I am your friend, Dr. Charles Apoki. Today is Sunday, February 8th. The time is 10:16 a.m. I couldn’t go to church this morning because I was extremely tired.
I woke up yesterday, Saturday, around 5:20 a.m. I read, did my exercise for ten minutes, and slept again. Early morning sleep is very, very good for me. Then I went to do a program and got home by 4:00 p.m. I was extremely tired.
Learn this: it is this body that carries the anointing. It is this body that you relate with God with. Don’t damage this body because of religion. You will definitely need this body. Manage it very well so that you can live long, particularly at this age bracket.
Now I am going to talk about orthodoxy and orthopraxy. In some dictionaries it is called praxis. I have been doing a series of sermons on some women in the Bible, and I will continue after this clarification. These were women who eventually became part of the lineage through which the earthly parents of Jesus Christ came out.
They range from Rahab the harlot, Tamar who slept with her father-in-law, and we shall later look at Ruth, the one that approached Boaz. They were very unconventional people. But God still loved them and honored them.
What is orthodoxy?
Orthodoxy is straight, unbending belief in dogma and doctrines in the Bible. While orthopraxy is the practicality of your belief. This is the intent of God for giving us the scriptures.
If you look right from Genesis, Adam and Eve sinned. Orthodoxy would have expected that they should immediately be destroyed. But orthopraxy shows God’s love towards man and his hope in man, because man is a reflection of Him. God sacrificed animals to clothe them so that they would not be naked. That is love. That is care. That is mercy.
Mercy is from the Hebrew word hesed, spelled H-E-S-E-D. It means that when God has finished handling your case, it is as if what went wrong never went wrong. So don’t write yourself off. Don’t write any person off.
The laws in the Bible and the scriptures are guidelines. In some cases they are promises. Some of them cannot be moved because they are promises that God has made, and they are yea and amen. But there is also the permissive will of God.
In orthopraxy, the emphasis is on justice, social justice, equity, mercy, compassion, and humanity.
In Matthew chapter 12 from verse 9, the Bible says that Jesus went into their synagogue and a man with a shriveled hand was there. Looking for a reason to accuse Jesus, they asked Him, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?”
Orthodox Christians – and when I say orthodox, I am not talking about Catholic, Anglican, or Baptist – I mean strict traditional orthodoxy. They always look for a reason to accuse. In fact, the Bible says that the devil is the accuser of the brethren.
Most people who quote scriptures a lot are usually very wicked. I have related with many of them. Most people who just want to be like security attendants in church, with very stern faces, are usually very hardhearted, very unforgiving, and they don’t do well.
I am not condoning sin. I am a very conservative person. However, they wanted to accuse Jesus.
Jesus said to them, “If any of you has a sheep and it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will you not take hold of it and lift it out?”
Orthopraxy reasons, because you are created in the image of God, and it talks about fairness. This man had been with them in the church for years. They could not heal him. They could not do anything for him. Maybe they did not even help him. Yet they were looking for a reason to accuse Jesus for helping him.
Remember the man at the pool of Bethesda. When Jesus said, “Take up your mat and go,” and the man stood up and was healed, they also gathered around the man asking him, “Who healed you on the Sabbath day?”
Now the simple question is this: those people accusing the man of being healed on the Sabbath day had relatives around the pool who were not healed. They were not concerned about their people being healed. They were more concerned about the rigid fulfillment of tradition.
Jesus had already said in the preceding verses that the Sabbath was made for man, and that He is the Lord of the Sabbath. The Sabbath was made for the good of man, to have a time to relate with God and to remember that God is their provider.
So He asked them, “If you have a sheep that falls into a pit on the Sabbath, won’t you pick it out?”
That is to say, orthodoxy can be very hypocritical, very deceptive, very inhuman, and very unreasonable.
Just like the woman that was caught in adultery and brought to Jesus Christ. The law stated that she should be stoned. But Jesus started writing on the ground.
Let me speculate on what He could have written:
“Where is the man this woman committed adultery with?”
“If this woman were your only daughter, will you say she should be stoned to death?”
“Those of you carrying stones, don’t I know the sins you are committing?”
I suspect those were the kinds of things He wrote.
Then He said, “He who is without sin should be the first to throw a stone.”
And they started dropping their stones one by one and left.
So orthodoxy does not reason. But Jesus said it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath. Humanity and mercy take precedence over rigid law.
I have said before and I will repeat it: when the pursuit of purpose and equity that glorify God is intense enough, God suspends some laws. Remember the daughters of Zelophehad. God suspended a law for them because they were persistent, intentional, and insistent.
Then Jesus said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.”
So he stretched it out, and it was completely restored, just as sound as the other. But the Pharisees went out and plotted how they might kill Jesus.
When the man stretched out his hand, muscles grew, nerves grew, bones grew, flesh came, and there was recreation, because nothing was created without Jesus. The Bible says it is by Him that all things consist.
So He can reboot, He can reconfigure, He can reconstruct, He can restore, and He can dismantle. That is why cancer can disappear.
I remember a lady who had masses in her abdomen. She managed to get pregnant. My wife had a maternity home then, and they called me that she was in labor. As I was going to see her, the Lord spoke to me and said, “Do not operate on that woman.”
Before I even arrived, she delivered a sound baby. I told her to come back for postnatal care six weeks later. When she came back, all the masses had disappeared. I did not even pray for the masses. Jesus, through His mercy and grace, made them disappear.
So we should start thinking more of orthopraxy than orthodoxy – mercy, compassion, grace, and equity, which are the nature of Christ. That is why He came.
I pray that no man will accuse you. All those planning to accuse you shall be disgraced. They shall stumble and fall. I pray that no matter what has gone wrong in your life, God through the mercy of our Lord Jesus will restore you.
It might not follow normal process. It is going to be miraculous.
I pray that things will happen in your life that people will wonder. David said, “I am a wonder unto men, but the Lord is my refuge.” I pray for you, no man shall be able to explain or predict you.
If man can fully explain you, then it is not God that is working. He that is born again is like the wind. It goes to and fro. You don’t know where it is coming from or where it is going to. You cannot restrain it. That is who you are.
My son-in-law once said to me that people ask him which schools I attended and how I got so much information and knowledge. To him, it is by the grace of God and intentionality. I have excelled outside medical practice. God has promoted me not just through medicine but through His grace and mercy.
Don’t let rules, regulations, regimentation, religion, or regionalism chain you. You are like the wind.
I have a webinar coming up on the 21st of February this month. It is titled: “Opportunities and Possibilities in 2026.” God will help us to open your eyes to see great opportunities in 2026. AI, social media, globalization, and many other things will create new opportunities.
Send a message to register. God bless you. We shall be doing a study on Ruth next.
