The Deposit of the Faith (Part 6)

The History of Christianity #41

Our Scripture verse today is Galatians 3:27 which reads: "For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ."

Our quote today is from R. C. Sproul. He said: "Creedal statements are an attempt to show a coherent and unified understanding of the whole scope of Scripture."

Today, we are looking at "The Deposit of the Faith" (Part 6) from Dr. Justo L. Gonzalez's fine book, The Story of Christianity (Volume 1).

The Response: Creed
Another element in the church's response to heresies was the use of various creeds, particularly in baptism. Quite often the church in a particular city had its own creedal formula, although similar to others in neighboring cities. Apparently what happened was that a "daughter" church used the formula it had learned from the "mother church," although with some variations. On this basis, scholars have classified ancient creeds into "families," and such families can then be used to trace the relationship among various churches.

One of these creeds was an earlier and shorter formulation of what we now call the Apostles' Creed. The notion that the apostles gathered before beginning their mission and composed this creed, each suggesting a clause, is pure fiction. The truth is that its basic text was put together, probably in Rome, around the year 150 AD. Due to its use in Rome, the ancient form of the Apostles' Creed is called "R" by scholars...