One brother stands above the others, more well known, more beloved. The middle one, however, gets some love, but not like the first. The third brother, he’s all but universally forgotten. He is David out in the fields with the sheep while Samuel scouts out Jesse’s sons to find the new king, Cinderella unnoticed upstairs as the glass slipper is being tried on.
Orthodoxy is the first brother. It means right words, right doctrine, right thinking. He sets the boundaries, builds the fence that keeps the sheep in place, and the wolves at bay. Orthodoxy is expressed in the great ecumenical creeds of history. Orthodoxy is the words to the story that defines us.
Orthopraxy is the middle child. It means right practice, right behavior, right actions. We are, after all, not just supposed to think rightly. We’re also supposed to act rightly. James tells us that the demons believe. They are orthodox. Remember it was they who loudly, before anyone else, proclaimed the glorious truth that Jesus is the Son of God. But James tells us the demons tremble. Their right thoughts do not lead to right actions. We ought to know we can have the same failure. Orthodoxy is a powerful aid, like a big brother, to orthopraxy, but it cannot guarantee success. You cannot measure the first to get an accurate measure of the second. We who are Reformed are especially prone to making this mistake. We measure our character by our convictions, instead of our actions.
Orthopathos is the forgotten brother. His name sounds like he ought to be the fourth, or is it fifth, musketeer. But it means, though I confess it is something of a neo-logism, a new-ish word, right feeling, right emotion, a right heart. As with the first two, orthodoxy ought to be a powerful help to our orthopathos. Orthopraxy ought to be a help as well. But even a heaping helping of the two biggest brothers can’t guarantee the third brother turns out robust. We can have our doctrinal ducks in a row, our behavioral blue jays all lined up, and still have our hearts in the wrong place, still fail to actually love our Maker and our neighbor.
How can we tell? The Bible tells us that the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Interesting isn’t it, that while we could assign several of these to orthopraxy, the majority match up with orthopathos, and none seem to be clearly dangling from the orthodoxy tree.
There is however, this bit of low hanging fruit from the orthodoxy tree- it is sound doctrine to understand that emotions are not things that happen to us, but are things we are responsible for. When Jesus commands us to love one another, He is directing our pathos. When Paul commands us to rejoice, and again commands us to rejoice he is directing our pathos. Let us not therefore be tossed to and fro by every wind of emotion. Let us strive as we walk toward the Celestial City to increase each day in our right thoughts, our orthodoxy, our right actions, our orthopraxy and in our right feelings, our orthopathos. Let us, in other words, love the Lord our God with all our heart, mind, soul and strength.