by Robert Kolb

“Luther’s Small Catechism Explained:  Joachim Morlin’s Catechetical  Exercises in Definition”

Concordia Journal, Volume 47; No 2

“Where the catechism remains pure, the church will remain pure because it is the summary,

indeed the core, the best of God’s Word.”

“First, he shows us our sin, as a physician does pointing to our illness and injury, the mortal mishap, by which we should go to eternal ruin, where there is nothing to be cone or aid to be found.  God does this through the law.  Second, our righteous God points those who recognize the injury, and whose heart rejects it and desires to be free and released from it, to the medicine of the teaching of faith, telling how we are to seek it each day in prayer and how we are to use and apply the precious sacraments [in daily life].  All this is in the gospel.  Third, he prescribes for each individual a wonderful way of life, which we are to conduct each in our own walk of life that we may live in godly fashion and not fall from the faith into the old, sinful, evil poison and plague.  He does that in the household chart [of Christian calling ‘Table of Duties’].”