Command VS Tradition

Mark 7:9 And he continued, “You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe your own traditions!

Traditions can be very powerful things. Many of the things we do in life are done because of tradition, often disguised as habit. We do things so consistently over time that doing it any other way seems foolish, wrong. And we see others doing it differently from the way we do it, and we often make subtle judgments about them and their actions.

We drive on the right side of the road. Why? Because that is the way we do it. But when you go to England or Japan they drive on the left side of the road. So who is right?

I noticed my own habit when I was tying my shoes. I was thinking about my grandchildren learning to do this simple task. I can tie by shoes without even thinking about it. My fingers have learned through muscle memory the various steps that now flow seamlessly.

But then I thought, what if I tried to reverse the roles, make my left hand do what my right hand normally does. At that point my mind said, “That’s crazy to switch and learn something different, when the way I do it now works perfectly fine.” My habit had now become my tradition.

The religious leaders of Jesus day had many traditions that superseded the commands of God. And Jesus calls them to account for this switching of position between tradition and command. Traditions can come and go, but commands remain the same.

Any time we elevate a tradition, a habit that has passed down through the years, we are in danger. How many groups have been sidetracked from their mission by traditions. We get stuck in the comfortable and don’t like change.

This holding to tradition keeps many a company from sustaining growth and changing with the times. I am amazed with the places that still want you to respond to them by fax! It is as if encrypted email doesn’t even exist. They are stuck in the past.

Are we stuck in the past? Do we still relate the eternal Truth of Scripture in the same format it was shared with us? How do we keep the same Truth and deliver it in a contemporary way without compromising the centrality of Christ and the timelessness of the Scriptures?

Well, if you can answer this question in a clear and understandable and applicable manner, you deserve a medal. This is always the struggle of the Church to communicate the eternal Truth in space and time to an audience in space and time.

But just because it is hard to do, means we must work all the harder at doing it. It is our mission, to take the eternal Truth and make it heard to modern ears and hearts.

May it be so!