WLC 5

Westminster Larger Catechism

Q5. What do the scriptures principally teach?

The scriptures principally teach, what man is to believe concerning God, and what duty God requires of man.

Proof texts

2 Tim. 1:13 — [13] Follow the pattern of the sound words that you have heard from me, in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.

For discussion

The Assembly cited 2 Tim. 1:13 in support of this answer. Read it in context — how does it bear on what is claimed here?
WSC Q1 treats the same ground. What does it add, and why might it put things differently?
HC Q1 treats the same ground. What does it add, and why might it put things differently?
The Assembly divided over this: The Canon and the Apocrypha. The Assembly drew a sharper line against the Apocrypha than Article VI of the Thirty-Nine Articles. What turns on the answer?

Read alongside

WSC Q1 · HC Q1 · HC Q2 · BC 1.1 · BC 1.2 · BC 1.3 · BC 1.4 · BC 1.5 · BC 1.6 · BC 1.7

Leader's notes

A Body of Divinity (Thomas Ridgley): Quest. V. QUEST. V. What do the scriptures principally teach? ANSW. The scriptures principally teach, what man is to believe concerning God, and what duty God requires of man.[46] Having, in the foregoing answer, proved the scriptures to be the word of God, there is in this a general account of the contents thereof; there are many great doctrines contained therein, all which may be reduced to two heads, to wit, what we are to believe, and what we are to do. All religion is contained in these two things, and so we may apply the words of the apostle to this case, Now of the things which we have spoken this is the sum, Heb. viii. 1. and accordingly…