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making of none effect the Word of God by their traditions (Mark 7: 9, 13). Both Paul
and Peter knew its blinding power:
"I persecuted the church of God . . . . . being more exceedingly zealous of the
traditions of my fathers" (Gal. 1: 14).
". . . . . your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers" (I Pet. 1: 18).
This thing is one of the most potent forces in Satan's hands to blind the eyes and veil
the truth from believers as well as unbelievers. How many of God's children are
accepting certain things as truth, not because they have personally tested them from the
Word of God and found them true, but because `Christians generally believe such things',
or they are `taught by this denomination or that', or their parents believed them and so on.
Such is tradition, and often believers are not only prepared to receive such ideas as truth,
but even antagonize those who have taken the trouble to search the Scriptures and test
and have found so much of it to be sheer error. It holds many a believer in a vice-like
grip, and as the Saviour said, makes void the Word of God and empties it of its real
import. How we all need to pray to be redeemed from tradition! No progress in the
knowledge of the Truth can be made while we are in such bondage.
However, in the context we are considering, tradition is used in a good sense.
Paradosis and pardidomi refer to what is handed over to one. Closely allied to this is the
Greek verb paralambano, "to receive in turn" and both words are used by the Apostle in
I Cor. 11: 23:
"For I have received (parelabon) of the Lord that which also I delivered (paredokia)
unto you . . . . ."
Before the N.T. was completed, the early churches rested upon the oral ministry of the
apostles which they in turn had received from the Lord Jesus, either in the days of His
flesh, like the ministers of the circumcision, or from Him in resurrection as the Apostle
Paul. There was therefore a continuity in the transmission of Truth. With the completion
of the N.T., the Word of God as a whole becomes the one basis for the Christian faith,
and any addition becomes merely the word of man or tradition, a thing to be avoided at
all costs.
Before the epistle closes, Paul uses the word `tradition' once more in a good sense:
"Now we command you, brethren, in the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye
withdraw yourselves from every brother that walketh disorderly and not after the
tradition which he received of us" (3: 6).
It is obvious then that we must take care in our handling of `tradition', learning to
rightly divide between the true and the false.
The Apostle now interposes a prayer that the Thessalonian saints be comforted and
established, reminding them of the eternal love and consolation of the Lord Jesus Christ
and God our Father, and the good hope that was theirs through grace (16), the fact of
grace stressing that this was entirely undeserved on their part. Having prayed for them,
he requests prayer for himself and his witness: