All right. I've been thinking about this for a looooong time, but I think I'm finaly ready to articulate my thoughts here.
I used to accept right and wrong based on what we, as a family, did and did not do. We didn't celebrate Halloween, so Halloween was automaticaly evil. We prayed before bed, so those who did not were pagans.
Lately (as in over the last year and a half sort of lately) I've begun to re-think this. Really, it's sad that it took me this long, but that's aside from the point. And what I came to realize was that a whole lot of what is considered 'Christian pracitices' arn't actually in the Bible. They're good ideas, but you can't find verses to specificaly support them. Examples (debatably) being dressing up for Church, courtship, and singing hymns instead of praise music. P-L-E-A-S-E do not get hung up on these examples... I know there are reasons for all of them based on Biblical principles. I'm only saying that you could never find a verse specificaly mentioning any of these traditions. They are man made. Man made ways to follow God's word.
So my reaction was, well, we don't necessarily need to follow God's rules man's way... right? They're just traditions. We are accountable to God alone. And arn't there ways to obey His rules without following man's tradtions?
Then in Sunday School this morning I found this verse: "But we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you withdraw from every brother who walks disorderly and not according to the tradition which he received from us." (II Thes. 3:6)
The question is this: Who is the 'Us' in that verse? Is it the Apostles? The Church leaders of our local churches? The Biblical letters/books in general? And what does the word 'tradition' refer to?
Dun dun dun duuuuun...
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8 comments:
hmmm. i'm not sure.
but from reading a few different versions, i gather that what paul means is the teaching that he gave to them. i don't think tradition is used in the same way that we think of it.
wait, people who don't pray before bed aren't pagans? oh...
haha. Yes, I agree that paul is referring to the teachings he and those with him gave to the people in Thessalonica.
Ok, just looked it up in my NIV computer Bible. In NIV, they translate traditions as teachings, so I think we can be fairly clear on that. If you read the verses after verse 6, paul goes on to say that the teachings were more or less the examples he and those with him set - namely, not being idle or taking advantage of people. If people were lazy and didn't work for their bread, don't associate with them, "but do not reagard them as and enemy, warn them as a brother."
As to your original post...uh-oh, another gray area. I'm not sure either. I think for the most part we all except what our families live by for a time, and now is when we start to question some of those values based on what our friends or the world thinks, and start to make some of our own desicions. I guess I'd say that we need to look into the traditions (in our culture's sense of the word), find out how they originated, see what biblical basis there is for one side or the other, and then make our desicions based on these views. And this blog I think is a great place for specific questions like that. In general though, since each spot is its own little gray area, I don't think there can be a general rule for all of them in determining "right" or "wrong," esp. since everyone has their own view of right and wrong.
for me, all these things appear to be new ways vs. old ways. the things that seem like "tradition" or "established" now are nothing like christianity 30, 50, or 100 years ago.
it's always been a change-with people resisting new ideas, others just kind of going along, and others embracing the new ideas.
just think: singing hymns (instead of scripture) was once considered liberal, outlandish, and unbiblical.
I really don't know either.
Thats about all I have to say at this point.
Very explanitive.
lol... explainative. Add it to the Dictionary of non-existant words.
well I brought it up with Caleb and Ryan at co-op, and we kind of decided that there is a difference between principles and traditions. A principle is something that you beleive is either right or wrong based on your inturpritation of the Bible. Like I read the Bible and decided that it is wrong to steal. Nothing can shake me in that opinion, and I beleive that anyone who steals has commited a sin.
Traditions are just practical application of Biblical principles. For example, I read the Bible, saw that we were supposed to be pure, and made the personal decision to not date in High School. Can I condem those who do? No. It was just a practical standard I set up for myself in order to keep God's law.
And some pracical standards are more obvious than others. I think some may be so obvious that you could almost say it would be wrong to not follow them. But in the interest of being perfect as God is perfect, I think it is important that we do make practical standards for ourselves. And the Church has established some pretty logical standards that we would often do well to follow.
The trick is not judging those who don't.
thanks for your thoughts, everyone, they were all great.
We happened to talk about this a bit this morning . . .
Mom pointed out that we follow everytradition, we will probably start doing things wrong. Like Christmas is a man made thing, and some people don't do it because of it.
ah, that's an interesting point. But those same people will probubly end up following a whole lot of other man made traditions rather rigidly.
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