Tradition
. . . In vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men . . . Full well you reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own tradition. . ..making the word of God of none effect through your tradition. -Mark 7:7-13
One great roadblock to Revival, and Biblical Christianity, is tradition. We have traditions that make behaviors not identified as sin, sinful. Yet we rarely preach against socially acceptable sins. I can’t remember the last time I heard a sermon decrying covetousness. Fierce nationalism is preached, but the Bible tells us we are pilgrims and strangers on this earth. Wearing hats is sinful, but gossip is fine. Tattoos are sinful, but divorce and remarriage is fine. Drinking alcohol in moderation is sinful, but covetousness . . . that’s not only fine, it’s the American way. We haven’t thrown out the baby, but we haven’t thrown out the bathwater either, instead we preach and extol the virtues of the bathwater, and minimize the baby. I’ve heard it taught that “we shouldn’t try to be like Jesus, we just need to like Jesus”; but Jesus said, I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done to you. *
You may protest; if we don’t look to ecclesiastical tradition as our model, how will we know what the church should look like? How do we know what an authentic Christian looks like? The answer is radically simple. The scriptures! The Sermon on the Mount is a good start; Jesus clearly tells us how to act, how to think, how to pray, and how to treat our fellow man. A study through the Gospels and the rest of the New Testament will fill in the rest of what true Christianity is, and how it works. Don’t go rooting around the Old Testament to find church practice; because much of the practice of the Jews was concerned with fulfilling ceremonial law’s which as Christians we are no longer bound by. Examples of these would be sacrificing an animal when we sin, not lighting a fire on the Sabbath, and circumcision. We need to study our Bibles, to ensure that every doctrine we hold is scriptural, not merely cultural.
Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. -II Timothy 2:15
* John 13:15
Anonymous says:
July 24th, 2009 at 5:50 am
Thanks for posting about this, I would love to read more about this topic.
mark melton says:
July 24th, 2009 at 6:10 pm
What happened to the “Dave’s Argument” page?
austin says:
July 25th, 2009 at 12:41 pm
I removed that post because I felt by getting into apologetics it could shift the role of the blog from interpreting the scriptures to arguing with atheists.
Dave Mazzella says:
July 25th, 2009 at 4:26 pm
I do agree tradition can definately blind us like the pharisees were, but I would argue that not all tradition is bad either, I suppose that when we lose the heart we lose the whole. Good article though and I do appreciate the reminder. I would add that our church practice,…rituals, sacraments, etc., are based on OT temple and synogogue worship, I guess the real issue is how we as a church extrapolate the truth to direct our worship.
austin says:
July 25th, 2009 at 10:46 pm
I absolutely agree. I was not trying to condemn all traditions, rather to show that when tradition is revered above scriptural revelation, we are on thin ice indeed.