I believe’ statements recorded in your Bible - do you know who said them & where to find them?
Have you ever read & studied your congregation’s or Denomination’s ‘Articles of Faith’? Many such documents may as well be written in stone, having not been altered or updated in centuries! How does a group of Christians ‘grow in the grace & knowledge of our Lord & Savior Jesus Christ’ (II PETER 3:18), if it never revisits or questions its original ‘Statement of Beliefs’?
The word ‘Creed’ is not in your Bible - but the phrase ‘The Faith’ is - dozens of times:
“Examine yourselves as to whether you’re in ‘The Faith’ - Test yourselves.” (II CORINTHIANS 13:5)
“I (Jude) found it necessary to write to you (the Church) exhorting you to contend earnestly for ‘The Faith’ which was once for all delivered to the Saints.” (JUDE VS.3)
“Guard what has been entrusted to your care. Turn away from godless chatter & opposing ideas of what is falsely called knowledge, which some have professed & in doing so have departed from The Faith. (I TIM.6:20)
“Here is the patience of the Saints; here are those who keep the commandments of God and ‘The Faith’ of Jesus.” (REVELATION 14:12)
Theologians tell us that there has been a ‘Restoration Movement’ going on in Christianity over the past few centuries among groups like the Church of Christ, the Churches of God & the Messianic movement: “The Motive behind all Restoration Movements is to tear down the walls of separation (between denominations) by a return to the practice of the original, essential & universal features of the Christian Religion.” (Rubel Shelly)
Wikipedia describes the movement this way: “The unification of all Christians in a single body, patterned after the Church of the New Testament.”
The Apostle Paul was inspired to write: “Now I plead with you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing & that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly joined together in the same mind & in the same judgment.” (I CORINTHIANS 1:10)
How should Christianity today fulfill this command in the name of Christ? Should we all unite around the Apostle’s Creed of Catholicism, or the Articles of Faith of the Lutherans, Methodists or Presbyterians? Should we unite around the teachings of Origen, Tertulian, or one of the other early Church Fathers of the 2nd-3rd Centuries? Or should we return to ‘The Faith’ once for all delivered to the Saints by Jesus & the Apostles - whose beliefs & practices are clearly recorded in the book of ACTS & the EPISTLES?
We at OUR FATHER’S HOUSE choose the latter, as it’s the simplest & most Biblically defensible position to take. If the Lord leads you to agree - come visit us some Sabbath!