Shorter Catechism Devotions: Timeless Truth for Today
'Shorter Catechism Devotions': A faith anchor for today's youth, offering timeless biblical truths through 107 devotionals that combat cultural confusion with God's unchanging wisdom.
As a father and pastor to a congregation with a growing group of children, I read with great interest Kevin DeYoung’s article, “The World is Catechizing Us whether we realize it or Not” https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/kevin-deyoung/the-world-is-catechizing-us-whether-we-realize-it-or-not/, when it arrived in my inbox back in August of 2021. Immediately, I shared the article with our congregation and members of my extended family. Within the hour, one of them (my mother-in-law!) shot back, “Well, what are you going to do about it?” What a great question!
Like many concerned Christians, I have observed young people raised in the church drifting away from their professions of faith, including those caught up in the contemporary currents of despair, addiction, sexual confusion, and unbelief. As a father of four and an uncle to twelve, these concerns hit home. As I prayed and reflected on what I might “do about it,” I began writing daily devotions for my congregation and family based on the questions and answers found in the rich soil of the Westminster Shorter Catechism. I sought to do so with pastoral warmth, fatherly love, with a little humor (Dad jokes!) mixed in. This new book, Shorter Catechism Devotions: Timeless Truths for Today, is the fruit of those labors.
Completed in 1647, the Shorter Catechism has nurtured the faith of young Christians for almost 500 years. In an age when teens are searching for meaning and purpose, what could be more relevant than learning that “man’s chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever”? What could be more vital in the shifting sands of relativism than to come face-to-face with the “infinite, eternal, and unchangeable” Triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit? In a cultural moment when youth are struggling with identity, what could be timelier than to be reminded that we are created in God’s image – male and female – “in knowledge, righteousness, and holiness”? And most significantly, the Shorter Catechism explores the deepest need, to be saved from sin through a Redeemer, our Lord Jesus Christ. What could be more encouraging than to know that this same Savior is a Prophet who teaches us, a Priest who prays for us, and a King who rules over and defends us?
Not only does the Shorter Catechism explore the Person of our Lord Jesus Christ, it also provides scriptural insight into the fullness of our salvation, from God’s gracious election, to the Spirit’s effectual call, to our justification, adoption, sanctification, and glorification. The catechism also provides scriptural insight into how we are to live for God’s glory by examining the Ten Commandments, carefully teaching what is forbidden and required in obeying each one. One of my favorite sections of the Shorter Catechism is the ending – the teaching about God’s ordinary means of grace – the reading and preaching of the Scriptures, the observance of the sacraments, and the practice of prayer. So often, I return to the marvelous wisdom and practical help found in the closing questions concerning the Lord’s Prayer.
Yet, the marvelous treasure we find in the Shorter Catechism needs to be discovered by the rising generation. Our teens need to be challenged and encouraged to “walk in Christ, rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith” (Col. 2:6, 7). In Shorter Catechism Devotions: Timeless Truths for Today, each of the 107 catechism questions and answers are included, along with a brief, Scripture-informed explanation, followed by challenge questions for personal application. Each devotion concludes with a suggested prayer. It’s the kind of book I wish I had read before leaving my parents’ home and facing the worldly wisdom I encountered at university, both in the classroom and outside of it among my peers. This book was written with teens in mind but can also be used as a self-contained family devotion to be read aloud around the breakfast or dinner table. Many older adults in our congregation also found the daily devotions profitable as they sought to dive deeper into Christian doctrine.
My prayer is that the Lord would use Shorter Catechism Devotions: Timeless Truths for Today to help pass down “the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3) to a generation that is in desperate need of a spiritual anchor. To be sure, the world is at war with our children and youth, seeking to confuse, to corrupt, and even to destroy them. Therefore, along with strong, biblical preaching and discipleship, we must provide them with biblical resources that help young men and women, “attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that (they) may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes” (Eph. 4:13-16). Instead, by God’s grace, let us encourage them to stand firm, to glorify and enjoy God in their thoughts, words, and actions. May they shine as lights in this world, “in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation...holding fast to the word of life” (Phil. 2:15, 16). May they hold fast to the timeless truths they find in God’s holy Word and may they learn to love Him more as they meditate on the riches of His mercy taught in the Shorter Catechism.
