Series-Orthodox Catechism

This is a series of brief devotional articles on The Orthodox Catechism (“OC”), a Particular Baptist document written by Baptist pastor Hercules Collins in 1680. Read the series.

We aren’t supposed to be the way we are. That’s a fact that unbelievers often misunderstand about the Christian story. They ask, “If God is so good, then why is there so much suffering?” Well, the answer is that everything is broken everywhere all at once. God made our first parents good, but now we’re all cracked in different ways. We aren’t the way God meant us to be.

This is a series of brief devotional articles on The Orthodox Catechism (“OC”), a Particular Baptist document written by Baptist pastor Hercules Collins in 1680. Read the series.

This is a series of brief devotional articles on The Orthodox Catechism (“OC”), a Particular Baptist document written by Baptist pastor Hercules Collins in 1680. Read the series.

No matter who you are, who your parents are, how much education you have (or don’t have), this one thing is true—God’s law tells us that we’re each in very great trouble (see Answer 3). The obvious thing is to figure out how to fix this problem.

This is a series of brief devotional articles on The Orthodox Catechism (“OC”), a Particular Baptist document written by Baptist pastor Hercules Collins in 1680. Read the series.

Question 2 from the Orthodox Catechism told us that one of the three things we must know to have the comfort that we belong to Jesus is “how great my sin and misery are.” We’re in very great trouble, and we can’t get out of it. If that’s true, then …

Question 3: How do you come to know your misery?

This is a series of brief devotional articles on The Orthodox Catechism (“OC”), a Particular Baptist document written by Baptist pastor Hercules Collins in 1680. Read Part 1.

If the only comfort we have in this life is that we belong—both body and soul, in life and death—to our most faithful Lord and Savior Jesus Christ (Q1), then …

Question 2: What must you know to live and die in the joy of this comfort?

This is the beginning of a series of brief devotional articles on The Orthodox Catechism (“OC”), a Particular Baptist document written by Baptist pastor Hercules Collins in 1680. It’s basically the Heidelberg Catechism (first ed. 1563) with Baptist flavor and a few other additions. It is a rightly famous tool for doctrinal and devotional instruction in Baptist churches. In the congregation where I serve as pastor, we discuss one question from the OC each week during the worship service.