Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Books on the Westminster Simbols of Faith - 01

As a good Presbyterian, it is impossible not to love and adopt the Westminster confession and catechisms as the faithful (maybe not complete) exposition of the doctrines found in Scripture. Maybe not complete because the aim of the symbols is not to exhaustively explain what are those things in what we must believe, but to briefly and consistently expose those basic statements of the Christian faith. For more details about each book, just click on it.

My first suggestion is to have on your hand the text of the confession. And it is event better if you can compare it with other faithful doctrinal documents produced by the reformed churches around the World. Reformed Confessions Harmonized will be for you a handfull tool to perform this job. Here you will find not only the Westminster simbols but, in harmony with each subject, there are other four confessions produced other strands among the European churches. From the Dutch-German reformers came the Belgic Confession of Faith (1561), the Heidelberg Catechism (1563), and the Canons of Dort (1618-19) and the Swiss churches contributed the Second Helvetic Confession (1566).
The most precious thing, in my opinion, about this book is the additional bibliography it provides for individual study in each of the doctrinal topics. The only problem is that it does not follow the Westminster confession content, but I can live with that! :)

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