Chapter 17, "The Catch." That was a rather bold statement for me to make, so let me repeat it: if we don't "add" something to written Scripture, we are being disobedient to Scripture. Before you burn me at the stake, let me explain.
If your Bible is handy, turn to 2 Thessalonians 2:15, which says, "So then, brethren, stand firm and hold to the traditions which you were taught, whether by word of mouth or by letter from us." Paul told Thessalonian Christians not to go by written Scripture alone; they were to obey what the apostles taught, whether orally or by letter. Let me ask you: do you obey what the apostles taught by word of mouth? After all, aren't we under the same commandments that they were?
If the Thessalonians were obligated to be obedient to what Paul taught orally, are we any less obligated? In his same letter to the Thessalonians, Paul reiterated the need to be obedient to apostolic tradition, saying, "Now we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you keep aloof from every brother who leads an unruly life, and not according to the tradition which you received from us" (2 Thessalonians 3:6).
And as we noticed in 1 Corinthians 11:2, Paul praised the Corinthians for "holding firmly to the traditions just as I delivered them to you." I was raised to believe that all tradition is bad. The Bible passage that always popped into my mind when I heard the word "tradition" was Jesus's words to the Pharisees, saying, "You invalidate the word of God for the sake of your tradition" (Matthew 15:6). Yet, as we have seen, that is only one of the New Testament passages about tradition.
There is good tradition, and there is bad tradition. There is apostolic tradition, and there is human tradition. Apostolic tradition confirms what is written in Scripture; human tradition makes Scripture invalid. Let's go back to our discussion about the head cover. As I have said, this is not a book about head-veiling. Yet the subject nicely illustrates my point. Think about the tradition you have received concerning the head cover.
Does it prompt you to obey what Scripture teaches on the subject, or does it invalidate the word of God? Apostolic tradition, what was handed down orally by the apostles, never invalidates Scripture. But how do we know what the apostles taught orally? Well, how would the next generation of Thessalonian Christians have known what Paul taught orally? They would have asked the first generation, wouldn't they? And how would the third generation have known? Right, they would have asked the second generation.
So where does that leave us, scores of generations later? If we use common sense, it leaves us in about the same situation as the third or fourth generations of Christians. That's because we have a historical record of the beliefs and practices of those early generations of Christians. In fact, the apostolic tradition is better attested to than most other historical facts. First subheading: What is apostolic tradition?
Are you saying that unless a person reads the early Christian writings, he can't even be saved or be a real Christian? You may be wondering. No, I'm not saying that at all. If a person found the New Testament in the desert and never read anything but it, he would have everything necessary to know the way of salvation and to have a close, obedient relationship with God. In fact, if that's all he had, he would be far better off than most of us.
That's because he wouldn't have all of our human traditions, and he wouldn't have any ready-made reasons for ignoring Scripture. Let me reassure you: the oral teachings or tradition of the apostles do not contain any theological doctrines that do not have a basis in Scripture, and they do not contain any moral teachings that are not an application of what is already in Scripture. So what's left? Plenty.
The primary value and function of apostolic tradition was to clarify and explain things that were written in Scripture. We find it necessary to expound and amplify the Scriptures, don't we? Do you think the apostles found any less of a need? The apostles didn't abandon the Church to a chaos of varied theological opinions, as we have today. They didn't leave it up to the first-century Christians to guess how various moral teachings should be applied.
No, the early Church was one-body because it had apostolic tradition alongside Scripture. It didn't have to guess what Scripture meant; it had the explanations given by the apostles. Apostolic tradition supplied them with another key thing: the proper method of practicing the ordinances.
By that term, I mean things such as the mode of baptism, the nature of Church meetings, the day of the week to meet together for worship, the method of having communion, the frequency of communion, and the nature and frequency of love feasts. The Bible gives us some clues on these things, but it does not give us explicit instructions.
Actually, the real issue isn't "the Bible alone" versus "the Bible plus tradition." Rather, the issue is "the Bible plus apostolic tradition" versus "the Bible plus man-made tradition." That's because every Christian subscribes to some type of tradition. It's either apostolic tradition or it's man-made tradition. My dictionary defines tradition as "the handing down orally of beliefs, customs, etc., from generation to generation." So every sermon you have ever heard is a form of tradition.
Every piece of Christian literature you have ever read is extra-biblical tradition. If your Church has a position on how to harmonize Romans with James, that's tradition. If it has explanations to harmonize other seemingly contradictory Bible passages, that's tradition. If your Church advocates a particular mode of baptism or doesn't advocate a mode, that's tradition. Whether your Church holds communion every week, every month, every quarter, or only once a year, it has some tradition about communion.
Even the nature and frequency of your Church meetings are a tradition. There really is no way to get around tradition. That being the case, isn't it simply common sense to try to determine what the traditions of the apostles were and to follow them? The early Christians specifically claimed that their teachings, practices, and ordinances had all been handed down to them by the apostles. They were in a position to make that claim. We aren't.
Interestingly, virtually all of our Church splits over the past 500 years have been over matters that were covered by apostolic tradition. So isn't the sensible thing to do, the humble thing to do, to look at the historic record to uncover the authentic apostolic tradition and then follow it? Why is that suggestion such a distasteful thing to most of us? Is it perhaps because of our pride? Next subheading: Church Customs.
There is a final group of matters covered by apostolic tradition that I will call Church Customs. These are practices of the early Church that have no direct reference to Scripture.
I'm speaking of things such as their annual commemoration of the day of Christ's resurrection, their painting or carving the figure of the cross on homes and places of worship, their tracing the sign of the cross on the forehead of a newly baptized person, their use of the symbol of the ichthus or fish in Christian art, their fasting on Wednesdays and Fridays, their praying daily at 9:00, 12:00, and 3:00, in addition to unscheduled prayer times.
I am not insisting that Christians follow these practices that have no direct reference in Scripture. Yet I am convinced that most of these things, but probably not all of them, were indeed traditions handed down by the apostles. For example, there is solid historic testimony that the annual commemoration of Christ's resurrection was a tradition handed down by the apostles. The early Christians called it Pascha. English-speaking Christians today call it Easter.
Unfortunately, many of our present-day Easter customs, and even the name Easter, are of pagan origin. As I said, I doubt that every single custom of the second-century Church was handed down by the apostles. I would guess that a few of their customs were man-made. The problem is that we have no way of separating the human tradition from the apostolic. So personally, I think the wisest course is to observe all of their customs unless there is a scriptural reason not to.
That's because most of their customs are probably part of the authentic apostolic tradition that we are all commanded to follow (in 2 Thessalonians 2:15). Not only that, but our following such customs would bring us closer to both the historic ancient Church and to each other. After all, most Christians today follow some of these traditions. For example, most Christians throughout the world celebrate Pascha or Easter.
Most of us use representations of the cross on buildings or in art, and many of us use the ichthus or fish symbol. Yet we evangelical Protestants are very inconsistent about this. We follow some early Christian customs, such as Easter and the fish symbol, but we ignore others, such as tracing the sign of the cross on the forehead. There is no logical pattern as to which traditions we have kept and which ones we have discarded.
What's even more ludicrous is that after discarding many of the ancient Christian customs, we have added a host of our own traditions that are neither found in Scripture nor in the early Christian writings. Christmas would be the paradigm example of this. Not only was it unknown to the early Church, but also most Christmas customs are actually of pagan origin. For some reason, Protestants seem to be more comfortable with pagan customs than with early Christian customs.
So, try as we may, we never get back to "just the Bible," because the written word tells us to be obedient to the oral tradition. But there's still another catch.