- The Apostles' Creed (Series) - Ligon Duncan
The Apostles’ Creed, unlike the Nicene Creed, and some of the other formulations of early church councils, was used for multiple purposes. It was used for catechism training, for teaching Christians the basics of the Christian faith. It was also used as a baptismal confession. When believers came before the church to profess their faith in Christ, not having previously been baptized, they would be schooled in the Apostles’ Creed and then the minister would ask them each of the phrases of the Apostles’ Creed and ask them to affirm this as their faith, before they were baptized, not unlike the way we ask the five questions of membership, to adults who come to the church now to receive baptism and profess faith in Jesus Christ.
But the Apostles’ Creed was also used in worship. Unlike the other creedal formulations of the Church, especially in the Western Church, the Apostles’ Creed was incorporated and said as part of worship in the gathered services of the Church. And so, for hundreds of years the Apostles’ Creed has both served as an instrument for instructing Christians in the basics of the Christian faith, and as an instrument for Christians to express, in worship, their common confession in the one true God.
