The Heidelberg Catechism, first approved in 1563, is a confessional document of the Protestant movement considered one of the most ecumenical of the confessions. Published to coincide with the catechism's 450th anniversary, this book explores the Heidelberg Catechism in its historical setting and emphasizes the catechism's integration of Lutheran and Reformed traditions in all of its major doctrines. An appendix contains a translation of the Heidelberg Catechism recently prepared and adopted by three of the Reformed denominations that recognize the catechism as one of their confessions: the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), the Reformed Church in America, and the Christian Reformed Church in North America.

This work examines key aspects of the development of the Heidelberg Catechism, including historical background, socio-political origins, purpose, authorship, sources, and theology. The book includes the first ever English translations of two major sources of the Heidelberg Catechism--Ursinus's Smaller and Larger Catechisms--and a bibliography of research on the document since 1900.
Students of the Reformed tradition and the Protestant Reformation will value this resource.

"The purpose of this study," writes the author, "is to take a new and hard look at Olevianus' doctrine of covenant and to determine its place in the larger picture of sixteenth-century thought." Bierma analyses all of Olevianus' work on covenant and challenges the notion that Olevianus was the first to use the covenant idea as the organizing principle of his theology. He maintains that Olevianus' most significant contribution was in using the covenant to provide assurance of salvation.