I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth.

Do you recognize those words?

Those words are the opening words of the Apostles' Creed.

This is a wonderful document that comes down to us from the early church.

Many churches today will recite the Apostles' Creed.

It reminds us that we stand with the church

through the ages that this church in the 21st century is not the first one on the block,

but that we belong to this great line of succession of the faithful people of God. And as we

say those words, we are uniting our voices with voices that have been reciting

these words through the centuries.

So let's take a look at the Apostles' Creed.

The first thing we need to recognize is where the apostrophe goes.

It's not before the S, it's after the S.

So let's make sure for all those grammarians out there that we get this right. It's the Apostles and then the apostrophe creed. It was not written by the apostles. Obviously, it comes from the early centuries of the church. But it was called the Apostles Creed because it represents the apostolic teaching. In fact, in one of the church, but it was called the Apostles' Creed because it represents the apostolic teaching.

In fact, in one of the other early creeds of the church, the Nicene Creed, we are told there,

and this wonderful line, that we believe in one holy Catholic, apostolic church. And the emphasis on apostolic is an emphasis on the teachings

of the apostles, which are codified for us in the four gospels and then in the epistles in the New

Testament. And what we find in the Apostles' Creed is a summation of the New Testament beliefs about God

and mostly about Christ.

These phrases from the Apostles' Creed come to us from really the first century, the second

century.

These were from early bishops' creeds.

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