Deut. 6:4:       Hear O Israel, the LORD is our God, the LORD alone.

1 Kings. 18:39:  And when all the people saw it, they fell on their faces; and they said, "The LORD, he is God; the LORD, he is God."

Matt. 16:16:     Simon Peter replied, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." 

Matt. 28:19:     Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Yesterday in Sunday School the question was raised:  “Where do our creeds come from?”  The Lutheran Church has 3 creeds that we profess, the Nicene, the Apostles’ and the Athanasian.  The most common 2 though are the Nicene and the Apostles’.  These creeds are based on what early Christians believed about God.  The above Bible verses are thought to be early creeds as well, and perhaps those (along with others) influenced the creeds that we profess today.

Below is some info that I found at Wikipedia about both of the creeds.  Feel free to check out the actual sites for more information.

“The Nicene Creed (Latin: Symbolum Nicaenum) is the creed or profession of faith (Greek: Σύμβολον τῆς Πίστεως) that is most widely used in Christian liturgy. It is called Nicene  because, in its original form, it was adopted in the city of Nicaea by the first ecumenical council, which met there in A.D. 325. The Nicene Creed has been normative to the Anglican, Lutheran, and Roman Catholic Eucharistic rite as well as Eastern and Oriental Orthodox liturgies.

The purpose of a creed is to act as a yardstick of correct belief. The creeds of Christianity have been drawn up at times of conflict about doctrine: acceptance or rejection of a creed served to distinguish believers and deniers of a particular doctrine or set of doctrines. For that reason a creed was called in Greek a σύμβολον, a word that meant half of a broken object which, when placed together with the other half, verified the bearer's identity. The Greek word passed through Latin "symbolum" into English "symbol", which only later took on the meaning of an outward sign of something.^[4] The Nicene Creed was adopted in the face of the Arian controversy. Arius, a Libyan preacher, had declared that although Jesus Christ was divine, God had actually created him, and "there was when he was not,"^[5] also worded by others of the era "there was once when he was not" and "he was made out of nothing."^[6] This made Jesus less than the Father and contradicted the doctrine of the Trinity. ^[7] Arius's teaching provoked a serious crisis.

The Nicene Creed of 325 explicitly affirms the divinity of Jesus, applying to him the term "God". The 381 version speaks of the Holy Spirit as worshipped and glorified with the Father and the Son. The Athanasian Creed describes in much greater detail the relationship between Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The Apostles' Creed makes no explicit statements about the divinity of the Son and the Holy Spirit, but, in the view of many who use it, the doctrine is implicit in it.

The original Nicene Creed was first adopted in 325 at the First Council of Nicaea. At that time, the text ended after the words "We believe in the Holy Spirit", after which an anathema was added.^[8]

The Coptic Church has the tradition that the original creed was authored by Pope Athanasius I of Alexandria. F. J. A. Hort and Adolf Harnack argued that the Nicene creed was the local creed of Caesarea (an important center of Early Christianity) brought to the council by Eusebius of Caesarea. J.N.D. Kelly sees as its basis a baptismal creed of the Syro-Phoenician family, related to (but not dependent on) the creed cited by Cyril of Jerusalem and to the creed of Eusebius.

Soon after the Council of Nicaea, new formulae of faith were composed, most of them variations of the Nicene Symbol, to counter new phases of Arianism. The Catholic Encyclopedia identifies at least four before the Council of Sardica (341), where a new form was presented and inserted in the Acts of the Council, though it was not agreed on.”

Apostle’s Creed

“The title, Symbolum Apostolicum (Symbol or Creed of the Apostles), appears for the first time in a letter from a Council in Milan (probably written by Ambrose himself) to Pope Siricius in about 390: "Let them give credit to the Creed of the Apostles, which the Roman Church has always kept and preserved undefiled".^[3][4] But what existed at that time was not what is now known as the Apostles' Creed but a shorter statement of belief that, for instance, did not include the phrase "maker of heaven and earth", a phrase that may have been inserted only in the seventh century.^[5]

The account of the origin of this creed, the forerunner and principal source of the Apostles' Creed,^[6] as having been jointly created by the Apostles under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, with each of the twelve contributing one of the articles, was already current at that time.^[4]

The earlier text evolved from simpler texts based on Matthew 28:19.^[4] and it has been argued that it was already in written form by the late second century (circa 180 AD).

While the individual statements of belief that are included in the Apostles' Creed – even those not found in the Old Roman Symbol – are found in various writings by Irenaeus, Tertullian, Novatian, Marcellus, Rufinus, Ambrose, Augustine, Nicetus, and Eusebius Gallus,^[9] the earliest appearance of what we know as the Apostles' Creed was in the De singulis libris canonicis scarapsus ("Excerpt from Individual Canonical Books") of St. Priminius (Migne, Patrologia Latina 89, 1029 ff.), written between 710 and 714.^[10] Bettenson and Maunder state that is first from Dicta Abbatis Pirminii de singulis libris canonicis scarapsus(i.q. excarpsus, excerpt), c.750.^[11] This longer Creed seems to have arisen in what is now France and Spain. Charlemagne imposed it throughout his dominions, and it was finally accepted in Rome, where the Old Roman Creed or similar formulas had survived for centuries.^[4] It has been argued nonetheless that it dates from the second half of the fifth century, though no earlier.^[12]

Some have suggested that the Apostles' Creed was spliced together with phrases from the New Testament.^[13] For instance, the phrase "descendit ad inferos" ("he descended into hell") echoes Ephesians 4:9, "κατέβη εἰς τὰ κατώτερα μέρη τῆς γῆς" ("he descended into the lower, earthly regions").

This phrase and that on the communion of saints are articles found in the Apostles' Creed, but not in the Old Roman Symbol nor in the Nicene Creed.”

In our prayers this week:  Ann, Robert, Charles Pettit, and Scott (in Afghanistan)