We Teach His Word, Not Ours
Every so often, I hear someone say that we need to recover the creeds in our local churches, that we need to be teaching the creeds again, reciting the creeds again, grounding the people of God in the creeds again. And I understand the instinct.
I am not unthankful for the creeds. I am not pretending they do not arise in important historical contexts. I understand that they reflect significant moments in the life of the church, especially in times of controversy, confusion, and doctrinal pressure. I understand why they were written. I understand why people still find them useful.
But useful is not the same thing as inspired. And historical importance is not the same thing as ecclesial obligation. That is where I want to press the issue. I do not believe the local church has an obligation to teach the creeds. I believe the local church has an obligation to teach the Scriptures. That is a very different claim.
The Church Is Called to Devote Itself to the Apostles’ Teaching
When Luke describes the earliest life of the church, he does not say that they devoted themselves to later summaries, later doctrinal formulations, or later theological clarifications. He says plainly:
“They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching” (Acts 2:42).
That matters.
Why the apostles’ teaching? Because the apostles were uniquely appointed by Christ. Because they had been with the Lord. Because they were foundational to the church. Because they were the ones through whom God was establishing the church in its earliest days. Because, whether in inscripturated revelation or prophetic proclamation, they were speaking from God as those moved by the Holy Spirit.
The foundation of the church is not the teaching of the disciples of the disciples of the disciples of the apostles. The foundation of the church is the apostolic and prophetic witness given by God himself. Paul says that the household of God is “built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone” (Eph 2:20).
That foundation is not still being laid. It has been laid. And because it has been laid, the church’s calling is not to improve upon it, stabilize it through later human formulations, or make it more manageable by means of theological compression. Our calling is to teach what God spoke and has spoken.
Our Responsibility Is Simple: See What the Text Says, Nothing More and Nothing Less
I realize that some people will hear this and assume that I am dismissing historical theology, or acting as though the church has learned nothing through the centuries. That is not my point. Actually I love church history (and all history for that matter). My point is much simpler: We are not at liberty to manipulate the text in order to make theology easier on ourselves.
We are not at liberty to adjust the wording of Scripture, smooth out its contours, or import later categories back into the text in order to protect ourselves from misunderstanding. We are not at liberty to speak where Scripture does not speak, and then give our words a practical authority they were never meant to bear.
We have a holier task than that. We are called to see what the text says, nothing more and nothing less, so that we may obey it.
Jesus said, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God” (Matt 4:4). Not by every summary. Not by every doctrinal abbreviation. Not by every later theological refinement. By every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.
That means we have an obligation to retain that word as God gave it—not as though we needed to help it speak better, make it safer, or clarify it so that it fits more neatly within our systems.
God does not need our improvement. The church needs his word.
Scripture Is Not Merely a Deposit of Words. It Is God-Breathed in All That It Is
This is where I want to press something that has mattered deeply to me for years.
Scripture is θεόπνευστος (2 Tim 3:16). Scripture is God-breathed.
That does not mean merely that God inspired a collection of isolated lexical items that we may then rearrange or repackage as we see fit. No. What God breathed out is Scripture in its actual written form.
That means the church must take seriously not only the words, but everything bound up with them in the form God gave them.
Aspect matters.
Tense matters.
Voice matters.
Mood matters.
Person matters.
Number matters.
Gender matters.
Clause order matters.
Phrase order matters.
Word order matters.
Idiomatic expression matters.
Discourse structure matters.
Rhetorical design matters.
Poetic shape matters.
Literary artistry matters.
All of that belongs to the form in which God chose to give his word.
And if that is true, then the task of the church is not merely to preserve general doctrinal content in summary form. The task of the church is to receive, teach, explain, obey, and hand on the very Scriptures themselves.
That is why texts such as Hebrews 1:1–4 matter in their actual shape.
That is why Philippians 2:6–11 matters in its actual structure.
That is why the literary and theological texture of Matthew matters.
That is why Genesis through Revelation must be handled with reverence not only for what is said, but for how God chose to say it.
God did not breathe out abstractions. He breathed out all that is written down in Scripture.
The Problem With Making the Creeds Central (or Even Peripheral)
Now let me be very clear.
I am not arguing that a creed can never say something true. Of course it can. A creed can preserve an important doctrinal judgment. A creed can serve as a historical witness to the church’s wrestling with error. A creed can even help us understand how Christians in another era tried to defend what they believed Scripture taught. Fine. But none of that means the local church must teach the creeds. And none of that means the creeds should function as a regular object of devotion in the life of the church.
I worry that once we start saying that the church must recover the creeds, we have already begun to shift the center of gravity. We have subtly moved from the sufficiency of Scripture to the usefulness of extra-biblical formulations, and then from usefulness to practical necessity. That move happens faster than many people realize. And once it happens, people begin to think that what the church most needs is better theological shorthand rather than better biblical teaching.
But that is not what the church most needs. The church does not need to be trained to confess the best sentences that later Christians wrote. The church needs to be trained to understand, treasure, and obey the words God gave. Besides are there any better discourses than those?! I have read the best of church history in their original languages. And I have never found a single one that came anywhere close to the beauty that David Alan Black walked us through this week in Hebrews 1:1–4.
Even Historically, the Creeds Show Why They Cannot Bear Final Authority
This is another reason I am cautious. The creeds themselves reflect development, refinement, adjustment, and expansion in language. That alone should remind us that they are not infallible. They are historically situated formulations written by men trying to articulate what they believed. Whatever one thinks of their usefulness, they are not beyond scrutiny. They are not beyond revision. They are not beyond question.
Scripture is.
And that distinction must remain absolutely clear in the church. It is one thing to say, “Here is how some Christians in history summarized biblical teaching in a moment of controversy.” It is another thing entirely to say, “This is what our churches now need to recover and teach as a central duty.” No. The central duty of the church is to proclaim the word of God. Paul did not charge Timothy to guard the creeds. He charged him to “preach the message” (2 Tim 4:2).
The church is not called to preserve the memory of its best theological formulations as though they were its lifeblood. The church is called to preach the gospel, teach God's message (from Genesis to Revelation), read the message publicly, explain the message faithfully, and live under the authority of the Message.
The Public Reading and Teaching of Scripture Is the Pattern
When I think about what the church should be doing, I keep coming back to the basic patterns we actually see in the New Testament.
“Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation, to teaching” (1 Tim 4:13).
That is the pattern. Read Scripture. Exhort from Scripture. Teach Scripture.
Again, the emphasis falls where it should fall: on the God-given text. And if we really believe that all Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness (2 Tim 3:16–17), then why would we imagine that the church needs something else at the center of its life? Why would we take what is secondary and make it central? Why would we take what is human and place it alongside what is divine in the regular teaching life of the church?
The Creeds Are ἀνθρωπόπνευστος. Scripture Alone Is Θεόπνευστος
If I can put it plainly, this is where the issue lands for me: The creeds are ἀνθρωποπνευστος. They are breathed out by man. Scripture alone is θεόπνευστος. It is breathed out by God.
Now, someone might object to my use of that contrast, but the point should be obvious enough. The creeds come from men. Scripture comes from God. The creeds might contain truth. Scripture is truth. The creeds might be profitable at points. Scripture is, without question, profitable in all that it says.
So if the question is, “What should the church devote itself to teaching?” the answer is not difficult.
Not the words of later men, however earnest.
Not the summaries of later councils, however historically significant.
Not the formulations of later theologians, however influential.
Teach the Scriptures–the Law, the Prophets, the Psalms. The fourfold Gospel and Acts. The letters of apostles, and the seven of Jesus to seven churches. And Revelation. Teach the whole counsel of God.
What the Church Needs Most Is Not Better Compression, but Better Exposition
I suspect part of the appeal of the creeds is that they compress. They condense. They offer doctrinal shorthand. They appear to give theological stability in a world of confusion.
But compression is not the same thing as discipleship. And summary is not the same thing as revelation.
The people of God do not need less Bible packaged more efficiently. They need more Bible taught more faithfully. One of my beloved students came to my office recently and told me he was going to teach an evangelism course and was putting together his teaching materials. He asked me what book or books I would recommend he use in the course. I didn't even have to think. Simple. Just teach the Bible. Sure, we can illustrate where necessary. Paul had no trouble even pulling from the world of the Cretans. We can as well. But what do we teach? What do we carry when we walk into the classroom? What are we memorizing? What are we loving and following? –His Word.
They need pastors, teachers, elders, and disciplers who will open the text, explain the text, follow the logic of the text, honor the wording of the text, and call people to obey the God who has spoken in the text.
That is harder. And better. It takes more time. It takes more precision. It takes more patience. It takes more reverence. But that is the work to which we are called (all of us) in Christ.
Teach the Word of God
So no, I do not believe we need to be teaching the creeds in our local churches as though that were some neglected biblical mandate.
We need to teach Scripture. We need to teach what God has said. We need to teach what the apostles taught. We need to teach what the Spirit gave. We need to teach every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. And we need to do so with enough confidence in the sufficiency of Scripture that we do not feel compelled to prop it up with later formulations in order to make it more serviceable to the church.
The church does not live by the best words of later Christians. The church lives by the God-breathed Scriptures.
They are enough. More than enough. And they are what we have to teach.