What is Tradition? Part 2

Author note:  This is the second part of a discussion about tradition.  As I stated before I’m not going to apologize for advocating one perspective over another.  I am simply putting my perspective out there.  You can agree or not.

In my last post, I started to discuss tradition, and I began with a definition, and started to talk about what tradition meant in Christianity.  I finished up with discussing how tradition is discussed in the Bible.  Now I’m going to discuss some larger concepts in regards to tradition.  This may be a little confusing or uncomfortable.  Can’t help it, it’s my perspective.

You may look at what I’ve written so far and say: ‘That’s all right for oral traditions to have been used in the early Church, but we have the Bible now, those are no longer necessary.’  I would respond that we need to look back at the definition of tradition.  It’s not just beliefs, but also culture and practices.  If we are to hold on to the beliefs, culture, and practices from previous generations, then the tie that binds them must be tradition.  There are multiple examples of common current Christian beliefs (the Trinity for example) that came from the early Church and have been carried through to the present day.  Yes, the concept of Trinity is expressed in the Bible, but HOW we INTERPRET those verses and come to our belief in the Trinity is the tradition that has come through to the present day. And that is a very important point.  I have seen this concept illustrated in the context of traffic laws.  When you break one of those laws, who enforces it?  The police enforce it.  In the same vein, the church must enforce the interpretation of scripture and tradition.  Tradition gives us the guidelines we should follow within the Church as well as how we interpret the Scriptures.

Let’s use an example outside of religion.  You find a series of letters written by an ancestor.   If you sit down and try to read and understand everything said in all of those letters by themselves, you are going to have some areas that are unclear or downright confusing.  However, if you sit down with an older relative who either:  lived and talked with that ancestor, or who heard the story behind those letters from their parents/grandparents, they will be able to answer your questions about those areas and you won’t have confusion or misunderstanding.  In fact, you will probably have a wonderful history that you can pass on to your family.

Moving back to religion.  One thing I would stress is:  tradition and Scripture are inextricably intertwined.  If you attempt to remove one from the other, you will lose the meanings and definitions from what you have left.  If you go with tradition over Scripture, you will eventually end up with the ‘doctrines of men’.  However, if you go the other direction, then a common interpretation of Scripture is lost (you can see my Scripture post about that).  Both work together to provide the complete picture of the ‘Body of Christ’.


I'm going to take another break here.  The next post will hopefully cover the last element I want to cover on this topic and then I'll finish it.