If I hear this one more time, I think I'm gonna scream. So, please hear me out... If there ever were a day and age when we really needed to learn that heterodoxy will lead (and very quickly!) to heteropraxy, it's today! And, obviously, orthodoxy will lead us to orthopraxy.
The doctrine of the rapture of the Church at the end of the dispensation of grace is not “the great escape”!
It's not the great doctrine of, “Just hold out and it will all be over soon!” That is the heteropraxy that comes from the heterodoxy that teaches the rapture is your “get-out-of-the-mess-you-made free” ticket.
The imminent return of the Lord Jesus Christ for His Church is commonly called the "rapture" (based on the Latin word rapiemur [first-person plural future passive indicative of rapiō], meaning to snatch and carry off suddenly) and is referred to in 1Thessalonians 4.17, where Paul said Christians would be “caught up” to meet the Lord and be with Him forever.
Can that event be a comfort to us? Sure! 1Thessalonians 4.18 says it can be. No one is saying it couldn't be or shouldn't be a comfort.
What I'm saying here is that the rapture of the Church at the end of our Age is much more than that and it needs to be taught in its full context so we don't get this “bunker mentality” of “just hold out!” How wrong could you be! Just look at the Commission given the disciples! Ours is not a bunker mentality! It never was and never will be!
We are called and commissioned be and make disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ.
That's our stewardship and responsibility during our dispensation. The Church, as a whole, has failed (2Tim 4.3-4; just like every other steward in every other dispensation) and the Lord will return to remove the unfaithful steward (the Church), and take that steward to judgment (the Judgment Seat of Christ). That event is called the rapture: the Church is snatched out of her stewardship and carted off the Judgment Seat of Christ where each and every one of us will give an account for all our works, whether they be good or bad.
If you are living right (being and making disciples, like Paul and the Thessalonian church; 1Thes 1.5-10), then the rapture will be a comfort to you because you know (!) you will glorify Christ with the works you put before Him (you will put on display His grace manifest through your willing, submissive, obedient service in the mission).
If you're not living right (if you, like most church goers today, could not care less about intentionally, aggressively, and sacrificially being a disciple and making disciples)... well... best o' luck to you.
Folks, the rapture is simply the Lord Jesus Christ coming back to remove an unfaithful steward from her stewarship and take her to judgement. That's the orthodoxy. The orthopraxy is this...
That ought to motivate you to be faithful in BEING a disciple! For example...
The orthodoxy of the rapture (your ticket to the Judgment Seat of Christ) ought to also motivate you to stop dinkin' around in your social club of a church and get busy in the mission God gave us! We are to MAKE disciples intentionally, aggressively, sacrificially!
We are not called to some bunker, to hunker down and just hold on until Jesus comes to pull us out of this mess! That's crap! (Oh, sorry... that was a modern, contextualized translation of the word “heterodoxy”...)
God gave you a stewardship (a responsibility): BE AND MAKE DISCIPLES! You don't live out that stewardship faithfully in a bunker. There's more to Christianity than hiding.
Doctrine matters!
Heterodoxy (bad doctrine) leads to heteropraxy (bad living).
Orthodoxy (good doctrine) leads to orthopraxy (good living)
