Following Tradition I

We are studying the book of Jude this week.

Jude says he felt compelled to start his letter by appealing that we "...contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all handed down to the saints." (Jude 3)

I was reminded of a study I did many years ago, sparked by I Corinthians 11:2: "Now I praise you because you...hold firmly to the traditions, just as I delivered them to you."

When I first saw that verse in the Spirit...saw past the mid-American evangelical Bible-believing "Christian" reflexes I grew up in...I was dumb-struck that scripture commended "traditions" in any way. What about all those times Jesus condemned tradition: aren't "traditions," as I'd been taught, by definition contrary to the gospel?

And of course, it comes down to discernment: something the mid-American evangelical Bible-believing "Christian" tradition I was raised in (and yes, that's also a "tradition") didn't teach about at all. And there's the problem of doctrine-based or issue-based "Christianity:" we reduce the faith, indeed Christ Himself, to a "FOR" and "AGAINST" check-list...and never need hear the leading of His living Spirit.

Jesus vehemently condemned the "traditions of men." Like every word He taught us, that's the way it is: no need to explain it away, or make it one end of an either/or theology, if we insist, as He did, on the "... of men" qualifier.

But Paul calls Christ's teachings "traditions" too: and uses exactly the same word Jesus used for what He condemned. Check-list Christian, what do you make of that !?!?

Paul commends "traditions" again in II Thessalonians 2, urging us to resist the spiritual deceits of "the man of lawlessness:" "So then, brethren, stand firm and hold to the traditions which you were taught, whether by word of mouth or by letter from us." We know then that "the traditions" of our faith are embodied in Paul's letters as much as they were in his oral teaching. In II Thessalonians 3 he further urges us to "...keep away from every brother who leads an unruly life and not according to the tradition which you received from us." What greater exhortation to walk in "the traditions" can there be, than that not doing so amounts to false Christianity !

In my study years ago, it became clear that tradition is similarly commended to us in virually every New Testament letter: if not by the exact word irself, by formulations like Jude's above: "...the faith which was once for all handed down to the saints." Indeed, Strong's finds "transmission" the core concept of the word Jesus and Paul used: teachings (good or ill) passed on.

Some today, as in Paul's time, claim Jesus gave secret oral teachings that are not in scripture. And it's a certainty that not every word He ever spoke is contained in the gospels: John closes his gospel saying that if everything Jesus did (which must include His speaking) were written down, the world could not hold all the books written. (And commonsense is that he same could be said of any person. We know, for example, that not every word and deed of Abraham Lincoln has ever been written in the many hundreds of biographies about him.)

So the writers of the ancient "lost" gospels, and those who extoll them to our attention today (the "Gospel of Thomas" seems a current favorite with academics), urge us that the traditional scriptures of Christianity don't tell us everything..and therefore don't tell us enough. On that basis, some hold that there are Christian "traditions" which have been forgotten, ignored, or even suppressed. (Professor Elaine Pagels, for one, promotes such a view.) As with the first-century Gnostics, the "religious" spirit still likes to flatter us that we possess superior "secret knowledge" of which others are ignorant.

And when the Christian "traditions" of Spirit-illumined scripture are not sufficient for us, unbelief in the guise of "new scholarship" also piques our love of "modernity" and novelty. But it is simply unbelief...the enemy's way with us since Eden ("...hath God said...?"). It's unbelief in Jesus' words to the High Priest at His arrest, that "I have spoken openly to the world; I always taught in synagogues and in the temple, where all the Jews come together; and I spoke nothing in secret." (John 18: my emphasis) It's disbelieving Him when He told the disciples that His teachings would be vouchsafed to them not only as "These things I have spoken to you while abiding with you. But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you." (John 14)

Those who allude to "secret" traditions not in scripture show their disbelief of Jesus' plain words which are in scripture, disbelief of the Spirit's ability to bring His words to the apostles' remembrance, and disbelief that the Father wills that we have His complete word in Jesus !! God help our profound unbelief !!

Likewise with His word inspired to Paul. We already know that Paul taught "the traditions" orally and in his letters to the churches (II Thessalonians 2). There's no honest reason to believe he taught a "secret tradition" any more than Jesus did. He tells the church at Corinth that he is sending Timothy to them to "...remind you of my ways which are in Christ, just as I teach everywhere in every church." (I Corinthians 4; my emphasis)

Any honest reading of Paul's letters sees differences in the topics he addresses, and in his approach. He makes no bones about tailoring his teaching to people's spiritual needs "...so that I may by all means save some" (I Corinthians 9:22b). His claim is rather that when he taught the Corinthians to be united in a shared devotion to Christ's teachings (I Corinthians 1 and 3), he did not teach, "...by word of mouth or by letter..." that Galatians or Romans should divide and vaunt themselves on which teacher they followed. He claimed that when he taught it was unacceptable that one in Corinth's fellowship married his father's wife (I Corinthians 5), he did not teach believers in Ephesus it was acceptable. Reading the body of his teaching we have, there's no honest reason to doubt Paul's claim.

Beside the "secret knowledge" theory, many scholars have taken the view that there were two differing strains of early Christianity: the original gospel taught by Jesus, and a "Pauline Christianity." This too bears on the question: lacking a uniform tradition, how can we obey the repeated exhortations to follow "the tradition" ?

And again, it comes down to belief. If we believe Luke's history in Acts 15, the council at Jerusalem accepted that Paul and Barnabas were teaching the same gospel Jesus taught. Peter and James were the primary spokesmen for fully accepting Paul's teaching, and the council wrote that in their decision they were "of one mind." Paul's account in Galatians 2 says he "...submitted to them the gospel which I preach among the Gentiles...:" and that the council recognized that he had been "...entrusted with the gospel to the uncircumcised, just as Peter had been to the circumcised (for He who effectually worked for Peter in his apostleship to the circumcised effectually worked for me also to the Gentiles)..." (my emphasis).

Paul says that "...James and Cephas [Peter] and John, who were reputed to be pillars, gave to me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship, so that we might go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised." The human leaders of the Church found no disparity between the gospel they had personally heard from Jesus' lips, and that which Paul taught. I tend to accept their judgement over that of modern historians and theologians: both as the testimony of contemporary eye-witnesses, and (especially) as the perception of those the Spirit signally qualified to discern.

Paul and Luke agree that the Jerusalem leaders' were fully convinced the Spirit at work in Paul's ministry was the same Spirit working in Peter's. If they were right, it was the fulfillment of God's words to Ananias in Acts 9 that Paul (not even yet baptized at the time, and known to the Church only as its persecutor) would be "...a chosen instrument of Mine, to bear My name before the Gentiles and kings and the sons of Israel." God too is witness that "Paul's" gospel was His word to us, the same as it was Jesus'.

Unless we believe that scripture has no historical (much less spiritual) validity, it's impossible to speak of a tradition of "Pauline Christianity" different than Christ's teachings. On scriptural grounds, I don't buy it. And the belief that God sent His gospel only to watch powerlessly as Paul wrested it in a direction He didn't intend or approve, completely mistakes our God, the King !

The gospel is a unitary "tradition." God's repeated exhortations in scripture that we follow "the tradition" all refer to The Way He has given us and taught us: and Jesus has said HE is "The Way."

It's that simple for the believer: God has given us His Way...and commands that we walk in it.

Praise Him !! Amen !