A creed or confession of faith is an act of worship where God’s people confess together what beliefs they hold in common and to distinguish between orthodoxy (sound doctrine) and heresy (doctrine outside the bounds of the Christian faith). The OT people of God had a portion of Scripture that functioned as a creed/confession (Deut. 6:4-6). There are portions of creeds contained in the New Testament (Eph. 4:4-10; Phil. 2:6-11; etc.). Paul includes a confession of faith in his writing to Timothy (1 Tim. 3:16). The early church recognized the need for concise summaries of the Christian faith (The Apostles Creed and the Nicene Creed). The churches of the Reformation wrote confessions of faith to summarize what they believed  and to distinguish themselves from other groups (Lutherans, Anglicans, Anabaptists, Catholics, etc.)