Christian Teaching
From the earliest times the Church has produced summaries of what the Bible teaches. The earliest known is the "Didache", (in Greek the "Teaching") which dates somewhere between AD65 and AD80. In 1529 Martin Luther produced the first popular summary of important bible teaching in a "Question and Answer" format; though earlier examples from around 1400 are known. Today some Church's still use this same Q & A format to teach the essential truths about the Bible, God and the person and work of Jesus. In 1645, Dr John Owen, pastor of Fordham in Essex, produced two such Q & A guides (one a summary, the other more detailed) to help teach his parishioners essential and unchanging Christian truths. The shorter version, with some changes to reflect a baptist viewpoint, is reproduced below using lightly modernised English.
Basic Christian Doctrine
A Question and Answer Guide
Q. Where will we find all truth concerning God and ourselves?
A. In Holy Scripture, the Word of God.
Q. What does the Bible teach God is?
A. An eternal, infinite, most holy Spirit, giving life to all things, and being glorified through them all.
Q. Is there one God?
A. One only, in his essence and being, who is three distinct Persons, of Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Q. What else do we find in the Bible concerning God that we need to know?
A. His decrees, his will and his works.
Q. What are God's decrees concerning us?
A. His eternal purpose of saving an innumerable company by Jesus Christ, for the praise of his glory and of condemning others for their sins.
Q. What are the works of God?
A. His acts of power and grace in creating sustaining and overseeing all things.
Q. What is required from us in response to Almighty God?
A. The spiritual obedience of faith, according to his Word and will.
Q. Are we able to do this of ourselves?
A. No, not at all, our nature is naturally fatally biased to evil.
Q. How did we come into this condition, seeing we were created in the image of God, upright and innocent?
A. By the sin of our first parents, acting in disobedience to God's Word, losing his grace and deserving his wrath.
Q. By what way are we to be delivered from this sinful condition?
A. Only by Jesus Christ.
Q. Who and what is Jesus Christ?
A. He is God and man in one person, the Mediator between God and man.
Q. What is he to us?
A. He is King, Priest and Prophet.
Q. How does he work out his kingly power towards us?
A. In converting us to God by his Spirit, drawing us to obedience and reigning in us by his grace.
Q. How does he work out his priestly role for us?
A. By offering himself an acceptable sacrifice on the Cross, satisfying the just wrath of God for our sins, removing his curse from us and drawing us to him.
Q. How does Christ work out his prophetical role to us?
A. In revealing to us, from the heart of his Father, the way and truth by which we must come to him and live for him.
Q. In what condition does Jesus Christ fulfil these roles?
A. By coming to us in a state of humiliation on earth and now exalted to God's right hand in the glory in heaven.
Q. For whose sake does Christ do all this?
A. For his elect.
Q. What is the Church of Christ?
A. The world-wide community of God's elect, adopted as his children.
Q. How do we become members of his Church?
A. By a living faith in Jesus Christ.
Q. What is a living faith?
A. A determined resting of ourselves on God's promises of mercy in Jesus Christ, for pardon of sins now and glory hereafter.
Q. How do we come to have this faith?
A. By the effectual working of the Spirit of God in our hearts, freely calling us from a state of nature to a state of grace.
Q. Are we counted righteous because of our faith?
A. No, we are righteous only in Christ, through our union with him, freely given through 'the uniting grace' of faith.
Q. Is there more required of us than faith alone?
A. Yes; repentance and obedience.
Q. What is repentance?
A. A turning from sin, with godly sorrow for the sins we have committed.
Q. What is this holiness required of us?
A. Obedience to God's will revealed to us in Scripture.
Q. What privileges belong to believers?
A. First, union with Christ; secondly, adoption as his children; thirdly, the communion of saints; fourthly, right to the seals of the new covenant; fifthly, Christian liberty; sixthly, resurrection of the body and life eternal.
Q. What are the sacraments of the new covenant?
A. Visible seals of God's spiritual promises, in the blood of Jesus Christ.
Q. Which are these?
A. Baptism and the Lord's Supper.
Q. What is baptism?
A. A holy ordinance, in which believers obey Christ's institution by immersion in water; through which God seals to his people all his promises of salvation in the covenant of grace.
Q. What is the Lord's Supper?
A. A holy ordinance of Christ, appointed for believers in which they participate through faith in his body and blood in the signs of bread and wine, blessed, broken, and given.
Q. Who are invited to these sacraments?
A. Those who by faith are united to Jesus Christ.
Q. What is the communion of saints?
A. The fellowship of faith between all God's people, partakers of the same Spirit, and members of the same mystical body of the Church.
Q. What is the purpose of this covenant of grace?
A. The glory of God in our salvation and for believers the gift of perfect holiness, truth, joy and beauty.
Based of the Little Catechism of Dr John Owen (1616 - 1683)