Like this:

“Knowing this, that the law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners, for unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers, For whoremongers, for them that defile themselves with mankind, for menstealers, for liars, for perjured persons, and if there be any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine...” (I Timothy 1:9-10) Often when we think of the term “doctrine” we tend to think in terms of what might more properly be called “theology.” The Doctrine of the Trinity, the Doctrine of the Incarnation, the Doctrine of the Virgin Birth, and so forth. True enough, these are important doctrines, I would certainly not deny that. But the verses above tell us that doctrine isn’t limited to the high and mighty theological expressions of the Christian faith. Sin is also a doctrinal matter, which is why Paul says that those who commit it are doing things that are “contrary to sound doctrine.” I have a phrase I like to use, “Orthodox begets orthopraxy” – orthopraxy being, or course, right practice. The phrase is asserting that when a person has the right beliefs about the Scripture and what it teaches, that person will have the outflowing of right practice in their life. The obverse aphorism would be “Heterodoxy begets heteropraxy,” wrong doctrine leads to wrong practice, personally and in churches. The statement about heretodoxy, we can easily see because of the cults around us. For instance, the Mormons, who have a number of wrong doctrines, do (or did) all kinds of unscriptural, wacky things – proxy baptism, polygamy, their strange hierarchical system, and so forth – because of wrong doctrine. Even things that are part of their religion that seem good, like having lots of kids (and as a pro-natalist who rejects the envirowacko “sustainable living” nonsense, I think having lots of kids is good, and hope to have several more myself), they do just a bit off, and it’s because of wrong doctrine – in this case, the unscriptural teaching on the pre-existence of the soul as “spirit babies” just waiting an embodiment. We could easily point to any number of unscriptural practices in many groups – the Russellites, the Catholics, etc. etc. ad infinitum – that exist because of their heterodoxy. For a while, though, I had been revising my aphorism about orthodoxy with the qualifier, “Orthodoxy should beget orthopraxy.” The reason for this was because I was struggling to reconcile the fact that you can have people who are perfectly orthodox in their statements of faith, they’d be right on the money on all the “theological” type doctrines we could name….yet, many things that they do seem out of alignment with their profession, something just isn’t right. Hence, the “should” qualifier – you can be orthodox, but living right is a matter of bringing your practice into line with your profession. But seeing the above verses again as I was reading through I Timothy recently helped to clear this up for me, I believe, as the clause in bold jumped out at me. When we sin – we are being heterodox. Notice the order of that statement. I didn’t say that being heterodox is a sin. I said that sin is heterodox. When we do the things, or others contrary to Scripture, that are listed in I Timothy 9-10, we are acting contrary to sound doctrine. We are not orthodox, at that particular point in time, because when we sin, we are implicitly rejecting – in deed if not in word – something that the Scripture has said we should do or not do to be right with God. Even if we are right on the Trinity or the Filioque Clause or whatever else, but are allowing some sin into our life, we are exhibiting a wrong belief on some point of Scripture having to do with that sin. We’re saying that some part of God’s Word doesn’t really apply to us, or doesn’t mean what it says, or that it isn’t important, etc. And that is heterodox. That’s a wrong attitude and approach to the Scripture. With this, there’s no need for the “should” qualifier. Orthodoxy begets orthopraxy. When we are right with God and desiring to live faithfully by His Word, then there will be that outflowing in our life as He works in us to will and to do His good pleasure (Phil. 2:13). When we’re leading divided lives whereby God has to share us with some selfishness or sin, then our heterodoxy is begetting heteropraxy. This is why, then, open sin in the life of a believer is as much a cause for church discipline as is somebody trying to split the church by undermining the pastoral leadership or the introduction of some theological error. Sin introduces leaven that can split or damage a church as much as any other heterodoxy. The man in Corinth who was fornicating with his step-mother was defiling the church, and was providing an opportunity for others in the church – through their false idea of “love” through toleration of open sin – to also fall into error and to be puffed up about it. What this means is that all of us – because of our sin nature – will fall into heterodoxy at some point, we will have a wrong approach to God’s Word on some issue that is the reason we’ve chosen to sin instead of resisting the temptation. While we may pat ourselves on the back for our orthodoxy, let’s have a little humility to recognise that we must be orthodox about sin as well

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