Truth or Tradition

 DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW

TRUTH OR TRADITION

Matt 15:1-9

15:1 Then some Pharisees and teachers of the law came to Jesus from Jerusalem and asked, 2 "Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? They don't wash their hands before they eat!" 3 Jesus replied, "And why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition? 4 For God said, 'Honor your father and mother' and 'Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death.'   5 But you say that if a man says to his father or mother, 'Whatever help you might otherwise have received from me is a gift devoted to God,' 6 he is not to 'honor his father' with it. Thus you nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition. 7 You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you: 8 "'These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. 9 They worship me in vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men.'" 

NIV

This is a lot to take in one bite, but it is also not possible to break it up because we would lose the wholeness of the truth. It is all about truth or tradition. The Pharisees were all about tradition and Jesus was all about the truth. How critical some Christians can become when they are steeped in tradition rather than truth. Some of the traditional thinking has given way over the years, at least in some denominations. Once, we were judged rather harshly as new believers because we did not have a problem with having a glass of beer, or wine. We were told the rules are plain, although they were not plain to us. However, we were taught that if we were to be Christian, we could not drink alcohol, smoke, dance, go to movies, roller rinks, or have both boys and girls go swimming together. It was also frowned upon for women to wear slacks or pantsuits. At one time women could not have short hair. Some denominations still hold to many of those traditional rules of men, although some have become more relaxed regarding many of them apart from drinking and smoking, which is still looked at with disdain and against the rules. Why must men make rules instead of looking for the truth? Of course, they want to use the scripture about defiling our body, which is the temple of the Holy Spirit. However, Jesus taught that it is not what goes into the body that defiles it, but what comes out, which he is referring to our words, which reflect our heart. That proverb regarding what a man thinks so is he applies to what is in our heart. Just as Jesus denounced the Pharisees' falseness, the scripture renounces the traditions of men, who created all those rules to live by. This is not to say that shouldn’t live by the truth, and we can cause a weak brother to stumble if we ignore their rules openly, for they could think critically about us and that would be sinful for them. It almost seems the traditional thinking is like the law, in the sense that if we break one, we are guilty of them all. Yet, as important as their traditions are, they break the commands of God, by judging those who break their rules. There is no grace regarding the traditions of men, but rather judgment. We do have to be careful not to offend those who are steeped in their traditions, that would not be right either, but at the same time, it would seem we have an obligation to demonstrate and teach the truth, especially the truth regarding grace. We all need to live with grace because we all are on this journey together and some simply have either just begun or are stuck at the beginning or have taken a detour or become distracted by the traditions of men. Let us graciously live out the truth, while hopefully teaching that truth rather than tradition.