Nearly 500 years after Martin Luther wrote his Small Catechism, Lutherans continue to study and memorize it, because it expresses the gospel so simply and clearly. An excerpt:

The deplorable condition in which I found religious affairs during a recent visitation of the congregations has impelled me to publish this Catechism, or statement of the Christian doctrine, in this brief and simple form.

Alas! what misery I beheld! The common folk, especially those who live in the villages, seem to have no knowledge whatever of Christian doctrine, and many of the pastors are ignorant and incompetent teachers. And, nevertheless, they are all supposed to be Christians; they have been baptized and receive the Lord’s Supper. Yet they cannot recite the Lord’s Prayer, the Creed, or the Ten Commandments; they live as if they were mere brutes, and now that the gospel has come to them, they grossly abuse their Christian liberty.

[Luther then explains each phrase of the Ten Commandments, the Apostles’ Creed, ...

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