Your Orthopraxy is showing…
How’s your Orthopraxy these days?
Colossians 1:9-10 says: For this cause we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to desire that ye might be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding (10) that ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God;
Orthodoxy really is from the Greek root words “orthos,” which means right, true, or straight, and “doxa” which means opinion. So Orthodoxy literally is translated as the “right, true, correct or straight opinion.” The noun is most commonly used in religious circles.
Orthopraxy on the other hand stands in contradiction to Orthodoxy. Wikipedia says, ”In the study of religion, orthopraxy is correct conduct, both ethical and liturgical, as opposed to faith or grace. Orthopraxy emphasizes correct action where Orthodoxy emphasizes correct belief. Orthopraxy is literally a neo classical compound. Meaning “right practice.”
So some churches emphasis right belief, but ignore right practices.
Some churches emphasize right practices, but are hypocritical in their beliefs.
What is the believer to believe?
Both.
So many in these last decades have focused on faith and grace without holy action. While others have focused on holy action, but without at maturing faith in grace. Imbalance in either ways, like the imbalanced wings of an airplane will cause your faith to crash eventually if the two are not balanced out.
A.W. Tozer once said, “To have found God and still to pursue Him is the soul’s paradox of love.”
When one has both Orthodoxy and Orthopraxy in light, one pursues God even after you have found him. So as to grow in the practice of love for their God. Why would you not want to grow in that? But where does Joy come from in the midst of all of this?
We call this practical theology. Which to some sounds like an Oxymoron. But it isn’t. It’s also a form of discipleship. Which all Christians should attempt to step into. to be discipled is where we become more like Christ through our actions aligning with our faith. Joy through discipline? Oh yes. Most definitely.
James 4:17 says:
17 Therefore, to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin.
Joy comes from not sinning against our brothers and sisters in Christ by not judging those who struggle with their Orthopraxy, their practices of religion, or their Orthodoxy, those who struggle with their belief, but helping each other move forward.
We call this taking your next steps with God.