Offices of Instruction (1928 BCP)

Offices of Instruction (1928 BCP) are two catechetical services in the 1928 American Book of Common Prayer. They adapt the older Church Catechism into public worship, so that baptized Christians learn the Creed, the Commandments, the Lord's Prayer, the Church, the Sacraments, Confirmation, and ministry by praying and answering together.

The Offices stand between Holy Baptism and Confirmation in the Prayer Book's sequence. That placement is important: the Church does not treat instruction as detached religious information, but as the ordered nurture of those already received into Christ's Body and being prepared for the bishop's laying on of hands and the communicant life of the Church.

Place in the 1928 Prayer Book

The 1928 BCP provides two Offices of Instruction after Baptism and before Confirmation. The First Office gathers baptismal identity, renunciation, Creed, Commandments, and prayer. The Second Office expands the same catechetical pattern into teaching on the Church, Confirmation, the two dominical Sacraments, and the threefold ministry.

After the singing of a Hymn, shall be said by the Minister and People together, all kneeling, the following Prayer.

This opening rubric shows that the Offices are not classroom outlines printed in a liturgical book by accident. They are public acts of common prayer. The minister asks, the people answer, hymns may be sung, the Lord's Prayer is said kneeling, and the doctrine being taught is repeatedly turned back into prayer.

The parish rubric at the end makes the same point pastorally. Ministers are to instruct the youth of the parish openly, and parents, guardians, and sponsors are to bring those for whose religious nurture they are responsible. The Offices therefore belong to the same pastoral world as the Catechism, but they give that material a congregational and liturgical form.

Baptismal Identity and Vows

The First Office begins where the Catechism begins: with the Christian name given in Baptism. It does not begin with natural ability, private opinion, or moral achievement. It begins with grace received and promises made in the Church.

My Sponsors gave me this Name in Baptism; wherein I was made a member of Christ, the child of God, and an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven.

This sentence connects the Offices directly with the baptismal theology of the 1928 BCP. "Member of Christ" echoes St. Paul's teaching that believers are incorporated into Christ's Body (1 Corinthians 12:12-27). "Child of God" and "inheritor" belong to the biblical grammar of adoption and promise (Romans 8:15-17; Galatians 4:4-7). Catechesis therefore begins from baptismal incorporation and moves toward personal profession.

The same section rehearses the threefold baptismal promise: renunciation of evil, belief in the Christian Faith, and obedience to God's commandments. The answer "Yes, verily; and by God's help so I will" is a concise statement of Anglican moral theology: the baptized person is truly bound to believe and obey, but only by God's help can that vow be kept.

Creed and Trinitarian Faith

The First Office then moves from baptismal vows to the Apostles' Creed. The Creed is not presented as an optional summary of ideas but as "the Articles of the Christian Faith" into which the baptized person has been instructed and which the Church confesses aloud.

First, I learn to believe in God the Father, who hath made me, and all the world. Secondly, in God the Son, who hath redeemed me, and all mankind. Thirdly, in God the Holy Ghost, who sanctifieth me, and all the people of God.

The Office teaches the Creed economically: creation, redemption, and sanctification. This is classical catechesis in liturgical form. The Father is confessed as Maker, the Son as Redeemer, and the Holy Ghost as Sanctifier; the answer then leads immediately into praise of the Holy Trinity. Doctrine becomes doxology rather than mere definition.

This pattern also explains why the Offices are naturally connected with Apostles' Creed in the 1928 BCP Catechism and Confirmation Preparation in the 1928 BCP Catechism. Confirmation is not a rite for inventing a private faith, but for personally owning the baptismal faith of the Church.

Commandments, Grace, and the Lord's Prayer

The First Office teaches the Ten Commandments in a way that is both moral and evangelical. The Commandments are recited, but each commandment is answered with a prayer for mercy and inward obedience.

Lord, have mercy upon us, and incline our hearts to keep this law.

The response prevents the Decalogue from becoming either legalism or abstraction. The law is God's command, but obedience requires mercy and the inclination of the heart. The Office then follows Christ's own summary of the law in love of God and neighbor (Matthew 22:37-40), before dividing duty toward God and duty toward neighbor in the familiar catechetical form.

Know this; that you are not able to do these things of yourself, nor to walk in the Commandments of God, and to serve him, without his special grace.

This sentence is the hinge between law and prayer. It corresponds closely to the Catechism's teaching that diligent prayer is necessary for obedience. The Lord's Prayer follows not as a devotional appendix but as the appointed means by which the baptized ask the Father for hallowed worship, daily provision, forgiveness, deliverance, and perseverance.

Church, Confirmation, and Sacraments

The Second Office widens the catechetical field from the individual Christian to the Church. It opens with biblical language from Isaiah and the Psalms, asking that God would teach his people his ways and show his servants his work.

The Church is the Body of which Jesus Christ is the Head, and all baptized people are the members.

This answer links Baptism, ecclesiology, and Christian duty. The Church is not first defined as a voluntary association, but as Christ's Body. The next questions interpret the Church through the creedal notes: one, holy, catholic, and apostolic. The explanation of apostolicity explicitly recalls Acts 2:42, where the first Christians continued in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, the breaking of bread, and the prayers.

My bounden duty is to follow Christ, to worship God every Sunday in his Church; and to work and pray and give for the spread of his kingdom.

The Office's account of Confirmation follows naturally. Confirmation is described as the Laying on of Hands, in which the baptized renew baptismal promises, declare loyalty and devotion to Christ, and receive the strengthening gifts of the Holy Spirit. The rite is therefore connected to baptismal profession, episcopal ministry, and the continuing work of the Holy Ghost.

The Sacramental section repeats the Prayer Book definition of a sacrament as an outward and visible sign of inward and spiritual grace, ordained by Christ as a means and pledge. Baptism is taught as death unto sin and new birth unto righteousness; the Lord's Supper is taught as remembrance of Christ's sacrifice and the strengthening and refreshing of the soul by the Body and Blood of Christ spiritually received by the faithful.

Ministry and Anglican Order

Near the end of the Second Office, the catechetical sequence turns to the ministry of bishops, priests, and deacons. This is not an unrelated appendix. The Offices have already taught Baptism, Confirmation, Holy Communion, absolution, blessing, and parish instruction; the section on ministry identifies the ordered ministers through whom these public acts are ordinarily administered.

Bishops, Priests, and Deacons; which orders have been in the Church from the earliest times.

The bishop is described as chief pastor, the one who confers Holy Orders and administers Confirmation. The priest preaches, baptizes, celebrates Holy Communion, and pronounces absolution and blessing in God's Name. The deacon assists the priest in Divine Service and other ministrations under the bishop's direction. In this form, Anglican order is taught devotionally and practically, not as a detached institutional theory.

Anglican Use

For parish teaching, the Offices of Instruction are strongest when used as they are written: as short services in which doctrine is spoken, prayed, and sung. They work especially well before Confirmation because they hold together what the Prayer Book expects a catechumen to know: baptismal identity, the Creed, the Commandments, the Lord's Prayer, the nature of the Church, Confirmation, the two Sacraments, and the ministry of the Church.

For Anglican theology, the Offices show the 1928 BCP's instinct for joining common prayer and common doctrine. Faith is learned in the Church, from Scripture, through the Prayer Book's ordered forms. The result is neither private devotionalism nor bare institutional instruction, but catechesis for worship: baptized persons confessing the Creed, praying for grace, keeping God's commandments, receiving the Sacraments, and serving Christ in his Church.

See Also

• Book of Common Prayer (1928)
• Catechism (1928 BCP)
• Baptism (1928 BCP)
• Confirmation (1928 BCP)
• Sacraments in the 1928 BCP
• Apostles' Creed in the 1928 BCP Catechism
• Ten Commandments in the 1928 BCP Catechism

External Links

• 1928 Book of Common Prayer at Justus Anglican
• Offices of Instruction text at EpiscopalNet