Given the variety of ways that the scriptures speak of “being saved” or “inheriting eternal life,” it is always somewhat of a shock for me to encounter people that do not see such diversity and who insist that to “be saved” one must simply believe. And this belief unto salvation is always kept separate from the idea of good works or “doing something” in order to be saved.
While I was once part of a faith tradition that taught such “easy believism,” I am certainly distant from such thought and practice these days – and this becomes all the more apparent the more I encounter this viewpoint as an Orthodox Christian.
However, what is clear to me now (and was becoming clear to me in my life prior to Orthodoxy) is just how explicit the scriptures are that we must be “doing something” in order to ultimately be saved.
Perhaps the main disconnect comes with this idea of “being saved?”
The scriptures of the Hebrews (commonly referred to by Christians as the “old testament” or “covenant”) are a collection of writings that were done over the course of thousands of years, written in a variety of languages (predominately Hebrew, but also Aramaic and Greek) and adapted from a wide range of cultures, ethnicities, nations and peoples. The character of these writings is not uniform, in the sense that not all are of the same style nor do they all carry the same purpose (from an historical or strictly textual perspective).
Well, it is that time of year again: the time of year when a great number of people in the world – for seemingly no particular reason at all – “give up something” for Lent. Buddhist, Methodist, Roman Catholic, Agnostic, Baptist … they’re all in, it seems.
