Mark 7:9 And he said unto them, Full well ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own tradition
We live in a world of traditions. Some of them are invisible; all of them are powerful. Today I am wearing a plaid shirt. That doesn’t mean a lot to me. It is a shirt. I liked it and I got it, but there is actually a tradition with plaid. In Scotland, plaids can mean far more than just a shirt you like to wear. It is the identity of a clan. So, wearing the plaid is a tradition that transmits a truth from one generation to the next. That is what tradition is to do. Tradition is to transmit the truth from one generation to the next. It is not the truth itself, but should transmit the truth.
The Pharisees of Jesus’ day were men who rejected Christ, yet they were men who had kept alive of the identity of the nation to some degree because they kept alive the traditions of the Jewish people. Today, millennia after Jewish people have been scattered like seeds to the wind, there is still a strong national identity in large part because of the traditions that they hold in common that have transmitted truth from one generation to the next. In America today we can hardly all agree on Thanksgiving. That may seem little more than a mild irritation to you, yet that is very important because if a people cannot agree on certain things that make them a people, then they are hardly a people. Tradition is one of the ways that things are moved from one generation to the next.
Though the Pharisees had kept the Jewish traditions going, they rejected Christ and the truth. Oddly enough, they had maneuvered around Jesus and God’s authority by the traditions that were intended to transmit God’s truth, not to abrogate God’s truth.
In Mark 7, Jesus responds to the Pharisees by saying, “For laying aside the commandment of God, ye hold the tradition of men.” Instead of their traditions transmitting the truth from one generation to the next, they had held their tradition and set aside God’s commandment. The word “tradition” here actually means “transmission.” You are transmitting something from one generation to the next, you are giving over some truth.
Your car has a transmission. The motor is what gives drive to the car. Wheels go around and are connected to the motor, but the transmission is what connects the motor to the wheels. So, it is great to have a motor, but it does no good if you don’t have a transmission to connect it to the tires. Likewise, it is wonderful to have the truth, but that truth needs to be transmitted from one generation to the next. If you have a transmission that fails to do that, it is like playing a racecar video game in the 1980’s and running out of quarters. You can shift the video game controller all you want, but the transmission is not connected to anything.
Later, Jesus says, “Full well ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own tradition.” Finally, He says, “Making the word of God of none effect through your tradition, which ye have delivered.” The bottom line is that tradition is the means not the motor. Don’t misunderstand. Traditions are very important. Some traditions are noble; they have a truth and very accurately transmit that truth from one generation to the next. Some traditions are noble, but they are forgotten. Sometimes people in very fancy churches sing old songs and do things that are ceremonial, but they have lost the significance of why they are doing those things. There may be a very good reason for doing those things, but they won’t keep that alive if they don’t know why. Then there are traditions that are empty of significance. It is transmitting nothing. But God would not have that to be so in our lives. God would have us to transmit the truth from one generation to the next.
May I suggest three things. First, go to the engine of the Word of God to drive your life. The question is not, “What does tradition say?” It should be, “What does God say?” Sometimes we talk about traditional marriage. Are we talking about the tradition of Salt Lake City? Are we talking about the tradition of Rome in the day of Christ? Live and let live. Do what is right in your own eyes. Are we talking about the tradition of places like my hometown where divorce is rampant? Are these traditions valid or does God’s truth transcend tradition? Yes, we need something that is true and then we need traditions that keep that truth alive and transmit that.
Sometimes we need personal tradition, a habit to keep truths alive in our heart day by day, like reading God’s Word every day. That’s a habit or tradition that keeps the engine of God’s Word in your life. So, go to the engine of God’s Word to drive your life.
Second, plot your destination. Determine where it is that God would have you to go and look to His truth to be the authority for your guidance.
Finally, connect to the tires. Connect God’s engine to your tires, God’s truth to your direction in life. That is called transmission or tradition.
So, build a road to transmit the truth from one day to the next, from one generation to the next. Is tradition wrong? No, it is good. But, it is good when it is useful in promoting the truth from one day to the next, one generation to the next, and when it is in submission to the authority of God’s truth.