II Thessalonians 2: Should We Hold to Traditions?

Join Crystal in this week's Wisdom for Wednesday episode as she shares thoughts about the importance of standing fast in our faith and holding to the Truth of God's Word, while also encouraging us to look Biblically at our man made traditions and why some of them are worth keeping!

Quotes taken from Today's Thoughts... A 90-Day Devotional with thoughts from Genesis - Deuteronomy, Day 35 "Details Matter," pg. 75-76. 

II Thessalonians 2:15-17 KJV

Therefore, brethren, stand fast, and hold the traditions which ye have been taught, whether by word, or our epistle.
Now our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God, even our Father, which hath loved us, and hath given us everlasting consolation and good hope through grace,
Comfort your hearts, and stablish you in every good word and work.

Old Testament and New Testament Bible History Books by Richard Hester.

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Transcript

0:01

Hi there, welcome to Wisdom for Wednesday, your midweek pause for truth, encouragement, and practical faith. I'm your host, Crystal Ratcliffe, author, speaker, and fellow traveler on this journey of growing in God's Word. Each week we'll dive into Scripture together and have the opportunity to be encouraged in the truth that never changes. If you're able, grab your Bible, a cup of coffee, and let's seek God's wisdom together. Hi there and welcome back to the podcast. I am so excited to be continuing our study from 1st and 2nd Thessalonians. But before I do that, I just wanted you to know we had a wonderful time in Florida visiting our daughter. Such a fun visit, such a good time to get away and see where she has made her home. And we are back full swing into ministry here at home. We start VBS tonight, the well, Monday night. I'm recording on Monday, okay. So we start VBS tonight. So I've been busy about baking cookies. I'm getting ready to head to the church and try to help out with some last minute details that need to be done before those kids arrive. We are just praying that the Lord will use it for his honor and glory and that there would be kids get saved. And then we always finish with a big family night on Thursday, a carnival type thing. So we're praying that there will be a lot of adults come as well. And so we're excited about it. We're actually going to talk about VBS a little bit more later in the episode. So I want you to just kind of, you know, tuck that away in the back of your mind. But um, when we started this study, I kind of mentioned that our purpose in studying is not to get wrapped up in the end times and try to become experts because, well, I'm not an expert. I think I told you that before, but I did give you kind of my positions of where I stand with um the various events and how I believe it will take place. But our purpose in studying should be to um help us know what we should be doing while we wait. That's our purpose in studying. So I'm with that in mind, I want you to know I'm not going to spend too much time on the first 12 verses here in first, no, second Thessalonians chapter two, excuse me. So we kind of mentioned before that the Thessalonians had feared that they had missed the rapture, they were living under such persecution, they thought they were already in the midst of the tribulation. And Paul was like, wait a second, let me reassure you, don't be shaken in mind, don't be troubled. And he says in verse 3, let no man deceive you by any means, for that day shall not come except. I'm not going to take time to read all of those verses since that's not our focus today, but I am going to share with you what Brother Richard Hester has to say. I've shared his book, his resource before. But he said they were not in the day of the Lord, the tribulation period, because these three things must happen before that time. Number one, the arrival of apostasy, the great falling away, was going to be a massive departure in those days from the true faith. Number two, the Antichrist, the man of sin or the son of perdition that we read about there at the end of verse three will appear with miracles, signs, and wonders to promote the lie of his deity. Now, he will be present during the tribulation and about three and a half years in, we know that he will turn against Israel, and that is when he will be revealed as the Antichrist. The third thing that Brother Hester says is that the removal of the Holy Spirit's restraining ministry, which he accomplishes through the believers, which he indwells. And this will occur at the rapture before the tribulation period. Part of the reason I'm not going to get too deep into this is because we could be doing entire studies on these on these things specific: the Antichrist, the things that will take place during the tribulation. You can study in Revelation, you can see the prophecy in Daniel chapter 9 about the 70 weeks, which really is fascinating. And so you could dig in there all you wanted to, but that's not really the purpose of what we're doing. So I'm I'm not going to do that on the podcast. What I want to do today is focus in more on what the Lord had me thinking about while I was studying through this chapter. Two phrases stood out to me over and over again as I was reading, and they're found in verse 15. It says, Stand fast and hold the traditions which ye have been taught. And so that's where I want us to focus. So we're going to start reading in verse 13. It says, But we are bound to give thanks always to God for you, brethren, beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth, whereunto he called you by our gospel to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, brethren, stand fast and hold the traditions which ye have been taught, whether by word or our epistle. Now our Lord Jesus Christ Himself and God, even our Father, which hath loved us and hath given us everlasting consolation and good hope through grace, comfort your hearts and establish you in every good word and work. We see those words again, chosen you, called you. And remember, we're not going to be scared of those words. Those are good Bible words. You can go back and listen to First Thessalonians chapter one, that episode, to learn more about it. But we can see here that the chosen path of salvation is through belief. And when we are saved, we are fully sanctified and set apart for God's purpose. The Holy Spirit draws us in and we accept him at the time of salvation. We're given the Holy Spirit as the earnest or the down payment of our eternal inheritance to come. We've talked about the sanctification process that it continues as the Lord works in our hearts and in our lives to become more and more like Christ. And then we see that word therefore at verse 15 and the phrases that I really want to focus in on today. It says, Therefore, brethren, stand fast and hold the traditions. Okay, so stand fast is to be established, not moved or shaken. Now you might remember that Courtney did an amazing episode titled Established, Not Shaken. It was episode number 27 from 1 Thessalonians chapter 3. And she talked about how those words to stablish or establish and comfort go together. She did such a good job. If you haven't listened yet, you need to go back and listen. But we even see them together here in verse 17. It says, Comfort your hearts and establish you in every good word and work. Paul was concerned about these believers in the midst of their troublesome times. He wanted to make sure their faith was firm, that they were not shaken or moved from their faith. And as Courtney pointed out, you can't be comforted without being established in the truth. Being strong in your faith, having those deep roots in the Word of God, that's what will actually comfort you when you're going through difficult times. Now I want you to notice that next part. After Stand Fast, it says, Hold the traditions which ye have been taught. Now, a tradition is handed down from age to age by oral communication. Jews relied heavily on them, which is what Jesus pointed out over and over again during his time on this earth. We reject, or we should reject, the authority of tradition and rely on the written word. Now, I want to talk more about man-made church traditions in a bit, but we have to understand that in this instance, that's not what Paul is talking about, because he says, by word or by epistle. So it's indicating that the tradition, which is a teaching or a precept, actually became part of what we now know as the word of God. So Thessalonians is an epistle. Most of the New Testament is composed of epistles. Paul was not talking about traditions of men, but he was talking about God's word. And that means it was inspired by God and recorded by men, in this case, Paul. Okay, so that was the traditions he's talking about. And he says, hold to those traditions which ye have been taught. He wanted them to be established, grounded, rooted in God's word, and to hold to that. And that's good advice for us today. Now, I want to take a few minutes though and talk about our traditions and what Jesus had to say about them and what we should think about them. Because traditions, I asked for some church traditions on social media. Here's some of what I got: the order of service, uh, a handshaking time or a fellowship time during the service where music plays and you go around and greet people. We do that at our church. Standing for reading the text of God's word. So at our church, as soon as the pastor or the preacher says the text, everybody stands. Now there's a biblical basis for that found in Nehemiah chapter 8, but it's really tradition that we do. And so not every church does that, and that's okay. Sunday school, I found this really interesting when I started looking up some of the history of Sunday school. So a lot of different churches, it's organized differently, it has different names. There are even churches who do what I would call Sunday school, which breaking to me that's breaking into smaller groups based on age or a life stage. Some churches do their Sunday school. I'm I'm doing air quotes here on Sunday nights or Wednesday nights. VBS. Again, we're having VBS this week. We do ours in the evening. Uh a lot of churches do theirs during the day. Different Bible clubs. I found this one kind of funny. Around here, we call a lot of times ladies' meetings are called ladies' retreats, where we have like a two-day event, and then the men advance. They go to the men's advance or what's called a men's recharge. And that's always kind of a joke, the ladies' retreat and the men's advance. But anyway, um, there was also spaghetti dinners or bake sales and auctions to raise money for the teens to go to camp, Christmas plays, watch night services on New Year's Eve. Uh, another one I got a lot of was Homecoming, which I had to even ask about this one. Like, what is Homecoming? Because I have never heard of that. And so they explained to me that every year on the church anniversary, they kind of have a big uh a big special service with usually a dinner on the grounds. And we do celebrate our church anniversaries on the big, I guess the big anniversaries, but we don't have a yearly annual homecoming. There's also, if you think about traditions of dressing your Sunday best, no food or drink in the sanctuary, no running in the sanctuary. And if you think of some more church traditions, feel free to message me. Those were just some of the answers I got on social media. So Jesus warned against teaching for doctrine the commandments or traditions of men. I want to look with you at Mark chapter 7. And I want to start reading in verse 1. It says, Then came together unto him the Pharisees and certain of the scribes which came from Jerusalem. And when they saw some of his disciples eat bread with defiled, that is to say, with unwashing hands, they found fault. For the Pharisees and all the Jews, except they wash their hands oft, eat not, holding the traditions of the elders. And when they come from the market, except they wash, they eat not, and many other things there be, which they have received to hold, as the washing of cups and pots, brazen vessels, and of tables. Then the Pharisees and scribes asked him, Why walk not thy disciples according to the tradition of the elders, but eat bread with unwashing hands? He answered and said unto them, Well hath Isaiah prophesied of you hypocrites, as it is written, This people honoreth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. How be it in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. Now I've also been reading through the gospels recently, and I was struck by how much of the anger and opposition of the scribes and of Pharisees was related to what Jesus did on the Sabbath day. Jewish traditions significantly added to what was given in God's word regarding the Sabbath. And they were so consumed with those traditions that they were missing the entire point of the Sabbath day that God had given them. He wanted them to rest and remember. It was a day set apart unto the Lord. It was to remind his people who he was and all he had done for them. It was always meant to be a picture of the eternal rest that would eventually come through Jesus Christ, our Savior. But I want you to note that Jesus isn't saying that it's wrong to have traditions. He's saying that it's wrong to teach them as doctrines, meaning as the word of God, or placing them of higher importance than the word of God. We see it again in Colossians 2. It says this in verse 6, as ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him, rooted and built up in him, and established in the faith as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving. Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ. For in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, and ye are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power. So of course we've gone through Colossians, or at least we did on the Her Portion podcast. So we know that a lot of the Jewish traditions were being kind of forced upon the Gentile believers, and oh, you need to do this and you need to do this. When no, they were complete in Christ. Accepting Christ was all they needed to do for salvation. We see it again in 1 Peter. In First Peter, there's instruction on being holy in all manner of conversation. Let me turn over there. 1 Peter talks about being holy in all manner of conversation. And then we get to verse 18. I'm in chapter one. I'm sorry. It says, For as much as ye know that you were not redeemed with corruptible things as silver and gold from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot. Traditions don't save us, they don't redeem us. But we need to think and ask ourselves, what is the reason for our traditions? I believe some of them started for good reason. As we, as I mentioned in 1 Peter, we have instruction to be holy. So some traditions started with an attempt to be holy. And I want to read you one of the devotions from the new book, Today's Thoughts, because this is why I think this is probably why that phrase, hold to the traditions, caught my eye because I had just written this devotion. So it's found in the new book. And the verse that I have here is Exodus 40, 34, and it says, Then a cloud covered the tent of the congregation, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. So God gave very detailed instructions on how the children of Israel were to build the tabernacle, approach him and worship him. There were even details given for the transporting of the tabernacle on their journeys. It was important for future generations to know how to maintain this portable sanctuary. It was designed to be a place of sacrifice and worship unto God, his earthly dwelling place. Sometimes we undervalue the Old Testament. However, the instruction we find demonstrates God's holiness and the reverence we should have for Him, His Word, and His dwelling place. The Old Testament reveals that details matter to God. With that in mind, let's consider our local churches. Much like the tabernacle, the physical church building is a place where we gather to worship and desire to meet with God. It should be a sanctuary, a holy place dedicated to the service and worship of God. It should be treated with care and reverence. Much like with the tabernacle, future generations must be taught how to properly care for and approach going to church. Today's Christians are quick to dismiss church traditions in the name of Christian liberty. However, many of those traditions were our ancestors' attempts to show respect and honor God. They understood that going to church wasn't about being comfortable, it was all about meeting with Him. They weren't gathering in a common place. The church was a sacred place, worthy of care and respect. Let's not be too quick to throw out what we think are meaningless church traditions. How we approach the Lord still matters. I wanted to share that with you and close this episode with that because that really sums up my thoughts about our church traditions. Our traditions do not save us. That is not what redeemed us, but many of them were put in place for very good reasons. And so we need to ask ourselves why we have those traditions and if they're still worth holding to. And many times I think they are. And so that is what I want to leave you with about church traditions, which is really hard to say after 20 some minutes of talking. Um, so I want to leave that with you. And again, that new book is available. It's called Today's Thoughts, a 90-day devotional with thoughts from Genesis to Deuteronomy. And you can get that on Amazon or I do have it added to my website as well if you don't like to order from Amazon. So thank you so much for listening. As always, if this has been an encouragement to you, would you share it with a friend? And I would love to hear about your church traditions if you still want to send them to me. So don't be afraid to reach out to me on social media. I enjoy hearing from you, the listener. We'll see you next week.