Evangelical Traditions! ! Corinthians 11:2-16

We ended yesterday’s thoughts with a reference to a passage in Titus that deals with those who are contentious.  Today’s reading ends with a reference to those who seem to be contentious.  The Titus passage is about avoiding foolish disputes.  Today’s passage is about keeping traditions.

All of 1 Cor. 11 is about tradition as it deals with the issues of head covering and how we carry out our celebrations of the Lord’s Table.  Traditions involve the practices of, in this case, a church as they seek to apply Scripture to their common meetings and observances.  

·        The Greek term paradosis literally means to give over something, usually done by mouth or in written form.  Paul says he delivered them to you.  Traditions are those things that are passed down in a body of believers so that they have a common method of applying Scripture.  Paul, for example, had taught the churches a method of showing an important Biblical point having to do with the relationship of men and women.  In the following passage he did the same with respect to communion.  The practices of the Corinthians were destroying the point of the Lord’s Table and it needed to change.

·        Jesus criticized the traditions of the Jews because, instead of affirming, they actually opposed the teaching of Scripture.  Matt. 15:2,3,6 and Mark 7:3,5,8,9,13 speak of the same incident and show Jesus’ problem with Pharisaical traditions.  He did not oppose tradition per se but opposed tradition that opposed God’s truth.  You see the same thing in Gal. 1:14 and Col. 2:8 where believers were being taught traditions of Jews and worldly philosophy.  These traditions were robbing them of their freedom in Christ.  In 2 Thess. 2:15 and 3:6 Paul speaks of traditions as he does here, of things he gave to the churches to help them carry out the exhortations of Scripture.

Traditions give us another insight into how we can be needlessly contentious.  All churches need not have the same traditions.  In other words they can honor the Scriptures and the Lord with traditions that fit their culture and society.  And thus, in fact, sometimes there will be different churches simply because they have different customs.  While we may not meet together because these are different, it does not mean we need to wrangle over these things.  There are many churches I know of or have attended on occasion whose traditions are different, but that fit the truth.  We preach the same gospel.  But we have different expressions of worship.   

Thus we ought to be able to have a love for each other that fits what Jesus called for.  We should be able to pray for one another.  Would it be possible for us to do a little self-examination on this matter?  Is it possible that God, in fact, uses these differences in tradition as a means of drawing people from every tribe, language, people and nation?