The Lutheran Difference - Creeds, Prayer, and the Lord’s Prayer

“We do not believe in creeds,” is a lousy creed. “Deeds, not creeds,” is another pretty lousy creed. These statements and statements like them, unfortunately spoken by some Christian churches, show the ineptitude of those who do not understand what creeds are and their purpose. A creed is, simply stated, a statement of faith. Most creeds were written in order to correct a heresy, a false or misleading tenet of faith, so that what the Christian church truly believes is rightly stated. Interestingly enough, those who reject creeds, more often than not, do not have a problem signing a statement of faith which many people are now asked to sign when joining some Christian or quasi-Christian organizations. As Lutheran Christians, our statement of faith is the Book of Concord which contains the creedal statements of our Church body, the three Ecumenical Creeds (the Apostles’ Creed, the Nicene Creed, and the Athanasian Creed), Luther’s Small and Large Catechism, the Augsburg Confession, the Apology to the Augsburg Confession, the Smacald Articles, the Treatise on the Power and Primacy of the Pope and the Formula of Concord. All point to what we believe in Scripture and ultimately pointing to Jesus and Jesus alone. As Lutheran Christians, we believe that we are in true doctrinal fellowship when we agree on most all articles of faith, not simply agreeing to disagree. Our statement of faith, the Book of Concord, covers all the essential articles of faith and rightly defines who we are, what we believe and why we believe what we believe.

“The only real prayers are prayers that come from the heart.” That statement, unfortunately some Christian churches also say, shows a misunderstanding of what is prayer. Unlike a creed, which, as we said, is a statement of what one believes and can be a prayer itself, a prayer is simply a heart-to-heart talk with God, anytime and anywhere. As Lutheran Christians we rejoice that we can pray spontaneous prayers, as well as, previously written prayers especially the greatest prayer, the Lord’s Prayer. Indeed, those who believe that real prayers are only those made up at the time, (spontaneous prayers), very often fail to accept the Lord’s Prayer as a true prayer and thus miss out on the greatest prayer ever prayed and taught to the Apostles and to us. What makes a prayer is not its spontaneity but the thoughts of those praying. The Lord’s Prayer is the greatest and best prayer because it is the pray that Jesus used to teach us how to pray. And just as we worship best when we say back to God the very words He has given us to say as we do in our liturgy every Sunday, so we pray best when we pray back to God the very prayer He has given us to pray. The Lord rejoices to hear us pray His Word back to Him.

Again, what makes a prayer a prayer is the thought of the one praying. Certainly, any memorized prayer simply spoken with no thought is not a true prayer. And much like a musician, an athlete, an artist of any kind will practice and practice to get better, so we memorize and pray the same prayer over and over, not as a pious repetition of words, but in a thoughtful manner so that what we pray becomes a part of what we live and believe. There is the Latin adage, “lex orandi, lex credendi” which loosely translated means “the law of praying [is] the law of believing” meaning prayer leads to belief. And the opposite is also true, as one believes so one prays (we pray as we believe), the two go hand in hand like doctrine (what one believes) and practice (how one does what one believes). So, as we memorize Bible passages, as we memorize the liturgy in Divine Service, so we memorize prayers so they become a part of us so that we are able to concentrate on and think about the very words we are speaking in prayer. Which also means that we may pray our Creed as a prayer, speaking such words of faith back to God who has given us such faith.