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Sharing Reformed Christian Resources Around The World |
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Heidelberg Catechism Sermons: Lord's Day 2
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Presented Sept 14/08 Vineyard Canadian Reformed Church |
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Sermon: Lord's Day 2 |
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LORD'S DAY 2
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| Q 3. . | From where do you know your sins and misery? |
| A. | From the law of God.1 |
| Q 4. . | What does God's law require of us? |
| A. | Christ teaches us this in a summary in Matthew 22: You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.1 This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it, You shall love your neighbour as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets.2
1 Deut 6:5. 2 Lev 19:18. |
| Q 5. . | Can you keep all this perfectly? |
| A. | No,1 I am inclined by nature to hate God and my neighbour.2
1 Rom 3:10, 23; 1 Jn 1:8, 10. 2 Gen 6:5; 8:21; Jer 17:9; Rom 7:23; 8:7; Eph 2:3; Tit 3:3. |
The Heidelberg Catechism was written in Heidelberg at the request of Elector Frederick III, ruler of the most influential German province, the Palatinate, from 1559 to 1576. This pious Christian prince commissioned Zacharius Ursinus, twenty-eight years of age and professor of theology at the Heidelberg University, and Caspar Olevianus, twenty-six years old and Frederick's court preacher, to prepare a catechism for instructing the youth and for guiding pastors and teachers.
Frederick obtained the advice and cooperation of the entire theological faculty in the preparation of the Catechism. The Heidelberg Catechism was adopted by a Synod in Heidelberg and published in German with a preface by Frederick III, dated January 19, 1563. A second and third German edition, each with some small additions, as well as a Latin translation were published in Heidelberg in the same year. The Catechism was soon divided into fifty-two sections, so that a section of the Catechism could be explained to the churches each Sunday of the year.
In the Netherlands this Heidelberg Catechism became generally and favourably known almost as soon as it came from the press, mainly through the efforts of Petrus Dathenus, who translated it into the Dutch language and added this translation to his Dutch rendering of the Genevan Psalter, which was published in 1566. In the same year Peter Gabriel set the example of explaining this catechism to his congregation at Amsterdam in his Sunday afternoon sermons.
The National Synods of the sixteenth century adopted it as one of the Three Forms of Unity, requiring office-bearers to subscribe to it and ministers to explain it to the churches. These requirements were strongly emphasized by the great Synod of Dort in 1618-19. The Heidelberg Catechism has been translated into many languages and is the most influential and the most generally accepted of the several catechisms of Reformation times.
