One More Time With the Creed

191 - Today's Prime Time Devo comes from 1Ti 6:20 O Timothy! Guard what was committed to your trust, avoiding the profane and idle babblings and contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge-- 21 by professing it some have strayed concerning the faith. Grace be with you. Amen. (1 Tim 6:20,21) And so we come to the end of Paul's first letter to Timothy. Timothy was taking the baton from Paul and was charged with passing the apostolic teachings on to the church for all time! We have heard teachings concerning how to pray, qualifications for positions of leadership in the church, instructions for taking care of widows, how to handle financial blessings, and warnings about false teachings! The last one being the most important of all and a theme that was consistently hit upon throughout the letter! It is fitting then that Paul would end the letter with a final warning. The noble confession must be guarded and passed on to the following generations as a guard against false teaching that left unchecked will shipwreck saving faith! This noble confession was summed up for us in the credal statement of 1Ti 3:16 And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifested in the flesh, Justified in the Spirit, Seen by angels, Preached among the Gentiles, Believed on in the world, Received up in glory. This is an early creed of the Christian church of Paul's day and has been refined without losing it's meaning to the present day Apostle's Creed of the church: It is what we must believe about Jesus. He was God in the flesh, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered and died under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried. The third day He rose again from the dead, (justified in the Spirit by the resurrection!) Seen by the angels (Messengers or His Apostles) and they were given the commission to preach the gospel to the world, where many would believe, then He ascended into heaven, and He will come again to judge the living and the dead. Anything less than this Christian Creed for all ages is profane, idle contradictory babblings and false knowledge. May we all have the grace that Paul prayed for Timothy to cling to the confession of this Creed!