When I hear the term "catechism," I think back to the time a school friend said he had to go for catechism class at the Diocesan school to be instructed in his faith. He was Roman Catholic. And immediately, as a Protestant, I had a negative impression of the practice of catechism. And growing up in various non-denominational churches, I thought the practice of catechism was a man-made guide to faith, and hence useless to true faith which was founded on the Bible alone. To me, it represented dead orthodoxy. However, I have come to realize that catechism, as a practice, was something very biblical.

The term catechizing, itself, is a Greek word, being derived from katecheo which means "to sound against." This word is used seven times in the New Testament and it refers to oral instruction. This is seen in Luke 1:3-4, where the Evangelist addresses the recipient of this Gospel – "It seemed good to me also, having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first, to write unto thee in order, most excellent Theophilus, that thou mightest know the certainty of those things, wherein thou hast been instructed."

It is taken from two Greek words – kata which means "against" and echos which means "sound." It gives the idea of someone sounding out ideas against someone else – where one speaks and the other listens, who then is able to echo back what has been spoken. It is oral instruction, but more than simple oral instruction, it later came to refer to an instruction by means of question and answer.

Before the completion of the New Testament, the teachings of Christ and the Apostles would have been imparted orally. And in the early church when literacy was not widespread, those converted into Christianity would have been instructed in this manner. It was to ensure that the truths of the Bible were drummed into the minds of new believers. It was not just preaching or teaching, but it was systematic instruction. Believers were instructed until they could repeat what was taught.

It proved so useful that a catechetical school was founded in Alexandria in the late 2nd century AD. Church Fathers who advocated this kind of instruction were Clement and Origen, who began their celebrated careers first as catechists in the Alexandrian school. But the first person to use the word "catechism" in conjunction with this kind of question and answer instruction was St. Augustine. In his Catechizing of the Uninstructed, he teaches people how to go about doing catechism. Aside from Augustine, many of his contemporaries placed great importance on this kind of instruction – it was an effective way of fulfilling the Great Commission of Christ to His disciples, in teaching all that He had commanded.

It was through schools like these that summaries of doctrines were produced and handed down to succeeding generations. However, an important event in Church history led to the decline of catechetical instruction. That event was when Christianity was made the official religion of the Roman Empire.

In AD 312, when the Roman Emperor Constantine appeared to have converted to Christianity, his Edict of Milan in AD 314 made Christianity the official religion in the Roman Empire. But one might ask, "How did the legalizing of Christianity diminished catechetical instruction?"

When Christianity was legalized, hoards of barbarous nations to the north of Rome mass converted. Such conversions were often false. Many held onto their superstitions and own beliefs. These, intermingled with the true doctrines of Christianity, soon formed a syncretistic and mixed religion, which would pass as Christianity for the next millennium, but could be hardly called true Christianity.

And so, as the Church grew in its heresy and subsequent ungodliness, rituals and superstition replaced instruction – hence, there was little need and requirement in the Church’s eyes, to continue with this practice, and it died down among the general populace. It is no surprise why this age in history is called the Dark Ages. Fraught with intrigue and immorality, the Church declined in its moral influence over the people, and hence the people continued to nurse their depravity. However, it stands out clearly during this time, that wherever this instruction continued to be adhered, Christianity and holiness flourished. These pockets of true Christianity were few, but were the catalyst for Reformation; they were the Waldenses, the Albigenses, the Hussites, and the Lollards. These groups kept the practice of catechizing alive in the midst of apostasy and error. The Lollards, especially, are credited for establishing the form for all major modern Reformed catechisms; in them we trace the earliest of Protestant catechisms. Called A Fruitful Mirror of Small Handbook for Christians, it was written in 1470 and made available to many heads of homes to catechize their family members.

And with the Reformation, catechetical instruction came back with a vengeance. Martin Luther not only wrote his own catechism, but also explained the uses of such catechisms as well as explained the motivation for using them. He instructed that "it is the duty of every father of a family to question and examine his children and servants at least once a week and to ascertain what they know of it, or are learning and, if they do not know it, to keep them faithfully at it."

John Calvin’s catechism, the Genevan Catechism (1541), was written in order to set a basic pattern of doctrine, which would affirm the major doctrines of the faith, and would set a pattern for what was expected to be taught by Christian fathers and other teachers of children in the Church.

In fact, in the latter half of the 16th and first half of the 17th centuries, many catechisms were written. The great leaders of the Reformation all attacked the colossal ignorance of the Christian faith in their own countries by way of catechisms - Genevan Catechism, the Heidelberg Catechism, the Basel Catechism, and the Westminster Catechisms.

But it was not so much the number of catechisms that the Reformers were concerned about; it was the practice of catechizing. This can be seen in some of the admonitions by ministers and by councils. The Westminster Directory of Family Worship states that families should spend time "reading of the scriptures, with catechizing in a plain way, that the understandings of the simpler may be the better enabled to profit under the public ordinances…" And not only would catechism be done at home, but also at church. The General Assembly of the Church of Scotland instructed that each church should have two services and that one service should be dedicated to the catechizing of the young and ignorant. This practice of both public and private catechism bolstered the spirituality of the Reformed churches in Scotland and England.

Is it not so, that a church is only as Christian as its leaders and parishioners? And is it not so, that a household is only as Christian as its head and family members? But the lost art of systematic Bible instruction, coupled with the lack of family religion, impounded by a general and modern distaste for creedal adherence, has caused many a church to lose their Reformed heritage and spiritual standard.

The Law of Entropy, in physics, tells us that all things tend to disorder. In other words, if left alone, they will become less organized. This is not untrue from a Christian stand point. If left alone without Bible instruction and follow-up, Christians will backslide. If given a weekly dose of instruction (and a weakly dose at that), how much better does the Christian fair? The catechetical system was devised to fight spiritual entropy. It is a strong dose of Christian instruction, with all the vital doctrines that a person requires to be spiritually fit and mature. It is akin to a combination of multi-vitamins and designer antibiotics, to be taken in conjunction with a regular diet of healthy foods. If a person is well-versed in the catechism and has a daily devotion with his Lord, imagine his spiritual maturity!

The testimony of the use of catechisms is seen in an anecdote by B.B. Warfield in his Selected Short Writings. D.L. Moody was once staying with a friend in London when "a young man had come to speak to Mr. Moody about spiritual things. He was in difficulty about a number of points, among the rest about prayer and natural laws. ‘What is prayer?,’ he said, ‘I can’t tell what you mean by it!’ They were in the hall of a large London house. Before Moody could answer, a child’s voice was heard singing on the stairs. It was that of a little girl of nine or ten, the daughter of their host. She came running down the stairs and paused as she saw strangers in the hall. ‘Come here, Jenny,’ her father said, ‘and tell this gentleman "What is prayer."’ Jenny did not know what had been going on, but she quite understood that she was now called upon to say her Catechism. So she drew herself up, and folded her hands in front of her, like a good little girl who was going to ‘say her questions,’ and she said in her clear childish voice: ‘Prayer is an offering up of our desires unto God for things agreeable to his will, in the name of Christ, with confession of our sins and thankful acknowledgement of his mercies.’ ‘Ah! That’s the Catechism!’ Moody said, ‘thank God for that Catechism.’"

The use of the catechisms among the Reformed Churches raised up a generation of faithful stalwarts of Christendom. So successful were the use of catechisms among Protestants that the Roman Catholic Church observed at their Council of Trent (1545-1563), convened to arrest the spread of the Reformation, that "the heretics (meaning, Protestants) have chiefly made use of catechisms to corrupt the minds of Christians." Even Dr Lancelot Andrews (chairman of the overall translating committee of the KJV) said, "The papists...acknowledge that all the advantage which the Protestants have gotten of them hath come by this exercise (meaning, catechism)."

So successful was the Protestant practice of catechism, that when the Jesuit Order of the Roman Catholic Church was formed, they adopted the practice. Religious schools for the young were established and the students were catechized rigorously in the Catholic faith. And many have credited this school system as one of the most successful means of Counter-Reformation. Francis Xavier, one of the founders of the Jesuit Order, is reputed to have said, "Give me the children until they are seven years old, and anyone may take them afterwards."

A conversation between a Catholic priest and an Episcopal (Anglican) Bishop was recounted by H. Clay Trumbull (one of America’s most prominent Christian authors and spokesmen, dedicated to the evangelism of children) in 1893. "The Episcopal bishop was supposed to be Protestant and the priest said to him, ‘What a poor foolish people you Protestants are. You leave the children until they are grown up, possessed of the devil, and then go out reclaiming them with horse, foot, and dragoons. We Catholics, on the other hand, know that the children are as plastic or clay in our hands. We quietly devote ourselves first to them. When they are well instructed and trained we have little to fear for the future.’" What a frightful but true statement. But how wonderful it would be if all in Life Church were well-instructed and trained in the Doctrines of Grace and Life; the threat of any being led astray would be remote.

This is because catechizing ensures the dissemination of Biblical knowledge to future generations, that nothing will be watered down. And once they are grounded in the knowledge of salvation, by God’s grace they would have been saved at a very young age. This is the principle given in Proverbs 22:6 which says, "Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it." Hence, this duty is important.

In Genesis 18:19, God says of Abraham, "For I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the LORD, to do justice and judgment; that the LORD may bring upon Abraham that which he hath spoken of him." Such instruction is not only in the church, but as mentioned, also at home. In Deuteronomy 6:7, it is commanded by God, "And the words which I command thee shall be in thy heart, and thou shalt teach them diligently to thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thy house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down and when thou risest up."

And the charge is serious because we are prone to forget. Deuteronomy 4:9 says, "Only take heed to thyself, and keep thy soul diligently, lest thou forget the things which thine eyes have seen, and lest they depart from thy heart all the days of thy life: but teach them thy sons, and thy sons’ sons."

And what better means does the modern Presbyterian church have to disseminate the Doctrines of Grace than with the time-tested Westminster Larger and Shorter Catechisms? Richard Baxter said, "Those that will deride all catechisms and professions, as unprofitable forms, had better deride themselves for talking and using the form of their own words to make known their mind to others." Meaning, if catechisms are unprofitable, what makes us think that we can do better – that our instruction is good enough? The catechisms summarize and organize the major doctrines, as well as make them easy to understand.

If asked for a definition of God, how many of us can give a comprehensive answer which covers all the attributes of God? If asked what the chief goal of man is, how many of us can answer this profound question with equal profoundness? The catechisms, in particular the Westminster Larger and Shorter Catechisms, give simple answers that make the great depths of Scripture truths understandable to the simplest of us, even the youngest.

What is God? "God is a Spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable, in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth."

What is the chief end of man? "The chief end of man is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever."