Reveling in the Book of Concord...

In setting up the BOC Snippet for Friday, I thought about one of the comforts I take from our Confessions:  the phrase "we believe, teach, and confess."

This is a litany of sorts for me, as comforting as hearing the words of the Creeds spoken by my brothers and sisters in Christ.  When their confession fills my ears, I am reminded that it is not my faith that matters, but the faith we all share, the faith given to us, the faith of our Redeemer.

Each and every time I read "we believe, teach, and confess" the cadence strikes a chord within me reverberating strongly enough to repel the doubts and fears that assail me.  For that to which I cling is not of something of my own fancy or scholarship, my own strength or will, but the pure doctrine normed solely by the Living Word and set down by God through the pens of His sheep hundreds of years ago, truth given to the Church from its start.

For what we believe, teach, and confess has its beginning, middle, and end in the One who is the Alpha and the Omega and all things in between.  All things.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He was in the beginning with God.  All things came into being by Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.  In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome  it.  ~ John 1:1-5

We believe.
We teach.
We confess.

We, the sheep of the Good Shepherd.  Not just me.  Not just one person, but the millions upon millions who have read or been taught and then clung to our Confessions.  And the millions upon millions more whom God made His own through the waters of Holy Baptism and the giving of faith through the Living Word via the Holy Spirit who teaches them we are saved through grace alone by faith alone in Christ alone.

Father. Son. Holy Spirit.
Grace. Faith. Christ.
Believe. Teach. Confess.

Not the pattern of threes, but the pattern of a cadence that is never just one thing.  Never isolated.  Never alone.  


Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief!