Day 10: The Part of the End

My Take (2023)

Well, that’s it then. A very short and basic overview of the major creeds in our early history. As I stated before, I did not grow up in a church that said or had a creed. ‘No creed but the Bible’ was our cry. So really I didn’t have a good grasp on them. But now, well…

I still don’t have a good grasp on them.

This has been interesting, digging into these at least from my own point of view as the researcher-there were lots of rabbit trails I followed, the things I learned and…well…to quote author Laurie Forest: ‘Knowledge is never wasted, my dear. No matter how obscure or difficult…or confusing. It always serves to enrich our lives, if we let it, and in ways we can rarely anticipate’. 

But I learned a lot more than I expected to, which I will file away in a box in my mind titled ‘Useless Information’. And the next time we do Church History Jeopardy, I’ll pull out that box and say ‘Obscure Church History of the 3rd Century’ for a thousand, Alex! (Or whomever is running it…)

On a serious note, yes, I guess I CAN see the need for finalization-clarity-a united stance on the fundamentals of the gospel. The triune nature of the Most High God. Of the duality of Christ. The Spirit of Truth. For we must always keep in the back of our minds that today we have the whole of scripture and 2,000 years of ‘dead theologians’ to base our understandings on and they did not. They were in the process of codifying, clarifying and BECOMING those ‘dead theologians’ we rely upon. In some ways we have it easier-it’s all there for us to see-in other ways it’s harder-we no longer have to dig through and in doing so get to see Jesus more intimately.

Do I think we need to discuss these things? Yes, but maybe not as deeply. We DO need to know where we are coming from. They form the foundation of our faith and our personal journey with Jesus. But do we need a creed today to know who He is? Maybe there are some who do, but the majority of us probably read these creeds written to ‘explain’ and say…’huh’? I know at times I did.

So. If I were to be asked ‘what do you believe’? I don’t think I would point to any of these creeds. Not that I disagree with any of them, I just don’t see a need for that in-depth of a response. Instead I would use the words I used at my baptism-‘I believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God’. Which, at it’s base, I guess IS my creed. But if I am asked to write my ‘Religion’, I don’t say Church of Christ or Christian or Protestant. I usually write ‘Christ Follower. John 14:6’.

Scripture readings for today:

John 14:6
I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father but through Me.

John 14:15-17
“If you love me, keep my commands. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever— the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you…”

 I Corinthians 2:6-16
We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. No, we declare God’s wisdom, a mystery that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began. None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. However, as it is written: “What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived”—the things God has prepared for those who love him—these are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God.For who knows a person’s thoughts except their own spirit within them? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. What we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us.This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual realities with Spirit-taught words.The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit. The person with the Spirit makes judgments about all things, but such a person is not subject to merely human judgments, for, “Who has known the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ.

To paraphrase Elliot Ness, speaking to Al Capone: “Never stop learning until the learning is done. Thus endeth the lesson.”

Until we next meet, I remain Your Servant

-Eric