Traditions

“Therefore, brethren, stand fast, and hold the traditions which ye have been taught, whether by word, or our epistle.” (II Thessalonians 2:15)

Christmas is the time of year when family and religious traditions are in full bloom. Everyone has them. Growing up in our family, our tradition was to always get our presents on Christmas Eve. My dad had a lot of reasons for that. There were seven children in the family, which meant a lot of gifts to open and toys to be played with. Mom would always feed us dinner about 5pm, then dress us in our jammies and let the party begin. That way we could play with the toys until we crashed on the living room floor. Imagine the hassle of trying to give toys to seven excited young children early Christmas morning and then telling us to stop to get ready to go to church. Sometimes we would do the Santa thing, but it didn’t take long for us to figure it out. One year, dad got the next door neighbor kid to dress up like Santa. He was about 6 years older than my oldest brother, so he was big enough to play the part. But we recognized him, and it blew the whole thing for us. My dad told us the reason we got our presents on Christmas Eve was because Santa was really busy, so he had to get a head start. Since our last name begins with “A”, we were at the top of the list. It never dawned on us how inefficient this system was for poor old Santa. Alphabetically, the next family could have been in Uzbekistan for all we knew. But we bought it. No one really ever complained because it just meant we got our stuff a day early.

Years ago, I had a call in talk radio program on one of the local secular stations. They gave us the evening slot on Saturdays because no one listens then anyway. One year at Christmas I did a program on all the exotic traditions from around the world. It was many years ago, and I have lost the notes, but one of the strange ones I remember was from France, where people celebrated the holiday with beer and cookies. Good grief. My gag reflex is kicking in just thinking about that. No wonder they can’t defend their country.

In the Bible, there are three types of traditions: good, bad, and neutral. The vast majority of them are neutral. Every church and family has certain things they do that are unique to them, and for the most part, they are harmless. Most family traditions have no real spiritual impact one way or another in your life. Our church has an annual tradition of a Labor Day picnic. We fire up the grills and BBQ about 150 pounds of pork ribs and 100 pounds of chicken, with all the trimmings. We have done this now for 18 years straight. It is one of our best times, and so ingrained in our lives that we wonder why every church doesn’t do one. But spiritually, it matters not one iota.

Jesus railed on the scribes and Pharisees regularly for their traditions. These would be the bad ones. He said in Mark 7:9, “Full well ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own tradition.” These are the traditions of religious men that plainly contradict the word of God and draw us away from a true relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. That is why whenever I hear a religious leader talk about his “faith tradition”, it makes me cringe. It is like fingernails on a chalkboard to my ears. These are the traditions we need to get rid of in our own lives, and fear not to speak about in the lives of others.

Then there are the traditions Paul referred to in the verse above. These are the good ones – the type of traditions that anchor our lives to the truths of the word of God. Notice he said they are the ones taught by “word (OT) or our epistle (NT)”. Our rock and anchor of truth is God’s book. When it tells us to hang on to something, hang on to it for dear life. I Thessalonians 5:21 says, “Prove all things, hold fast that which is good.” Once you have proven something to be true in the book, live it, love it, learn it, and pass it on to others. God’s anchors will keep you afloat in this crazy sea of life in this insane world.