Roots of our Faith- The Catechism
Question #1: What is our only hope of knowing God, knowing ourselves, and understanding the world in which we live?
Answer: “The Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments”
Scripture: Matthew 4:4, But He answered and said, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.’”
There is nothing more important than knowing God, knowing ourselves, and understanding the world in which we live. God has given us a place to know these things. God has given us His word. We call His Word the Scriptures.
The Scriptures, while separated into many smaller parts that we call books, are mainly separated under the two major headings of The Old and the New Testaments. The Old testament relates to all that God revealed about Himself before the birth of the God-Man Jesus Christ. The New testament is the crowning culmination and consummation of all that God revealed in the Old Testament. The two testaments as we now have them are inseparable. The Old prepares us and gives us the categories that we need to understand the New. And the New explains, clarifies, and interprets the Old.
These two testimonies about God have been bound together by God as one and should not be separated. We should not elevate or diminish one testament over the other since they both reveal the same God in whom there is no change and no shadow of turning.
So What?
The Word of God is our only hope. It is our very life. The Bible is the voice of God to us. We know God through the Scriptures, we know ourselves through the Scriptures, and we understand our world through the Scriptures. The Bible is life to us.
