The Catechism at the Kitchen Table

And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children. DEUTERONOMY 6:6–7

In 1528 Luther joined in a visitation of the parishes of Electoral Saxony, travelling from village to village to see how the churches were faring now that the old order had collapsed. What he found appalled him. In the preface to his Small Catechism he describes it: ordinary people, especially in the villages, knew almost nothing of the Christian faith, and many pastors were quite unable to teach it. People could not say the Lord’s Prayer, the Creed or the Ten Commandments. They had been baptised and took the sacrament, yet lived, he says in effect, like cattle, and now that the gospel had come, many had learned only to abuse their freedom. Luther did not write a denunciation. He wrote a handbook.

Two catechisms

In 1529 he published two catechisms. The Large Catechism was for pastors and preachers, a full, vigorous explanation of the faith in plain German, based on sermons he had preached. The Small Catechism was for the household. It was printed first as wall charts to hang up in the home, and its questions and answers were designed for the head of the family to teach to children and servants. Its heart is five parts: the Ten Commandments, the Apostles’ Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, baptism and the Lord’s Supper, with a section on confession, prayers for morning and evening, graces before and after meals, and a table of duties for different callings.

Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it. PROVERBS 22:6

The order is deliberate. First the commandments, which show us our sin and our need. Then the Creed, which shows us the God who meets that need — Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Then the Lord’s Prayer, which teaches us to ask for what we need. Then the sacraments, through which God gives it. Law, gospel, prayer, and the means of grace: the whole Christian life on a few pages.

A faith for the whole household

The Small Catechism is famous for the question it asks again and again: What does this mean? Each commandment, each article of the Creed and each petition of the Lord’s Prayer is followed by that simple question, and a short, memorable answer. The first commandment, Luther explains, means that we should fear, love and trust God above all things; and every commandment after it begins with the same words, we should fear and love God. Obedience flows from a relationship, not a rulebook.

His explanation of the second article of the Creed is often called the finest paragraph he ever wrote. In it the child confesses that Jesus Christ, true God and true man, is my Lord, who has redeemed me, a lost and condemned person, not with gold or silver but with His holy, precious blood and His innocent suffering and death, that I may be His own and live under Him in His kingdom and serve Him in everlasting righteousness, innocence and blessedness. It is the whole gospel, told in the first person, simple enough for a child and deep enough for a lifetime.

Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers; but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot. 1 PETER 1:18–19

In the Large Catechism, explaining the first commandment, he gives a definition that has become well known: whatever your heart clings to and relies upon, that is really your god. It is a searching test. Every one of us has something we trust for security, meaning and comfort. The catechism asks whether it is God.

The doctor who stayed a pupil

Luther did not think the catechism was only for children. In the preface to the Large Catechism he tells pastors who think it beneath them that he himself, a doctor of theology, still recites it daily, word by word, like a child, and remains a pupil of it gladly. Those who imagine they have mastered it, he says, have not begun to understand it.

His sermon on the appearing of the grace of God makes a similar point. Commenting on Paul’s word that grace teaches us, he notes that it is the word used for the elementary teaching given to children, and says:

“God designs that we, as childish pupils, be instructed by his saving grace.”

Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. MATTHEW 18:3

In the same sermon he says that the work of a minister is twofold, teaching and exhortation: “We must teach the uninformed, and must admonish the already informed lest they go backward, grow indolent or fall away entirely instead of persevering against all temptations.” The catechism served both. It taught the ignorant, and it kept reminding the rest.

At the kitchen table

The genius of the Small Catechism was to put the teaching of the faith back where Scripture puts it: in the home. Luther did not think faith could be left to the professionals. The father and mother were to be the first pastors of their children, teaching them the commandments, the Creed and the Prayer at table and at bedtime, praying with them morning and evening, asking the simple question, What does this mean?

And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. EPHESIANS 6:4

That the generation to come might know them, even the children which should be born; who should arise and declare them to their children. PSALM 78:6

Honest cautions

Every good tool can be misused. In later generations, catechism teaching in some Lutheran lands became dry and mechanical: children learned the answers by heart, recited them for the pastor, and forgot them. The Pietists of the following century rightly complained that head knowledge had sometimes replaced living faith. Luther would have agreed with them. He wanted the words learned so that they could be prayed and lived, not merely repeated.

It is also true that the table of duties in the Small Catechism assumes the social order of sixteenth-century Saxony, with its masters and servants. Its Scriptures remain true, but readers will apply them wisely to a very different world.

None of this diminishes the gift. Few books have done more good, in more homes, over more centuries, than that little catechism written in response to the ignorance of Saxon villages.

Hold fast the form of sound words, which thou hast heard of me, in faith and love which is in Christ Jesus. 2 TIMOTHY 1:13

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. Can you say the Ten Commandments, the Apostles’ Creed and the Lord’s Prayer from memory? If not, learn whichever you lack this month.

2. Take one line of the Creed each day this week and ask Luther’s question: What does this mean — for me?

3. Apply the Large Catechism’s test: what does your heart cling to and rely upon? Name it honestly before God.

4. If you have children or others in your care, choose a simple time each day to pray and teach the faith with them at home.

5. Read Luther’s explanation of the second article of the Creed slowly, and make it your own confession of faith.

A PRAYER

Lord God, You have given us Your commandments, Your promises and Your prayer, and You have commanded us to teach them to our children.

Forgive me where I have left the teaching of the faith to others, and where I have thought myself too grown-up to be taught.

Make me a humble pupil of Your grace all my days, and let my home be a place where Your Word is spoken and prayed.

I believe that Jesus Christ is my Lord, who has redeemed me; let me be His own, and live under Him, and serve Him for ever. Amen.