The Value of the Shorter Catechism for Our Formation
Catechism. The very name sounds like it belongs in a catacomb with lifeless, dusty bones of medieval saints. Far from being archaic relics—though they were written centuries ago—the Reformed catechisms and confessions are treasures for us today.* I’ve found they still have power to train our minds, give precision to our thinking, nourish our souls, and warm our hearts with the building blocks of the Christian faith. So when I heard that City Church would be doing the new Re: Formation podcast on life’s big questions through the lens of the Westminster Shorter Catechism (WSC), I was excited. Among others, here are a few reasons why I’ve come to value the WSC.
The Shorter Catechism focuses our concerns on what really matters.
What are the big questions in your life, the issues that seem most important? Lately mine have been, Where will our daughter Providence go to daycare? Can we live off one income? How is the Lord calling me to serve his church? Will I be able to rescue my lawn from weeds and barren patches? Obviously some are weightier than others. The WSC begins with the biggest question of them all: “What is the chief end of man?” It then moves on to give us the Bible’s own priorities for faith and practice, namely, “what man is to believe concerning God, and what duty God requires of man” (Q/A 3). Among our primary concerns ought to be Does God care about hardships in my life, even death itself (Q/A 20-38)? How am I to live (Q/A 39-81)? How am I made right with a holy God and receive his grace (Q/A 20-35, 85-107)?
The WSC also seeks to balance our priorities. I’m a heady guy who can get wrapped up in doctrinal particulars. And while orthodoxy is essential for true faith, our Maker has given us not only heads, but also hearts and hands (see Q/A 10). The Christian life is one where we know and believe the truth about God and ourselves (faith), cultivate dependence on his grace (hope), and live in thankful obedience to our King (love). By presenting all of these as essentials, the Catechism keeps us from becoming lopsided and helps us remember our heavenly Father’s goal is to present his children “complete in Christ” (Colossians 1:28; see vv. 9-14).
The Shorter Catechism helps us think big thoughts about God.
It’s so easy to make “my” life all about me. When life takes an unexpected turn, I look inward to my own petty resources and needlessly generate worrisome what-ifs. And when all seems well, I often think only of my own parochial desires. But the WSC reminds us it’s all about God and gives us a picture of an “infinite, eternal, and unchangeable” Creator, Rescuer, and Judge whose wisdom and lovingkindness stretch beyond the horizons of time (Q/A 4). The WSC is eminently God-centered.
The golden thread woven throughout the Westminster Confession of Faith and Catechisms—just as through the Bible itself—is this triune God’s “eternal purpose … for his own glory” (WSC Q/A 7; see Isaiah 43:6-7 and Ephesians 1:3-14). God begins by creating humanity “to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever” (Q/A 1). But in Adam’s tragic sin we all fell short of the glory of God (Q/A 12-19). Was his plan ruined? Would he “leave all mankind to perish in the estate of sin and misery” (Q/A 20)? By no means! Questions 20-38 tell us the wonderful news that even before time, God set his love on sinners to deliver them by a Redeemer, the Lord Jesus Christ. In grace the three Persons of the one God provide for us everything he requires from us to restore our communion with him.
Questions 37 and 38 stir my soul every time I think of them, because they preach the comforting goal of this great hope: “The souls of believers are at their death made perfect in holiness … .” No more shall sin mar our ability to see our Father’s face and swim in his love, or to enjoy relationships with others. “At the resurrection, believers, being raised up in glory, shall be openly acknowledged and acquitted in the day of judgment, and made perfectly blessed in the full enjoying of God to all eternity.”
God will win. His glory will be the source of our joy forever. And his eternal purpose brought about in his Son secures this. In other words, God’s chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy himself forever. God’s sovereign mercy secures our future and breaks into our present needs--while also shaking us awake from delusions of self-determination and self-reliance. And that’s good news for us, who are so easily subject to Satan’s lies amid “all the miseries of this life” (Q/A 19).
There’s a lot more I could say, but I hope these examples have whetted your appetite for the Shorter Catechism and the new Re: Formation podcast. I hope they lead you to dig deeper into the Reformed confessions. But most of all I pray these lead you to desire to know God and his word more deeply, pray more passionately, and serve our Savior and his church more gladly.
*The major Reformed confessions include the Westminster Standards (the Confession of Faith, Larger Catechism, and Shorter Catechism) and the Three Forms of Unity (Heidelberg Catechism, Belgic Confession, and Canons of Dort).