Why study about Jesus? (Orthodoxy vs Orthopraxy)

Why study Jesus?

Because we don’t just believe in him, but we as his “followers” have chosen to follow him. So we need to understand how he asks us as his followers to live.

Hebrews 1-3 clarifies that Jesus represents a departure from old religion. James 2:19 clarifies that it’s not about belief alone. “You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder.”

But how many people define their faith by their belief, not their actions? Recently, a blog reader questioned the “orthodoxy” of a quote I mentioned in one of my blogs. To his way of thinking, I was advocating faith without anchoring it in doctrine. 

Of course our belief must be grounded, but belief is not faith. Belief exists in the mind whereas faith, like love, connects to action. Faith is spelled R-I-S-K. It is a muscle that we exercise when we interact with others. For example, when we trust people, we take a risk that they will abuse that trust. When we trust God, we risk that he won’t respond.

We need to continually wrestle with this issue of right belief vs. right living. We say we “believe” in grace, but we don’t exhibit it in our behavior. Hypocritical behavior by Christians is one of the biggest reasons that millions are leaving the Church. There’s a hole in the Titanic, and the band just keeps right on playing.

The irony is that hypocritical living has its roots in a desire by religious professionals to believe the right thing. But it has to be balanced with right living. Lose the balance and you may find yourself opposing Jesus. We need right belief (known as orthodoxy) or we stand in danger of heresy. We need right living (orthopraxy) or we stand in danger of hypocrisy.  

The religious scholars have always been the guardians of right belief, but Christianity was founded in part as a rebuke to such guardians, people whose head-knowledge had outrun their heart-knowledge.

Yes, Jesus was a student of Scripture, but he was righteously appalled at the gap between the orthodoxy and orthopraxy of the religious scholars. In the scathing 23rd chapter of Matthew, he gives them their due, “You must do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach.”

As James would argue, if you say, “I have faith,” I say, “show me your works.”

In America, we in the religious establishment engage in far too many pointless debates instead of asking the Holy Spirit what he’s up to and how we can join him. If Jesus hadn’t made skewering the religious professionals such a huge issue, it would be easier to be a seminary professor or someone else who majors on the orthodoxy side of the equation.

All this squabbling about orthodoxy has got me wondering: If we don’t also focus on right living then perhaps we’re not orthodox at all.