The Bible, read with the creeds as a guidepost, focus us on the revelation of God made known in Jesus. Together, they keep us from falling into heresy (i.e. idolatry), so that our focus can be right, our praise directed to the God who called the people of Israel to be his own, and was made known fully and finally in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. 

One of the best gifts that I ever received was in graduate school when a fellow student gave me a stamp with the word “HERESY” on it. We still laugh just talking about it. I was known at our university for pointing out various heretical ideas that came up from time-to-time in classroom conversation. But heresy, or heterodoxy, isn’t itself a laughing matter. It’s the twisting of something quite important, what the church has generally called “orthodoxy.”

The word “orthodox” literally means “right praise.” And this is very important for modern Christians to understand because it implies something more than simply right belief. Orthodoxy involves right belief, but it’s not simply head knowledge. You will remember the accounts in the Gospel when the demons rightly identify Jesus—even when he doesn’t want to be identified—as the Son of God. The demons know exactly who he is! They had right belief. But they were far from orthodox.

To be orthodox is to live into the truth of God’s full revelation in Jesus Christ. And to live into that truth, our hearts, our lives, our focus must be set on the worship of God. St. Paul pointed to this reality of a life lived in praise when he wrote to the Romans, “to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship” (12:1). In other words, offer to God everything that you are: your very selves, holy and acceptable. And he even calls this “spiritual worship.”

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