Affirming the Apostles' Creed

Great Overview of Basic Christian Belief

This is a quick read that will help you have an overview of Christian theology down through the ages. Packer keeps it simple and brief. If you want more, see his Concise Theology.

Great exploration of the gospel as found in the Apostles' Creed. Pakcer's goal is to bring us past simplistic "ABC" presentations of the gospel to one that includes realities like the Father's creative work, the believer's relationship to the church, and the work of the Holy Spirit, to name a few. Short, easily digestible chapters. The book had a great Introduction added (it was published originally as part of another book "Growing in Christ", also "I Want to Be a Christian", which included parts on the Ten Commandments and the Lord's Prayer), but could have stood the addition of a conclusion to wrap things up.

Short, quite objective, well written. It is not a full exposition such as Olevianus’ or Witsius’ (which are also available for free in English translations from the Latin and Dutch originals in Archive.org and Google Books, for reading in tablets), but still a good foretaste to further studies. Also some good bibliographical tips.

I wish he could have developed better such important points as the ‘communion of saints’, which barely gets a paragraph.

A note on a general tendence on Christian literature: lots of Biblical references, but few quotes. Instead, the book was fattened up with extracts from the text decorated in between paragraphs. The book would be more useful and easier to read if instead of these extracts all Biblical show more references were given with full text quotes. show less

In this short work, Packer offers a series of short teachings based on eighteen phrases found in the Apostles' Creed - a fifth century summary of Christian belief. The teachings are rather elementary, but useful. In all, I found Packer's introduction to the creed more helpful than his actual teaching on the actual text. C

Helpful reflection on the Apostles' Creed. We say it daily in Morning and Evening Prayer, but sometimes we don't realize how much of the faith is covered in those few words.