What is
the aim of life (death)? For Orthodox
Christians it is salvation and eternal life with God. How are we saved? Paul tells us we are justified in Christ
through our faith (Gal 2:16). But what
is faith? Faith is our surrender to the truth of the Gospel and TheTradition of
His Church. Faith is not some general
belief in God, but specifically total acceptance of the life, death and
resurrection and teachings of Christ as recorded in the Scriptures. Our Faith implies a way of life following the
teachings of Christ. Faith means we accept the Gospel and Epistle writings and
do it! It is not enough to be good citizens, we must also have faith - complete
and total faith in the Word of God. At
the Final Judgment our lives will be examined and we will be saved through the
grace of God. The Church provides us with the structure and guidelines to live
our faith.
A holy
person recently told me that there will be few in this society who will be
saved. That should be scary, it made me
think. It challenged me to wake up. I found that it was important to recognize
that our current day culture is based on as set of assumption or values that
differ from our Orthodox Christian faith.
An Orthodox Christian stands as a stranger in today’s culture. An Orthodox way of life has a worldview that
is quite different from the dominate culture we live in and have been conformed
to accept.
What is a
world view? To make sense out of all the
sensual data we receive at any time, our mind relies on assumptions to simplify
all the inputs we receive through our senses. This is how we can make sense of
what we experience and act. It is these
often hidden assumptions that make up our world view. One person may have the assumption, “If
I do good, I will be saved.” Another may assume, “To be saved, I must
first have faith and follow the teachings of the Bible as commandments from God
and work to perfect myself though repentance and by partaking regularly in the
sacraments of the Church to become a holy person and then by God’s grace I can
be saved.” This is the Orthodox
view. As another example, one may not
firmly believe that God created the world and believe that truth is only determined by scientific
evidence. Alternatively, the Orthodox
assumes without question that God created all we know, provides all we have, He
is "Our Father," and that Truth is revealed to us by Him and is made
known to us through the Scriptures as interpreted by the Church which is the
body of Christ on earth headed by Christ Himself. With just a few differing assumptions we can
interpret what is good and bad in quite different ways leading to different
actions based on the same reality. It
goes without saying that people with differing world views have a difficult
time communicating on issues that matter for salvation. Even the idea of salvation may not be in
their worldview. How many actually put
God at the center of everything they do?
In an
Orthodox world view, we accept without question, based on faith, that God is
our Creator and Lord. Through the
writings of the Evangelists and Apostles we have documented for us the example
of God Himself in human flesh, His actions and teachings, showing us the path
to salvation.
We must
accept that our Orthodox worldview puts us at odds with our current society. As
we act out of our Orthodox world view, others will not understand our actions
and we will be seen as a bit weird, out of step, not with it, or old
fashioned. We can expect to be ridiculed
and ignored. And when we try and explain
our actions, we should not expect to be understood, because our reasons will not make sense in
their worldview. It is only by exposing
their underlying assumptions that we can ever hope to explain. We must remember these assumptions are
generally hidden. Salvation requires
that we have a firm understanding of the basis our Orthodox way of life.
In
today’s culture it is generally accepted that truth is relative. Many believe that what is the truth for one
person may be different than that of another, and it is accepted that both are
equally valid. One thing that is not
tolerated in this view is someone who thinks they have the absolute Truth. But, we Orthodox know through faith that
there is but one Truth. Therefore we can
expect that our worldview will not be welcomed in general, and that others will
work to undermine it. We can expect to
shunned and persecuted, just as the
early Christians were persecuted in the Roman pagan times. Even though we act out of love to our
neighbors as we are commanded, we will still be rejected and ridiculed for our
practices. Because of this it is
important to be careful about who we choose to spend our time with. It is important to follow the practices of
our faith, which are there to support us on a path to salvation. We must regularly read Scripture, attend
worship services, pray daily and throughout the day, participate regularly in
the Sacraments of Confession and Holy Communion and follow the fasting
guidelines. These activities are all
intended to help us. They are not the end we seek but the means to prepare
ourselves to enter the Kingdom of God. It is important for us to constantly
work to purify our hearts and to cultivate our inner strength so we can carry
out the Boss’s commandment to love others.
Christ is there always to help us along the path of salvation, and He
has infinite compassion for all of mankind.
Source: http://orthodoxwayoflife.blogspot.com.by/2009/09/is-orthodoxy-bit-weird.html
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