The Evangelical Universalist Forum

which is more important to Jesus

To believe correctly or doing correctly?

I have my thoughts… just wanted to see what others would say.

Hi URPilgrim,

I would say, actually, the most important thing to Jesus is to obey which is a recurrent theme in George MacDonald’s writings.

GMac in Hope of the Gospel says this:

(Wise words from a wise man)

All the best,

Steve

I’d say that to do, or to obey – however one prefers to phrase it – that’s the thing that matters. Jesus says: “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do what I tell you?” (Luk 6:46)

And if we believe correctly and do not do correctly will be judged more severely than the one who does not know:
Luk 12:47 And that servant who knew his master’s will but did not get ready or act according to his will, will receive a severe beating. But the one who did not know, and did what deserved a beating, will receive a light beating. Everyone to whom much was given, of him much will be required, and from him to whom they entrusted much, they will demand the more.

The parable of the sheep and goats in Matt 25 teaches us that those who do correctly will be rewarded even if they did not know they were serving the King.

Also, this passage comes to mind:
Rom 2:13ff For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified. For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus.

Sonia

Hello SLJ,

The answer is quite easy. It is one’s attitude:

ernestlmartin.com/kingdomofgod-firstresurrection.htm

Thank you for the question.

Ken

Thanks Steve, Sonia and Ken for your replies.

Sonia, you phrased it almost the same as I was thinking.

Thanks guys

Actually, I tend to agree with Ken: doing the right things with the wrong attitude gets someone’s mennorah thrown out of the temple (as in the little epistle to the Ephesians in RevJohn); and as James writes, “So you believe God is One, do you? Good for you! The demons also believe!–and shudder.”

Both of those problems are combined in the Matthean parallel to Luke 6 (previously mentioned): the people being rejected by Christ not only worked for Him, even to the point of being empowered by Christ to work miracles and exorcisms, but they also believed enough to give Christ the double “Lord Lord” reserved for God in the OT. That’s some subtle theological knowledge!–very elite metaphysics! :laughing: Yet somehow they were still doers of injustice. Whether the problem was why they did and believed what they did, or the attitude they took in doing so (and even assenting to belief is a work of course), or whether they thought they could earn their standing and future with God thereby, who knows?–the parable doesn’t say. But Christ expects us to have the right attitude about what we’re doing (and believing) – that’s a big part of the preceding material of the Sermon on the Mount in GosMatt.

Now, having the right attitude is an action, because Christ expects us to adjust (in cooperation with Him, so He’s taking the lead on that and empowering us, but expects us to follow). It isn’t only a feeling. It might even be an attitude against our feelings at the moment, although the right feelings should eventually follow and be aimed at and accepted and fostered by us along the way. And having the right attitude is a mental action which involves beliefs, including adjusting our beliefs and accepting new ones as we look for truth. Walking by what light we can see, looking for more light thereby. Attitude is right action, and right belief. But it’s more than that, too.

Admittedly, I’d be curious whether Jesus required actions more often than beliefs in the Gospels; He did some of both, and said He would judge according to both, but my impression off the top of my head is that He encouraged action more than belief: actions toward fulfilling fair-togetherness between people.

And that can’t really happen without a proper personal attitude toward other people.

(I feel even more confident in my impression that God encouraged action more often than right beliefs in the OT! – but when the actions were taken with the wrong attitudes, they meant worse than nothing to God.)

I think it depends on how you define “right beliefs” because right beliefs should precipitate actions. If not, they’re not truly beliefs but only opinions. If you really believe a bear is headed for your tent, you’ll get into the SUV. If you really believe it’s important to love and forgive, and give that which is needful to the body (Jas) then that’s what you’ll do. Otherwise it’s just an opinion.

With that definition of “right beliefs,” it doesn’t even work to try to separate beliefs from actions because they are all one. It IS important to have the right beliefs. The devils believe there’s one God, but what do they believe about Him? They believe something that causes them to tremble, but not, apparently, something that causes them to fall at His feet and beg mercy and forgiveness. So they, like some of the folks James was writing to, have a rather mistaken idea of who God is. If we truly believe correctly about Him, truly trust Him, truly know Him, then we’ll perhaps tremble, but we’ll also obey from love of Him. It is His very self – His loveliness and His love and His sacrifice to set us free from the law of sin and death, that enables us to obey.

Seems like a simple question and a simple post, but this is, in my opinion, the crux of Christianity. To begin to “obey” " to “do” is the first step on the road to understanding what is required of us and many other deeper thing about God, Jesus and the Kingdom of God. What does obey mean? It’s different for everyone but basically it means listening to what your conscience tells you to do NOW. As you obey it becomes clearer. It’s probably something simple and unglamorous and it reminds me of something I once read, “Everyone wants to work for World Peace, but who wants to help Mom with the dishes?”

All the best ,

Steve

Good points.

When I first considered this question, my instinct was to say that having the right beliefs would result in the right actions – like the saying, “out of the heart, the mouth speaks” – but as I thought on it, it seemed to me that we don’t always act on what we believe. Like the steward who knew his master’s will, but did not do it, we can be wilfully disobedient.

I agree that true faith/belief is that which produces righteousness – but I also think we can believe the correct facts and formulas yet fail to act upon them – the dead faith that James talks about (perhaps because we haven’t yet learned to care enough.)

I assumed in my answer above that what URPilgrim intended by the question was, “Is it more important to have an intellectual understanding of the correct theories or to act according to righteousness?”

Hmm … about attitudes … if we’re going to talk in those terms, then one has to define what the correct “attitude” is. That makes me think of Paul’s treatise on love: I can know all things, understand all the mysteries, have all faith, I can give all my possessions, I can sacrifice my life – but without love the knowing and the doing mean nothing.

Am I right to assume that’s what you mean, Jason? You referenced the letter to the church at Ephesus, where Jesus says, “But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first.” (Works of love?)

Ken, the article you referenced was long, and I didn’t have time to read it properly – is this what you mean by attitude?

Perhaps we could say, if we truly believe love is the most important thing we will begin to act correctly.

Sonia

Sonia, you have a great point(s) there. Even knowing and doing aren’t enough in the absence of love.

Thinking about all the teaching I’ve received (that I can remember), it seems we’re always wanting to present the things of God the way we’d teach a science class to third graders. Everything segregated. We look at this truth and then at that truth and then at another truth when the real truth is that none of them are true at all without the others. Maybe that’s what Jesus meant when He asserted “I am the truth.”

I love an analogy that I read in Terry Pratchett’s “Thief of Time.”

Sorry I had to put so much of it in – but it’s necessary to the getting of the idea. The auditors attempt to understand things by breaking them down into logical parts and analyzing the parts. Which is more important than the others? Which is less? Which comes first and which should come next, and after that?

And it Can’t Be Done That Way.

God IS, and all these things are one. They don’t work unless they’re together, dancing with one another, affecting and nuancing one another, covering and revealing one another. We have to realize and see the whole picture, not just ask whether that red bit in the upper right is the most important thing in the painting.

(BTW, GREAT discussion topic, URPilgrim. Thanks!) :smiley:

I am not sure what you all mean by “attitudes”. Modern people in general seem to think right attitudes are shown by being Mr. Nice Guy. I am sure that if anyone else had done what Jesus did in the temple, they would condemn that person for having a bad attitude:

The Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple he found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons, and the money-changers sitting there. And making a whip of cords, he drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and oxen. And he poured out the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables. And he told those who sold the pigeons, “Take these things away; do not make my Father’s house a house of trade.” His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.” (John 2:13-17)

Mm-hmm, yep. The list of the works of the Ephesians is highly commendable – in fact Christ Himself commends them on it! Yet the implication is that they do them in a fashion such as Paul criticizes in those verses from 1 Cor.

It doesn’t really matter if I have all knowledge and can work all miracles, if I don’t have agape. It’s actually worse than useless for me to know or do anything without agape: Satan has (or had) more knowledge and power than anyone else under God.

I’m sure this comes back to another way for each of us to keep in mind that “I am the chief of sinners” – we have no advantage over Satan in this either. When we do even the smallest good work with the wrong attitude, God may still make His own use of it (and of course no good deed will ever be lost), but we ourselves might as well be sinning the sin of Satan.

Putting it another way, God appreciated the proportion of the widow’s mites over that of the rich tithers contributing from their plenty, but had she given with the wrong attitude she might as well have been any corrupt Sadducee or Pharisee.

Cindy,

Very reminiscent of something from Lewis’ Space Trilogy! (Particularly That Hideous Strength.)

Also, the name Miss Tangerine sounds like a One Piece villain. :mrgreen: (This is far from being a bad thing.)

Jason,

I read the trilogy maybe 25 years ago, when I didn’t understand it in the least – I’ve been meaning to have another go at it. But I googled “one piece villains” and learned only that there’s an anime series by that name . . . just curious as to what a one piece villain might be?

The poor Auditors! Yes, that scene makes the point well.

I haven’t read Terry Pratchett or the Space trilogy for a long time – probably about 25 years in my case as well. :smiley: I remember disliking That Hideous Strength, but don’t remember why. Maybe I would like it now – I’ve grown up a lot since then. The other two I read multiple times and liked. Guess I should reread those too!

Sonia

Yep, that’s what I mean. They have colorful names like “Miss Valentine” or “Miss Sunday”.

One Piece is a huge anime series, based on an equally huge manga series, one of the Big Three Anime series currently running, the other two being Bleach and Naruto, hundreds of episodes. Technically Bleach finished its run recently, but most of us suspect they’ll come back for a final season or two once the climactic manga run finishes up.

One Piece is a crazy pirate-based anime, set on a world mostly made of oceans and islands, where people can develop superpowers in various ways, usually by eating something called a devil fruit. The series has a lot of heart (as do the other two mentioned above), and some Christian fans, myself included, suspect the titular “One Piece” being hunted by all the pirates will end up having something to do with discovering Christianity, as there are (apparently) subtle hints along the way which may be pointing to this.

From the TVTropes wiki:

Those 600 episodes? The manga creator indicated that the story was half over at the point where the anime reached ep 500. (As with most anime adaptations, the anime creators tend to fluff out the stories with filler episodes and filler arcs, because the anime can be produced more quickly than the manga.)