Catalyzing Some Catechizing: Part 3

Awhile back, I posted a couple of entries on something called "catechesis" - what it is, and how it benefits the local church.  To summarize those posts, catechesis is intentional teaching in foundational areas of Christian formation and discipleship.  And it's really important for a healthy and flourishing church.  I encourage you to go back and read these posts to get a fuller picture of what I'm talking about.

I want to keep championing this priority of catechesis, though, and so figured it was time to add to this growing body of posts.  (For a bunch of other posts more broadly related to catechesis, be sure and check out the "catechesis category" on this site.)

In this entry, I simply want to make it plain that catechesis is a (very!) biblical idea by summarizing a chapter in J.I. Packer and Gary A. Parrett's helpful resource, Grounded in the Gospel: Building Believers the Old Fashioned Way.

J.I. Packer and Gary A. Parrett, "Catechesis is a (Very!) Biblical Idea" in Grounded in the Gospel: Building Believers the Old Fashioned Way.  Baker Books, 2010. pp. 33-50.

---

Reinforcing the importance of catechesis: 
"It will doubtless surprise a good number of evangelical Protestants to hear that catechesis is not only a biblical idea, but a very biblical idea.  Many of us - especially those of us who grew up in North American evangelical cultures in recent times - rarely if ever heard the words catechesis or catechism. / For most of what we might call 'garden variety evangelicals, ...catechesis has, up to now, been a largely foreign concept. / The fact is, however, that catechesis is an exceedingly biblical notion" (33-34).

Defining what we mean by catechesis: 
"Catechesis...should be understood as a ministry of rigorously grounding and growing believers in the Christian faith.  This includes a comprehensive concern for our beliefs about God, our communion with God, and our obedience to God.....[S]uch determined attention to faith formation is a biblical constant that was established early on in the Old Testament. The New Testament takes this idea further and centers it on the person and work of Jesus Christ" (34).

Biblical support for this sort of faith formation: A sampling
Hopefully, by simply listing ten of the passages highlighted in Packer and Parrett, the biblical value of catechesis will be fairly self-evident.  To make this as user-friendly as possible, I've bolded some of the connections to catechesis in the verses below.  If you want to see even more verses, explore this further or dig into additional commentary on these verses, read this chapter of Grounded in the Gospel.

• Deuteronomy 6:4-9: 4 Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 5 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. 6 These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. 7 Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. 8 Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. 9 Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.

• Psalm 1:1-6: 1 Blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked or stand in the way that sinners take or sit in the company of mockers, 2 but whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and who meditates on his law day and night. 3 That person is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither--whatever they do prospers. 4 Not so the wicked!  They are like chaff that the wind blows away. 5 Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous. 6 For the Lord watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked leads to destruction.

• Psalm 78:4-8: 4 ...we will tell the next generation the praiseworthy deeds of the Lord, his power, and the wonders he has done.  5 He decreed statutes for Jacob and established the law in Israel, which he commanded our ancestors to teach their children, so the next generation would know them, even the children yet to be born, and they in turn would tell their children. 7 Then they would put their trust in God and would not forget his deeds but would keep his commands. 8 They would not be like their ancestors--a stubborn and rebellious generation, whose hearts were not loyal to God, whose spirits were not faithful to him.

• Luke 1:1-4: 1 Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, 2 just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. 3 With this in mind, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, I too decided to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, 4 so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught.

• Acts 2:42: They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.

• 1 Corinthians 15:3-4: 3 For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third dayaccording to the Scriptures

• Titus 1:9: [An elder] must hold firmly to the trustworthy message as it has been taught, so that he can encourage others by sound doctrine and refute those who oppose it.

• Titus 2:1: You...must teach what is appropriate to sound doctrine.

• 2 John 9: Anyone who runs ahead and does not continue in the teaching of Christ does not have God; whoever continues in the teaching has both the Father and the Son.

• Jude 3: Dear friends, although I was very eager to write to you about the salvation we share, I felt compelled to write and urge you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to God’s holy people.

---

Are there questions you have about how these verses reinforce the value of catechesis?  Are there other verses/passages you would add to this list?  How would you "bottom line" the biblical value of catechesis?