Every time I take an instruction class for Confirmation candidates, I spend time on the first part of the Catechism, which is to be found within our Book of Common Prayer. It is good for introducing people to the ideas of the privileges and obligations of Christian discipleship.

For instance, it is explained that in Baptism 'I was made a member of Christ, the child of God, and an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven.'

And then it is said in the Catechism that specific promises and vows were made in my name by my Godfathers and Godmothers.

As the baptised, therefore, we have been privileged and we have been obligated. This means that we are not equal to others, who have not been so privileged and so obligated.

We have been set apart, made special, but at the same time this being special marks us out for special responsibility throughout the years of our life.

This whole idea and language of 'being special' is regarded with great suspicion in the world today. It opens us up to charges such as being discriminatory and prejudicial, because today's language forms of the ideal society speak of equality, non-discrimination, a level playing field and the like.

But the language of biblical catholicity is entirely different from the language of radical equality that is common in the world today. Probably the closest thing in biblical language to the much despised 'inequality' in today's thought-forms would be 'iniquity'.

Biblical thought too despises an iniquitous judge or king: one in authority who pushes aside the poor to gain the favour of the rich or influential. Yet throughout the Bible it is acknowledged that people are different, different in character, different in standing, differently endowed and differently blessed. This rich array of distinctions is intended to be a cause for praise and glory to the God of all creation and redemption, rather than any cause for criticism of Him because of a perceived unfairness in His dealings with mankind.

It is certainly my contention that the radical equality ideals of today's language actually makes human society impossible if it were ever truly practised.

A true society must accept an endless spectrum of human distinctions, in which for good cause one person ought to be more highly regarded than another, and in which certain lifestyles for good cause ought to be more highly honoured than others.

St. James says, 'Every good endowment and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.'

The unchanging heavenly Father is to be honoured and praised because of His many and different gifts and endowments.

The Old Testament declares the great privilege that the children of Israel entered into when they were taught the Lord's statutes and ordinances.

With the privilege, though came a special responsibility to keep those teachings.

'Keep them and do them', says Moses, 'for that will be your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples, who, when they hear all these statutes, will say, surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people. For what great nation is there that has a god so near to it as the Lord our God is to us, whenever we call upon Him? And what great nation is there, that has statutes and ordinances so righteous as all this law which I set before you this day?'

The question is never put in the old Testament whether it was 'unfair' of God so to privilege the children of Israel over other peoples. Such a question does not have to be put, because with the privilege comes hand in hand with it the special responsibility.

The Israelites are charged with the special task of being the messenger of God to the peoples of the world, and they can only do that by keeping the commandments and obeying the One who gave them.

So it is with all God's gifts and endowments. Whatever these may be they carry with them special responsibilities towards others who may not have them.

In line with this, St. James says of the heavenly Father, 'Of His own will He brought us forth by the word of truth that we should be a kind of first fruits of His creatures.'

James is referring to the great gift of our baptismal regeneration, a great endowment and gift from above, but carrying with it a great responsibility, which he describes as being  'a kind of first fruits of His creatures.'

Our core responsibility as Christians is to be a kind of first fruits of what God intends to bring about in His new creation. And for that we must be doers of the Word, and not hearers only, persevering in its obligations, being the kind of Christians that our Catechism instructs us to be, so that God may receive His full complement of worship from His creation, not from our lips only, but from the lips of those who have in turn been 'brought forth' by Him through the Word that they saw being done in us and others who went before.

Let us not be fooled either by the loose talk of our time suggesting that all religious language is equally dangerous because some who purport to be religious clearly are dangerous.

Our privileges and obligations as those baptised and discipled into the fold of the Son of God are to be sons and daughters of the true Word and not anything false or misleading. Like the Israelites of old, we are charged to keep God's Word in our hearts and to persist, with the multiplicity of gifts and talents that God bestows upon His people, in practising it, and through its practice to bring forth for the glory of God and to His praise and worship others out of the world who will themselves be regenerated and faithful to His Word of truth.