Westminster Shorter Catechism

I can use the truth because we serve a God of truth, right? So those three distinctives are the things that I talk about frequently that make a Christian worldview of dementia, specifically dementia, different than the world's worldview.

It's not just putting on Bible verses or the Westminster Catechism or anything on top of It's how do I help this person living with dementia using sound biblical principles and techniques that are not contrary to what the word says.

I just kind of real quick, I believe you meant the ninth commandment.

Thank you for helping me with that.

Man's sole number one purpose.

Uh, this is from the Westminster Catechism way back in the day after the Reformation, after Martin Luther nailed the 95 Theses and all this, and the church began to, to grow and to change, and just-- and they had the whole, you know, Protestant Reformation.

Then these guys started saying, "Okay, well, we gotta kinda, like, we gotta get it down on paper what we're doing here.

What do we believe? What is it-- What are w- what are we aiming at?" And so they, these guys would get together for years, which is kind of crazy to think about, these preachers, because preachers argue a lot.

Like, "Well, what do you think about this?" And so they would just be, like, arguing, "Okay, what are the things? What are the points?" And they started the first point of the Westminster Catechism with: What is the chief end of man? What is the chief purpose of you people sitting in these chairs, in your regular chairs, mind you, not in somebody else's chair? [chuckles] But what's the chief end? What's your main purpose? What's the deal? Why? Why do we exist? He said, "The chief end is to glorify God and enjoy him forever." 1647 is when they finally decided that.

And, uh, I think it still applies to today.

And then there's this guy, um, if you don't know him, John Piper, interesting, super interesting dude.

Anyway, as you can probably imagine, Rabbi John Duncan was an eccentric fellow, and there's a story about him that when his first wife died at a relatively young age, he and a friend went to see her body.

And as they were standing over her body, Rabbi Duncan uttered on repeat only these words from the Westminster Catechism, "The souls of believers are at their death made perfect in holiness, and do immediately pass into glory.

And their bodies, being still united to Christ, do rest in their graves till the resurrection." And then it was quiet for a moment, and then he would go again, "The souls of believers are at their death made perfect in holiness, and do immediately pass into glory.

And their bodies, being still united to Christ, do rest in their graves till the resurrection." And then he went again.

Hmm.

And I write that, you know, in my tradition with the Westminster Catechism, that we say that the chief end of humankind is to glorify God and enjoy him forever.

And so as I'm thinking about this, well, then my body cannot be glorified.

fundamentally or primarily the source of somebody else's enjoyment if I as an embodied soul am also called to enjoy God forever

Nobody is.

Or even as the true gospel calling of sinners to actually repent and believe as we confess in our Westminster Shorter Catechism.

To be forgiven and proclaiming therein the remedy only belonging and being in Jesus the Christ, you better believe your popularity will soon start to decrease.

This is exactly what Jesus will encounter in the Gospels and is already starting to see in his early moments of his ministry.

That is a clear and blatant violation of the third commandment that you shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.

And just so we are clear on what that means to violate the third commandment, the Westminster Shorter Catechism in questions 54 and 55 says this: "What is required in the third commandment? The third commandment requireth the holy and reverent use of God's names, titles, attributes, ordinances, word, and works.

What is forbidden in the third commandment? The third commandment forbiddeth all profaning or abusing of anything whereby God maketh himself known." That was an extremely vile and vulgar, blatant, irreverent use of the name of God by any standard.

And again, it's not even debatable.