Traditions

As you look at the landscape of all our churches, you will find many of them have one thing in common. They all have traditions they have followed for years. But there can be grave danger in doing so.

Jesus addressed this issue in Matthew Chapter 15. In this chapter, the religious leaders came to attack Jesus by using one of their traditions as their main weapon of attack. In fact, they had traveled all the way from Jerusalem to Galilee to attack Him.

They attacked the disciples of Jesus by saying His disciples had transgressed the tradition of the Elders by not washing their hands when they ate bread.

Many Jews, during Jesus day, believed, in addition to the written Law of Moses, there was an oral law given to Moses on Mount Sinai. This oral law was passed from Moses by word of mouth until it reached the great synagogue or Council of Elders. The Council of Elders was the source of the many traditions, which in essence, were additions to the Law of God. This was in fact, how many traditions started.

The Council of Elders, at one time, had initiated a tradition of the washing of hands. The washing of hands consisted of a ritual of pouring a trickle of cold water over outstretched. This ritual made a Jew clean if he/she had been in contact with a non-Jew or with anything that had been touched by a non-Jew. This ritual was deemed to make you clean in order to worship God.

The religious leaders were not concerned so much with cleanliness as they were with the ceremonial ritual.

Jesus responded to their attack by showing the religious leaders that additions to the Word of God were actually contradicting the Word of God. And more importantly it was making the Word of God of no effect.

Jesus turned the tables on them by making an accusation of His own on the religious leaders. Jesus told them, they themselves were violating God’s Law with their tradition of ‘Corban.” Corban was a Jewish tradition that said, if a Jew wanted to give a gift to the Temple or to God, they could escape a financial obligation to father or mother. In other words, you did not have to financially support your parents if you use such financial support as a gift to God’s Temple or to God’s himself. They argued that God would take care of their Father and/or Mother.

Jesus immediately called them hypocrites! He said they only worshipped God with their lips and not with their hearts. They were teaching as God’s doctrine, the doctrine of men. As a result, they were creating a stumbling block for the people to receive the blessings of God, and their worship by giving was in vain. This same spirit is in some of our churches today. Have you seen it?

Traditions are external, while God’s word is internal in the heart. People obey and succumb to traditions to please men and to gain status. We obey the Word of God to please God and to gain favor with Him. By obeying traditions, Christians rob themselves of the power of God’s Word. operating in their daily lives.