Why must we pray for the welfare of the church? The church is not a mere human organization; it is the house of God, a divine institution, the body of which Christ is the head. The true welfare of God’s people, even the peace and prosperity of the nations of the world, really depends on the spiritual welfare and security of the church. This of course does not mean merely one denomination, but the whole visible church of God on earth. The Bible teaches that God deals with the nations in accordance with their treatment of his covenant people, his church. God said to Abraham: “I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee; and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed” (Gen. 12:3) . . . the true welfare and prosperity of the church are very closely related to the peace and prosperity of the nations of the world. It is still true that God will bless them that bless Zion, and curse them that curse Zion.

J. G. Vos, The Westminster Larger Catechism: A Commentary, 531-532.

Why must we pray for the whole church of Christ on earth? We must pray for the whole church of Christ on earth because of the spiritual unity of the church as one body under Christ the head. Our prayers are not to be limited to our own congregation nor even to our own denomination; they are to include all branches of the church of Christ. This does not mean, of course, that we are to pray in detail for all branches of the church; but it does mean that we are not to limit our intercessions to that branch of the church of which we ourselves are members. We are to pray for Christ’s church and kingdom as a whole; we are not to be nearsighted or denominationally minded in the matter of intercessory prayer. We should of course pray especially for our own denomination, for which we have special concern and responsibility; but this should never exclude the larger outlook of pleading with God for the whole church of Christ in all the world.

J. G. Vos, The Westminster Larger Catechism: A Commentary, 526.

Q. What is meant by praying in the Spirit? — A. Our praying with the gifts, and especially with the grace of the Spirit, Jude 20, 1 Cor. 14:15, Rom. 8:26.

Q. Wherein do the gift and grace of prayer differ? — A. The gift of prayer lieth in conceiving and uttering suitable expressions in an affecting manner; but the grace of prayer lies in the fervency of our desire after God.

John Brown of Haddington, Questions and Answers on the Shorter Catechism, 338.

Rather, we should seek the grace of the Holy Spirit that we may frame acceptable and fervent prayers in our own words. We must always be on our guard against the tendency to religious formalism.

J. G. Vos, The Westminster Larger Catechism: A Commentary, 525.

The Holy Spirit remedies our spiritual ignorance, not by revealing to us any truth apart from or in addition to the Bible, but by opening our spiritual eyes so that we can discern the true meaning of what is already revealed in the Bible, and thus enabled to know the will of God concerning prayer.

J. G. Vos, The Westminster Larger Catechism: A Commentary, 523.

The Assembly’s failure to formalize the Apostles’ Creed into any of its documents has been characterized as “verging on a separatist mentality” and risked placing the Synod “outside the historic Christian tradition.” Regarding the Catechism in particular, [Ian] Green stresses that in departing from an article-by-article treatment of the Creed in its catechisms, the Assembly departed from “the known practice of the first generations of Protestant catechists.” Robert Letham concludes that leaving the Creed out of the Catechisms was tantamount to “studied indifference and deliberate exclusion.” However, a distinction should be made between objections to the Creed as an authoritative doctrinal affirmation and the Creed as an historical expression of faith “agreeable to the word of God.” Concerns of conscience over phrases in the Creed, particularly on Christ’s descent into hell, prevented many of the divines from receiving the Creed as a whole; yet most had no objection to its substance. In its postscript appended to the Shorter Catechism, the Assembly explains that “the substance” of the Apostles’ Creed is “fully set forth in each of the Catechisms, so as there is no necessity of inserting the Creed itself.”

John R. Bower, The Larger Catechism: A Critical Text and Introduction, 21.

Q. Wherein lies the sinfulness of neglecting prayer? — A. It is a practical denial of God, a robbing him of his honour, a contempt of Christ as Mediator, a ruining of ourselves and others, etc. Psalm 9:17 and 10:4.

John Brown of Haddington, Questions and Answers on the Shorter Catechism, 334.

But what if we don’t reduce love and goodness to chemicals in the brain, nor to the whims of powerful people who get to set the rules; what if love and goodness flow from the transcendent God? Returning to [John] Owen: “The sole reason why there is such a thing as love in the world among the creatures, angels or men, — that God ever implanted it in the nature of rational creatures, — was, that it might shadow and represent the ineffable, eternal love that the Father had unto the Son, and the Son unto the Father, by the Spirit. Our experiences shadow something greater, deeper, fuller than themselves.

Kelly M. Kapic, Christian Life, 68.

Embrace love which is God, and embrace God with love.

Augustine, On the Trinity, ed. John E. Rotelle, trans. Edmund Hill, in The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century, 8.12, p. 253.

Learning to recognize the arc of Christian life modeled and strengthened in corporate worship, we follow a movement from calling to benediction, all in Christ and as part of his body.

Kelly M. Kapic, Christian Life, 51.