The Apostles' Creed for young children
Last year, I was given the opportunity to review a new book for children aged four to eight on The Apostles’ Creed. The art work draws you into the text with its beautiful colour illustrations. The characters, including Jesus, his disciples, his enemies and the children featured, are not of a particular nationality, and are definitely not white Anglo Saxons.
With each affirmation in the creed, we get some hope-filled words, ending with “That’s what I believe.” The Australian author, Ben Myers, has also written a book for adults on the topic, which provides a fuller explanation of where he is coming from in the commentary provided.
Ideally, you would read it together with your children. But primary school aged children could also read the book for themselves. With each new double page, there is a fat cat hidden somewhere. This is the author and illustrator’s way of reminding us that the CATechism is big, but approachable. As your children look for the cat, they will also be drawn into each new picture illustrating the words of the creed. Clever!
As well as providing the words of The Apostles’ Creed, with full colour art work and a short statement beside each line of the creed, the book includes a short family prayer service with an explanation, together with the artist Natasha Kennedy’s attractively-presented list of the passages in the Bible she drew on for her illustrations. I found this fascinating! She has used passages from 28 Old Testament books, including 18 Psalms, passages from Genesis, Isaiah, Ezekiel and Malachi, and texts from 12 New Testament books: all four Gospels, Acts, 3 of Paul’s letters and Revelation. If you wonder how The Apostles’ Creed relates to the Bible, this will give you plenty of material to chew on!
The book, like the creed it is based on, invites children to embrace our fully trustworthy Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It teaches them God is their loving Creator, Saviour and Judge, whom they do not need to be afraid of. And, just like the creed, it shows us that we can know what God is like by knowing Jesus, and seeing how he came to be one of us, suffered and died for us, and is now our everliving, always loving Friend and Saviour.
Some versions of The Apostles’ Creed used today have alternate versions of the lines “He descended into hell” and “I believe in the holy catholic church,” but this production retains them. In the evangelical churches I am familiar with, folk are squeamish about the latter one, and not too happy with the former! I’m glad the book retains the word “catholic,” explaining that it refers to “all Christians throughout time and space who confess the Christian faith.” After all, if you substituted the word “universal” for “catholic,” you would still need to tell your young child what “universal” means. And I think “catholic” is an inclusive word, which is worth learning and saying when you say the creed.
But I would prefer “he descended to the dead” over “he descended into hell.” Matthew Emerson and others argue that this was what the creators of the creed meant by that line, and that it was understood this way, right up to the time of the Reformation.
The Apostles’ Creed doesn’t tell us much about The Holy Spirit. If you want a creed with a fuller explanation, you need to go to the Nicene. But I think this book could make it clearer that the Spirit is a person like Jesus. And I would have liked some texts cited in the already bursting collection of Scriptures which clearly present the Spirit’s nature as guide and teacher.
Despite these minor reservations, I think this is a five star book, well worth using in every Christian home. Parents and children can’t fail to grow in their understanding of the Gospel as they read and re-read this beautifully presented book together.
After reviewing this one, I also got the opportunity to review the other three books in the series, which I hope to tell you about in future posts.