Personal Rule

This is the catholic faith; which it is more profitable to believe and confess than to demolish by discussion. Neither the wisdom of the age nor worldly understanding which follow the outward appearance of things rather than knowledge of the truth could discern it but the apostolic faith has handed it down and the vigilance of the church has kept it safe.

  - Anonymous, Liber de Ordine Creaturarum (Irish, 7th century)

Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints.

  - Jude 3

Our anonymous scholar has just completed a concise summary of the orthodox doctrine of God. Then he insists this is the true (catholic) faith. It's not what worldly thinkers would ever come up with or embrace, but the Church knows it and faithful believers pass it on, generation after generation.

In our day the orthodox faith is being somewhat rudely treated. Some pastors scorn the very idea of "doctrine" as out of touch with our image-conscious times. Many others have no use for Church history; the only thing that matters to them is what they'll do next that's new and exciting and promises to bring in more people. Other pastors directly deny orthodox Christian teaching: no one goes to hell, the Gospel is really about getting what you want, we have no need for the Law of God.

Orthodox teaching has held the Christian movement together for 2,000 years. Believers worked hard and long to advance the orthodox faith, seeing themselves as the next leg of a relay race of sound teaching whose only job was to reach the next generation, baton intact.

Many of our forebears in the faith died for sound doctrine, while others taught it diligently, wrote about it by every means they could, embodied it in their lives, taught it to their children, and etched it in words and images through the various vehicles of the arts.

You are a Christian today for one reason only: someone in a previous generation loved the orthodox faith enough to live and die for it, so that the "catholic faith" could come down to you. Orthodoxy matters. Where it does not, true Christianity begins to fade, replaced by a form of the faith that looks more like the spirit of the age than the Spirit of God and of the saints and martyrs of the past.

Is your own faith orthodox? How do you know? And to whom are you handing off the only truth that overcomes the folly of every age and anchors the human soul in eternal verities?

How will you keep the orthodox faith today?

Today at The Fellowship of Ailbe

ReVision - So, where can we look to discover our true self?

Pastors' Fellowship - Still time to sign up. What doth hinder thee?

Bookstore - Lots of good reads for the summer. You might try I Will Be Your God in order to learn the orthodox doctrine of God's covenant.

And don't forget our free download for this month: A Kingdom Catechism can help you to understand the place of the Law of God in the life of faith. Friends, it's free!

T. M. Moore, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.