More On Hesed by Brady

I often think about the differences between what it means to follow Christ in today’s culture and what it was like to follow him in the 1st century. In some ways it is easier to follow him today, and in other ways following him now is much more difficult. For example, today we are not going to suffer persecution in America for being a Christian. Christianity is also more institutionalized, and many Christians can be nominal followers of Christ and still claim to worship him. In other ways, though, it is harder today for believers. In the 1st century you either followed him around or you didn’t. You would know exactly what he looks like, smells like, and what he said. Another difficulty is our language barrier, because some words from the Bible simply don’t translate properly from the original Hebrew and Greek. Hesed is an Old Testament word, but another intriguing example of the language barrier is a New Testament term which has changed meaning over time as we use it today in the English language.

The word dikaiosyne is usually translated as “righteousness” in our English Bibles. When we think of the word as Western Christians, we usually think of it referring to justification (God’s mercy declaring us acceptable) or righteousness (a spiritual concept dealing with a quality we receive from God). These attributes are rightly attributed when we come across the word dikaiosyne, but only partly correct. There is also an element of justice (the right conduct in relation to fellow human beings) that we have missed out on. We have an obvious bias to hear dikaiosyne and think only of piety and not of integrity when it comes to dealing with others. David Bosch in Transforming Mission suggests “we should translate it with “justice-righteousness”, in an attempt to hold on to both dimensions.” (p. 72)

Perhaps part of the reason we miss out on what this means, as we also often ignore the horizontal aspect of hesed, is because Western Christianity is more focused on orthodoxy (right belief) over orthopraxy (right practice). But one website says that hesed, in regards to us as human beings, means 1 of 4 things: (1) doing favors and benefits for others; (2) kindness extended to the needy; (3) affection or love of Israel to God; (4) lovely appearance. I don’t see anything in there about our ability to theologically debate someone.

However, the normal Sunday routine for most of us is to sit and learn and then feel like that has automatically gotten us a step down the road to becoming an improved disciple of Christ. I can’t tell you how many preachers are either loved or hated for having a different orthodoxy (“He’s not a Calvinist”) than the person in the pew. How many times have you heard people get upset that the pastor is not serving at a soup kitchen on Wednesday mornings. This plays out into our normal practice of what it means to become a Christian in the first place. Many people walk an aisle, pray a prayer, get dunked, and then they have the much needed “fire insurance” promised by the pastor. Even if elements of this are absolutely central to faith, notice they all deal with proper orthodoxy rather than having a component of orthopraxy involved.

If the Western Church is going to recover from the giant difficulties it is currently experiencing (decreasing numbers, lack of participation, other religions growing substantially, etc.), I suggest we reevaluate our orthodoxy of no orthopraxy. What I am saying is that we should stop compartmentalizing our faith to church only. The reason other faiths are growing so quickly in the West is because they actually demand something of the followers. I can name at least 4 other major faith groups outside of Christianity that demand a total change of life if you are to be a true follower. They require you to change the way you eat, dress, act, and worship. They require daily prayer and submission to a higher authority. The fact is, the call to follow Christ is demanding. It is our interpretation of it that has watered it down to an hour on Sunday morning.

There is an urgent need to return to the belief that our vertical relationship with God affects how we interact with others horizontally. It’s as Bosch put it later in his book, “To become a disciple means a decisive and irrevocable turning to both God and neighbor.” (p. 82) Something changes in all of us when we go beyond cognitively learning the Gospel, and we advance into doing and being the Gospel. The truth is, as much as I devote myself to being correct in orthodoxy, Christianity is much more than just a set of doctrinal beliefs. “Jesus said, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and intelligence.’ This is the most important, the first on any list. But there is a second to set alongside it: ‘Love others as well as you love yourself.’ These two commands are pegs; everything in God’s Law and the Prophets hangs from them.” (Matthew 22:37-40 from The Message)