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People love formulas. Religious people really love them! We love creeds, propositions, systems, and theological conclusions that help us to make sense of the bible, the world, God, life, good, evil, right and wrong. And don’t get me wrong. Sometimes, those things will keep us out of big trouble.
When we make conclusions based on everything we know about a certain biblical teaching, we tend to gather those conclusions into some kind of pile, and then build that pile of conclusions into systems that we refer to as “Orthodoxy.”
The word orthodox is two Latin words (orthos & doxus) which, when combined mean true beliefs. In more practical terms, orthodoxy is a set of beliefs that everyone (uhem) agrees is true, right, and correct. But sometimes this can cause a problem, especially if we think there is always a simple answer to everything that we can just pull out when we have a question about this or that, and use it to interpret all of reality.
The problem with this approach is the deception that once you have nailed down the fail-safe formula, you can just toss the Bible aside and use your well-developed system in its place. It’s basically the same thing, right?
Why trudge through all that narrative, context, history, audience-specific stuff, genre, and the original purpose for which this or that biblical book was written when you can just reach over and grab the systems or formulas and use those to answer all your questions? Starting with “orthodoxy” is faster (unless you’ve missed something!). Plus, when you use the shortcut-fail-safe-always-applicable-never-wrong-one-size-fits-all conclusion, you get to the same place you’d have gotten to if you had wasted all that time reading and wrestling with the Bible instead, right? Maybe not!
Before I go on, I should say right here that I am not pushing on this because I don’t think there is such a thing as orthodoxy or truth that is true no matter what. I do. I am a Roman Catholic. The Bible is full of statements about things that are always true, and things that are never true. Jesus identified himself as the truth and said that knowing the truth makes a person free. So — true beliefs are essential.
But there is still a place to question our own conclusions, and the conclusions of others when we use a “true belief” in a way that it was never intended to be used. For instance…
Imagine a world where you must interpret all your circumstances along the lines of whether or not you deserve every good or bad thing that happens to you. In other words –
- A good thing happened to you = you must have done a good thing to deserve it. So, God dispenses the good thing.
- A bad thing happened to you = you must have done a bad thing to deserve it. So, God dispenses the bad thing.
- Do good, be blessed.
- Do bad, be cursed.
Orthodoxy.
You reap what you sow, right?
What comes around goes around, right?
The book of Deuteronomy certainly seems to back this up, doesn’t it? (Read Deut. 28:1-68)
And the book of Proverbs certainly seems to back this up, doesn’t it? (Read Prov. 3:33, 28:14)
And Joshua (Read Josh. 1:7-8)
And Psalms (Read Ps. 1:1-6, 145:20)
Those texts seem pretty conclusive. If you do good, obey God, and do what is right, God will bless you. If you do evil, disobey God, and do what is wrong, God will not bless you. No. You’ll suffer!
True beliefs!
Orthodoxy!
Now, back to my encouragement to take a moment to imagine a world where you must interpret all of your circumstances along the lines of whether or not you deserve everything happens to you.
Isn’t it wholly possible that at some point in their history, Israel would have done this? Isn’t it altogether possible that people with Bibles (especially Bibles that don’t have all the books in them yet) that say “do good be blessed,” and “do bad, be cursed” would tend to interpret every single thing that happened to them along these lines? I think so. And that’s not because God wanted them to make that mistake. It’s just what we do when we stop reading the Bible and instead grab one possible answer and make it the only answer (which we eventually turn into a system or formula that we developed while reading the Bible), and start using it for things that the Bible never intended.
Thankfully, God has given us the book of Job so that we will have a tool to help us resist the temptation to reach for a formula where something else is needed; namely the need to look for other answers where the otherwise-true, but not always applicable ones, cannot help us.
Wrestle on, Jacob! Wrestle on!
Jesus is Lord and Saviour of mankind. That’s a “true no matter what” statement, regardless of the creed or orthodoxy to which you adhere.
Amen to that, Kevin! Jn. 14:6!
That’s absolutely true, Kevin, but it’s what that knowledge leads us to do that makes all the difference. God has so much more for us than “Jesus loves me this I know”. It’s like the old analogy of the bank account. There is $1,000.000 deposited in a bank in our name, but if we never chose to access it or only take the interest we have no benefit of the fulness you could be enjoying. God has made available to us what is called “the Deposit of the Faith” which is all that His Church under the guidance of the Holy Spirit has written down to be passed along to us. This includes the Scriptures as well as the Sacred Tradition, which includes all the writings of the Ante-Nicene Church Fathers, the determinations of the Councils of the Church through the ages. But as with the secular account if we only withdraw a small portion of the Deposit we deny ourselves the fulness of the Faith.
That is why Kenny converted and why 9 years ago I reverted after 40 years of Protestant ministry. We became aware of the fulness of the Faith available to all of us. Water to our ankle, water to our knees or water to swim in… the choice is ours. God bless.