One of the things that I have grown to love about Reformed theology over the years is the importance that it places on training children in the way of the Lord. Don’t get me wrong, other traditions do this too, but I have grown to love some of the resources that have come out of the Reformed camp.
One such resource is the Westminster Shorter Catechism (WSC). the WSC was written by the Westminster Assembly in 1647 and was designed to the basic doctrines of the Christian faith. The format of the WSC is question and answer and you probably know number 1 without thinking too hard…
Question 1 – What is the chief end of man?
Answer – Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him for ever.
Now imagine if you used the WSC to grow in your spiritual life as a family, wouldn’t it be great! You could take one question a day and think through it together as a family and praise God for the resources He has given us to teach the Christian faith to others.
In step P&R Publishing and Paul Cox, together they have created an illustrated Westminster Shorter Catechism in Modern English. This book is very simple, each page has a new questioning answer of the Catechism with a engaging and fun illustration and Bible references at the bottom of the page if you want to do some unpacking of the answer or dig a bit more into the topic.
At the end of the book you’ll find the Ten Commandments, the Lord’s Prayer, the Apostles’ Creed and a few pages for notes. This book intentionally uses modern language and capturing illustrations to assist you teaching your children from the WSC.
Obviously, if you are not a Presbyterian who holds to the Westminster Confession of Faith or the WSC, there will be things you don’t agree with. For example, one of the questions and answers is about infant baptism. I don’t think that not agreeing with every answer is a reason to not use the boo, but it will help your whole family wrestle with what the Bible says and help you, as the parent, lead your family into a searching of Scripture. This could be a great addition to your family worship bookshelf!
If you’ve not come across Paul Cox before you’ll be able to find some of his work on RefToons which is a great place to find good quotes from old dead people with some pretty spot of illustrations (as with this book!).
Go check out the book for yourself, have a peek inside and see if it’s a resource that you could use with your family. I think it’s greta and I look forward to using it in the future.
Chalmers' Blog 