I received a couple of emails about my last post which have led me clarify my position. I am not for throwing every tradition down. I believe there are definite benefits to having traditions among a body. Like Matt said, "I agree that traditions are necessary (everyone has some sort of traditions, even if they think they don't). They can also be a great blessing."
I also believe that all of our traditions are rooted in good intent (that I know of anyway). The purpose of that last post was not to tear down traditions as valuable practices. I posted it as a warning to keep traditions in their proper perspective. Just as cunningly as Satan can slip in and make you think that traditions are simply worthless commandments of men, he can also slip in and lull you into a sense of false holiness, if you lean too heavily on the traditions as your refuge. This can cause a believer to cease striving for personal spiritual growth, and into placing their trust in the traditions instead of the Holy Spirit to sanctify them and draw them into closer communion with the Father.
One of the emails I received mentioned the benefits of eating lunch at church; "the tradition of eating lunch at church does help us stay united, as it is time we spend visiting with and getting to know one another" To clarify, I'm not writing this with these types of "operational traditions" in mind. I'm thinking more of the traditions that have been given as guidelines for holiness and separation from the world.
In closing, let us go forward in unfeigned love for one another. Let us praise God with every aspect of our lives. Let us serve our Lord and Creator not out of spirit of fear, but of adoption where-by we cry Abba, Father. Romans 8:15
To quote the January 24th post,
Trusting God to Get God
15 hours ago
21 comments:
I agree.
Now go back over to my blog and tell me what your favorite breakfast food is from my top ten. You forgot to do so in your last comment.
from traditions part 1, I believe I was interpretted wrong by Mark. I actually couldn't agree with Him more. To quote Bro. Trent Schrock in a recent serman word for word:
"if you hope for unity from anything else other than Jesus Christ, you're going to be disappointed. It's not unity for us to all wear the same clothes, it's not unity for us to all do the same things, it's not unity for us to look alike and act alike, it is unity for us to be centered on Jesus Christ. Because we're all coming from a little different position and He's pulling us up into Him. HE IS THE ONLY ONE WHO HAS THE POWER TO UNIFY US AS A CHURCH TO DO HIS WORK."
"If we try to do it out of our own effort, if we try to make 'converts unto us,' shame on us because WE HAVE NO POWER TO SAVE."
Unity is in Christ, not tradion alone. I said what I said at the time to be inoffensive, and because many traditions ARE doctrinal and in which case they do unify us to Christ.
What I believe it comes down to....
People are not going to see eye to eye on this...
Some in the church are going to view traditions and say "they don't fit the mold, there must be something wrong"...
And some will say "traditions are useless and outdated, this is the twenty first centry, not the 18 hundreds"....
Or some variation in between... but there are ditches on both sides of the road. And Christ calls us to walk the middle, the straight and narrow!
I believe that the MAIN problem comes back to the individuals themselves, LAZY CHRISTIANITY. (And I speak to my self first) I have failed for years in this area. We CAN NOT take everything that we hear from a "spiritual leader", minister or not a minister, and just BELIEVE it blindly.... like, so and so said this, it MUST be true. And then adopt it as our own FAITH OR BELIEFS. That is lazy Christianity.
We ALL, from the one just repenting to the oldest, ministers and dishwashers, ALL, GOTTA know deep down in your hearts the answer to... Why do you believe what you believe, WHY?. Can you back it up? As Christians who are supposed to be the salt and the light of the world.... are you? ...can you really explain Christ, the heart and mind of Christ, to someone who is truely seeking?
Have you looked into our traditions, fully, And do you understand why we do what we do, fully!? And I mean ALL of them, not just the ones you may not agree with, but ALL of them.
We're AC, right?
So why don't we know all of the AC traditions inside and out. They effect us personally don't they??
We should know why we believe what we believe. And not just trust what someone has told you.
If you don't know the answer to that, how do you explain our traditions to people who aren't of our faith, who are honestly seeking?
How do you explain your beliefs fully!?
I would like to challege everyone who reads this to learn why you believe what you believe.
But hey... don't take my word for it.
FILTER YOUR FINDINGS ONLY BY THE BIBLE AND CHRISTS EXAMPLE.
(again I speak to myself first)
Love you all
Ash: Thanks for that comment. You're right, there are quite a few traditions that are just commandments of men. However, the key word in my comment that conveyed the point I was trying to make was "worthless". Satan can slip in and make you think they're worthless, when often there is some value to the tradition.
Thanks for your thoughts! It's a great reminder of what Christ did for us, and that it's through the blood and only through the blood that we can lay hold on the promise of life eternal!
Excellent food! Thanks Mark!
"It's a great reminder of what Christ did for us, and that it's through the blood and only through the blood that we can lay hold on the promise of life eternal!"
I think this can be the crux of the matter: the work of Christ.
Galatians proves that a wrong view of a commandment of God (circumcision) can become a curse, let alone wrong view of acommandment of man.
When Paul faced the issue of circumcision, at one point he was very tolerant (he let Timothy become circumcized because of what other people thought) and at another point he was extremely strict ("if you be circumcized.. Christ shall profit you nothing").
Likewise, in one situation tradition-keeping can be a great blessing and in another it can be a curse that negates the work of Christ. It all depends on how we view the tradition, and possibly how we view others before God in light of their conformance/non-conformance.
If we take Paul's example.. perhaps the breaking point is this: 1. If it is merely a matter of making people happy and no greater issues are at stake, give in. 2. If there is a greater principle or issue at stake, think about what else my be more appropriate (perhaps addressing the other underlinign issues?) But in all situations do so in a careful and calculated way.
Just some food for thought..
Another interesting idea..
When it comes to traditions, do we:
(a) Let the traditions form, appear, and cease as times and circumstances change.
or
(b) Try to maintain an unchanging body of traditions, trying to fight adaptation as much as possible
Just for the record, I'm loving this. *grin*
raincaller,
I don't know where to begin. I may have to put my Philosopher hat on! Watch out, if I actually knew their names I might start pulling out references to Dutch philosophers :)
There is definately the co-mingling you mentioned between doctrine and tradition, since many times both are expounded from the same platform. I'd actually suggest calling what we are speaking of "customs" instead, because that word more clearly identifies what we are talking about. 'Tradition' can be ambigious (ie. The English Bible has Paul including one of his letters, which contains doctrine, within a body of 'tradition').
Your comments about the social origins of traditions are instructive. But how does this apply to our unique heritage? Much of what we call 'tradition' is not just things that relate directly to a group, but only in a secondary way.
Traditions help maintain some sort of cohesive identity, yes. But they don't necessarily keep them together, in fact, often they split them. The cohesive identity may give an appearance of unity, but it could either be fickle or short lasting. And the identity itself is not commendable (how many of the Revelations churches were applauded for maintaining an identity?)
"Are we not both son's of God and son's of man?" Uhmm..... Yes. Is this a trick question? :)
part II..
I want to preface this with the observation that I'm not a very daring guy. I like routine and am my personality is not condusive to being progressive.
Let's take this a bit further in some practical terms..
Meals at church. Do they keep the church together, as someone stated? Church meals may encapsulate some important aspects of what it means to be together: ie. sharing, communication, spending time with each other, etc. Can they be a sign of a united church? Yes. But on the other hand, many meals had been shared with no unity or concord as well. Meals in church will only coexist with unity if the basic building blocks for unity are pre-existent.
The social theory regarding traditions may be true to the extent that the traditions actually reflect the beliefs of the group. But is this always the case? What about the disconnect? In the case where the traditions don't match the beliefs or status of the group, then the disunity begins to come in. I guess you could call it some sort of stagnation-theory. Tradition will always lag behind current status, but it needs to be semi-fluid.
For example, at one time, many of my forefathers customs and traditions could have been said to have "kept them together". That may or may not be true (I think it can be argued that Christian brotherhood was what kept them together, and the traditions were merely an expression of that greater reality). Now.. let's suppose my church decided that all the traditions that "kept things together" then must be used to keep things into 2005. As a result, I would not have many of the liberties I can potentially enjoy now now (ie. having family photographs on the wall, listening to English sermons, voting, playing cards, participating in youth group, having a Saturday wedding ceremony ;), etc.)
Back in the day, the traditions may not have been accepted by everyone, but they generally reflected the general sociological ideals of the group. If we carry them over to today without any thought, we run the risk of driving a solid wedge between the groups beliefs and the status of the customs. Hence, the customs then cease to have the usefull connection to the life of the group (as they once did) and hence eventually either become an empty sharade OR become a cause for divisions OR both!!
At some point in time, it sounded somewhat good to say: "We must not allow English services lest the change disrupt our unity". But somewhere along the line, someone had to put their foot down and point to the greater issues (What impact will this have on our kids? How will our outreach be without this?) and trust the progressive assertion that having those services in English will actually benefit us in the long run and is worth the potential division. So sometimes going out on the limb is good, especially when we have the security blanket of knowing that if a change of tradition disrupts our unity, then it likely isn't real unity anyway.
Being a generally non-progessive non-brave person in most areas of my life, I don't like change that much. I'd say that change doesn't flow from my personality. But many things I take for granted depend on positive change.
God bless you (even though you you quote sociologists.. hehe),
~Mark
I think the deeper we get into this discussion, the more important it becomes to correctly define traditions vs custom and even, in some cases, define specific traditions and customs that our premises hold with. As I was reading this last comment by you Mark, I was finding myself agreeing with your points on some traditions and not on others. The closer a tradition walks to a direct biblical commandment the less likely it is to be fluid, or for fluidity to be justified.
However, many would say that since "all" of our traditions are based on application of scripture that none should ever be fluid.
"However, many would say that since 'all'"of our traditions are based on application of scripture that none should ever be fluid."
In that case, there is need for further discussion. First, as to whether this is a healthy and Biblical sound position. Second, the question would have to be raised as to whether the interpretation of scripture has been somewhat fluid also. All would agree that the spiritual/biblical principles have never changed, but our understanding of them has, to some degree.
I think you are absolutely correct in your assesement of the importance of definitions here.
What would be an example of a tradition that walks very closely to a direct biblical commandment?
P.S. I dont' want to hijack this discussion.. so I think I'll try to be more observational. I'm sure there'll be enough feedback to keep it going for a while :)
Mark,
I agree that there is need for further discussion. That's why I wrote the comment; to hopefully generate further discussion.
I believe our understand of how to apply scripture has changed in teh past. To use one of your previous examples, we used to interpret "no graven images" to include photographs. We have since decided that photographs don't fall under the graven image category.
While the commandment of "not worshipping any graven image" has not changed, how we apply that commandment has, as well as what we consider graven images.
As society changes around us it can cause the intended response of a tradition to be skewed in the process. A tradition that was originally intended to invoke response x, now due to external changes, invokes response y. A great example of this would be worshipping in German. It was originally intended to keep the word unchanged and pure in meaning, but as society shifted it became a drag on evangelism and outreach. For how can the word change lives if the word cannot be understood.
What would be an example of a tradition that walks very closely to a direct biblical commandment?
One of the things that came to mind here is how we go confess to the elder of our church when we begin our repentance. I don't believe the bible ever states to confess to the leader of your local church, but it does say to confess them before man and God. Wouldn't confessing them to your dad be just as effective?
However, as I thought about that question the more I think that the majority of our traditions are culturally adapted ways to apply doctrine.
I first of all want to restate how important it is that everyone study! If we are not into the word, and not understanding the heart and mind set that Christ's examples and teachings were given to us for, then all this talk is vanity. (and possibly harming) As we read peoples opinions, comments, and descusions, it should invoke thought and excitement to find the "truth". The truth being Christs original intentions! HIS modives (modivation) behind his parables and teachings, and how those intentions and modives apply to traditions, doctrine...etc (IN context, not out). So I re-encourage everyone that we ALL should continue to study, read, and pray.
Why do you believe what you believe? Do you know the answer to that question fully. Answer that to yourselves first.
(I still can't answer that for myself FULLY yet... so I speak to myself also)
Don't just believe something because of lazy Christianity.
So Luke:
Your confession of sin subject perked my intrest.
A thought that I had was that the elders are the spiritual shepards of our churches. So in that sense, confession of sin to your elder would be good so that he can understand that we are willingly repentive and not afraid to expose Satan. It could help him "see" the desire for conversion in an individual and how God is working in them in the future.
But, confession to your parents perhaps, would actually benifit the individual more. You see, talk, and council with your family MUCH more frequently than you do your elder. Your family knows you better and can keep you accountable better than an elder.
So when we begin our repentances for the "FIRST" time, maybe we should do both? Both ARE just as effective when comes down to... "confess your sins before God and man." And both can be of benifit.
Anymore thoughts on this? This was just an inital thought.
I love you all
"We CAN NOT take everything that we hear from a "spiritual leader", minister or not a minister, and just BELIEVE it blindly.... like, so and so said this, it MUST be true. And then adopt it as our own FAITH OR BELIEFS. That is lazy Christianity."
An excellent point, but one that leads me to a different application of that statement, “How can we take what Paul (or any of the other authors of the Bible) wrote and believe it ‘blindly’". And yet, if I were to suggest we couldn’t, I am sure I would hear about it loud and clear.
Also, I found parts of this discussion on traditions to be most interesting. Someone said we need to understand the intricacies of the subtle difference between tradition and custom. Webster defines tradition with the following:
1 : an inherited, established, or customary pattern of thought, action, or behavior (as a religious practice or a social custom)
2 : the handing down of information, beliefs, and customs by word of mouth or by example from one generation to another without written instruction
3 : cultural continuity in social attitudes, customs, and institutions
4 : characteristic manner, method, or style
Interesting to note that the word custom (or a derivative there of) shows up in three of the four definitions. And I think the first definition is probably the one that fits this discussion the best, but that’s open for debate I suppose. Custom, in the context we are using it, was defined in the following way:
1 a : a usage or practice common to many or to a particular place or class or habitual with an individual b : long-established practice considered as unwritten law c : repeated practice d : the whole body of usages, practices, or conventions that regulate social life
Personally, I put little stock in traditions for the sake of traditions. Very few of the traditions we follow (as ACs) are direct implementations of a passage of the Bible. Rather, it seems to me, that they are primarily a derivation of something our forefathers got used to and seemed to work in their day and age. Having said that, some things never change with time, for example, the need to repent to get into heaven. That’s not, in my opinion, a tradition. Breathing is not a tradition either, but we all have done it, are doing it, and will continue to do so until our life is over. Maybe I am all washed up here, wouldn’t be surprised to find that out either really, but I don’t consider it a tradition if it is defined, and set in place, by Holy Scripture. If there is room to debate it (id est its not clearly defined), then there is an interpretation that we (meaning the church in case) use – that’s a tradition. Some of them are very useful and promote unity. Others, and I will not give examples here; tend to promote strife in today’s church.
Thoughts?
Paul: I appreciate your reminder. It can't be stated enough that we need to let our views and our opinions be shaped and molded by study of the Word of God.
Tom: Why we should believe the Bible, while an interesting topic, is an entirely different issue for another time.
The problem with Websters is that he defines words with a non-biblical world view. I think most leaders of our church would define our traditions differently. Well, maybe not differently, but they would add to the context of Webster. For example when Webster says, "an in herited, established, or customary pattern of thought, action, or behavior" implemented to apply the doctrine of the word in a consistent uniform manner among our body. Or something along those lines.
try webster's 1828 dictionary.
TRADI'TION, n. [L. traditio, from trado, to deliver.]
1. Delivery; the act of delivering into the hands of another.
A deed takes effect only from the tradition or delivery.
The sale of a movable is completed by simple tradition.
2. The delivery of opinions,doctrines, practices,rites and customs from father to son, or from ancestors to posterity; the transmission of any opinions or practice from forefathers to descendants by oral communication, without written memorials. Thus children derive their vernacular language chiefly from tradition. Most of our early notions are received by tradition from our parents.
3. That which is handed down from age to age by oral communication. The Jews pay great regard to tradition in matters of religion, as do the Romanists. Protestants reject the authority of tradition in sacred things, and rely only on the written word. Traditions may be good or bad, true or false.
Stand fast, and hold the traditions which ye have been taught, whether by word or our epistle. 2 Thess. 2.
Why do ye also transgress the commandment of God by your traditions? Matt. 15.
http://www.cbtministries.org/resources/webster1828.htm
Jenny:
Thanks! I've never checked, but I'm guessing that you'll find a lot more scripture in Websters 1828 dictionary, than you will in todays.
I especially like the clarifying thought in definition 3 that says "Traditions may be good or bad, true or false."
Tom:
Stated earlier:
"We CAN NOT take everything that we hear from a "spiritual leader", minister or not a minister, and just BELIEVE it blindly.... like, so and so said this, it MUST be true. And then adopt it as our own FAITH OR BELIEFS. That is lazy Christianity."
"An excellent point, but one that leads me to a different application of that statement, “How can we take what Paul (or any of the other authors of the Bible) wrote and believe it ‘blindly’". And yet, if I were to suggest we couldn’t, I am sure I would hear about it loud and clear."
I actually agree with your statement totally. We shouldn't take what the authors of the Bible wrote and believe it 'blindly'; At least not without fully studing the subject and figuring out "why you believe what you believe" on the matter that the authors are writing about. We should always continue to study and try to understand more clearly. If you read what the authors write and then not study it to absorb what is being said, that's lazy Christianity. (And I'm guilty of that at times)
But from my personal studing, the subjects that the authors wrote about, were validated and backed up by the life, examples, and teachings of Jesus. But I still say everyone needs to study the Bible for themselves.
Back to the subject of traditions. From my personal studing, and memory, the only "tradition" that was set in place by Jesus and His Apostles was that of the Passover Feast, "Communion". The other traditions (usually Jewish traditions) that were writen about by the authors; were talked about and taught that following these traditions was/is not what saves an individual. (for example circumcision) They're heart issues.
(I just read your comment, Tom, and wanted to respond. I'm at work and I'm running out of time. This comment was rushed and just from memory. I DEFINITLY will welcome any response or comments, especially if I stated something that was not correct and needs correction.)
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