All pastors and teachers in the Lutheran church pledge themselves to the Word of God, the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, as "the sole rule and standard according to which all doctrines and teachers are to be estimated and judged."
The Lutheran church has summarized the teaching of Holy Scripture, in order to distinguish it clearly from false, unscriptural teaching, in the Lutheran Confessions-- a set of statements of the Christian faith which include the ancient creeds of the Christian church, Luther's Small Catechism (a brief summary of the main parts of Christian teaching), and the public confessions of the Lutheran churches of the sixteenth century.
These documents were collected in 1580 in the Book of Concord, which is the authoritative summary of the doctrine which the Lutheran Church believes, teaches, and confesses on the basis of the Word of God, and according to which all Lutheran pastors and teachers have promised to teach.
* The Apostles' Creed
* The Nicene Creed
* The Athanasian Creed
* The Augsburg Confession
* Apology of the Augsburg Confession
* Luther's Small Catechism
* Luther's Large Catechism
* Smalcald Articles
* Treatise on the Power and Primacy of the Pope
* Lutheran Hymns
* Other Lutheran documents: Project Wittenberg