24 September 2007

Humble Orthodoxy

My blog should have been updated 20 times since I last wrote, but none of them have appeared. Now, I feel compelled to get as much out as possible and it is so random that I am going to post each item separately, even if they do all go out in one day. I welcome your comments and dialogue. Some of these things are interesting, some possibly controversial, all pretty close to my heart and on my mind of late.

And this one comes first. There is a great article on the New Attitude blog that explains humble orthodoxy and I encourage you to read it. What is the role of humble orthodoxy in my life? Is it something that I practice? How important is it? What does it look like?

These questions swirl around in my mind and deserve more attention than they are getting.

What does it look like? Well I feel this article answers that question best.

How important is it? That one seems obvious to me. It is VERY important that I practice it in my own life, and I feel that it is very important if one is going to interact frequently and caringly with non-Christians and Christians alike.

Is it something that I practice? This is where the questions immediately become more complex. Most of the time I would have to say no. My grasp on orthodoxy has been challenged a great deal in the last 6 months if not the last 4 years! Many things that I thought I understood now feel foreign, the Bible that I read and love seems overwhelmingly complex and in all of this I feel uncertain about where to turn or what to pursue. Don’t get me wrong. My relationship with God is going strong and I attend a wonderful, Bible-believing, truth-telling church where I am building relationships with other strong Christians. But in my personal study and quiet time, I feel like I barely scratch the surface, as if I am missing so much richness and I am not exactly sure how to get there. I have contemplated getting some commentaries, but which ones? I have looked into various Bible studies but they seem to be too simplistic or to general. My own study seems rather banal, and I don’t seem to go very deep, especially with passages that are very familiar. And humility? That has never been one of my strong points! I work to practice that in my daily life but there are times that I wonder if my humility has more to do with not caring (and therefore letting things slide off my back, rather than reacting and controlling) than it really does with genuine God-given true understanding of who I am and who the people around me are in light of God’s grace. This is probably something that I will never grasp but I think the questioning is valuable.

Finally, what is the role of humble orthodoxy in my life? This should be obvious, but I am not so sure. Intellectually I can assent to all the valuable roles that humility, orthodoxy, and humble orthodoxy play in relationships, decisions, etc. Making the transition from head knowledge to heart action is always difficult and with this issue has been especially so.

I welcome any of your thoughts on this.

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