Doctrine

Looking for a good book for helping new believers to be rooted and established in the faith? Check out Belief Matters: Grappling with the Essentials of the Christian Faith, by Pete Briscoe. Tammy Hilyer recently reviewed the book and I share the first paragraph of her review here,

In our present culture, there are many choices of who or what to believe in. It’s important that we as Christians know Who and what we believe in and why it is necessary to live out that faith in our everyday lives and be prepared to share it with others. To help us in our understanding of our beliefs, Pete draws from the Apostles Creed, a great statement of faith memorized and recited by many for hundreds of years. Included in Belief Matters is the history and relevance of this creed, not only for the past generations, but for us today. Pete divides the Apostles Creed into 16 key phrases and provides an explanation of each point. Each chapter contains quotes, definitions, stories, and Scripture that enhance and support each key phrase. For individual or group study, Pete provides verses to contemplate, questions for reflection, and other meaningful verses and passages to encourage the reader to dig deeper into God’s Word. Each chapter concludes with the following method: Meditate, Apply, Plot, and Speak (MAPS). Using this method solidifies and expands the reader’s understanding of their beliefs and challenges them to take action on what they have learned. Pete takes the often incomprehensible points of the Apostles Creed along with the verses that support the phrases and makes them easier for the reader to understand and remember. He speaks honestly about his own struggles in understanding and living out his faith, which is encouraging for the reader. (click here to read more)

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RELATED CONTENT

The Apostles Creed

In his course on the “Ancient and Medieval Church” at Covenant Theological Seminary, David Calhoun recommended the following texts For Further Study on the topic of Orthodoxy & Heresy in the early church (the annotations are his):

Jones, Peter. The Gnostic Empire Strikes Back: An Old Heresy for the New Age. 1992.
Shows how the gnostic heresy of self-deification has returned with a vengeance in the New Age
Movement.

McGrath, Alister E. The Genesis of Doctrine. 1990.
A useful study of how Christian doctrine came into existence, by the prolific British historian theologian.

Orr, James. The Progress of Dogma.
Famous work in which the 19th century Scottish theologian argues that “the history of
dogma…is simply the system of theology spread out through the centuries.” pp. 21

__________ Quotes of Interest __________

“The age of the martyrs has a powerful attraction even to the casual reader; the age of the heresies leaves him bewildered and distressed. Yet the agents in both were discharging an equally necessary function. Both were upholding the truth of the gospel; the one against the power of the world, the other against the wisdom of the world. The martyrs had this advantage, that the force of their testimony was concentrated in one supreme moment, was expressed in one heroic act, which commands universal sympathy. The controversialists had to live through a protracted struggle and are judged by their utterances, and all their human weaknesses which the conflict remorselessly revealed.”
~ Mandell Creighton, quoted by B. B. Warfield, Selected Shorter Writings, 2: 214

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“The rejection of heretics brings into relief what your church holds and what sound doctrine maintains. ‘It was necessary for heresies to occur so that the approved may be made manifest’ (I Corinthians 11:19) among the weak.”
~ Augustine, Confessions, 7. 19

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“Christianity is not something utterly formless and vague, but has an ascertainable, statable content, which it is the business of the church to find out, to declare, to defend.”
~ James Orr, The Progress of Dogma, pp. 8, 9

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“The errors of heretics…force us to deal with unlawful matters, to scale perilous heights, to speak unutterable words, to trespass on forbidden ground, compelling us to err in daring to embody in human terms truths which ought to be hidden in the silent veneration of the heart.”
~ Hilary of Poitiers, Hilary of Poitiers on the Trinity , 2, 2

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Christianity & Pagan Systems of Thought

The Pursuit of God

100 Most Important Events In Church History

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