2 Thessalonians 2:15 “Therefore, brethren, stand fast, and hold the traditions which ye have been taught, whether by word, or our epistle.”
The art of cooking is something that has started to become a thing of the past in today’s modern families as each generation passes. With technology at the fingertips, it is so easy to order food from a restaurant and have it delivered directly to your door. This is a huge change from the way that the entire world has lived for thousands of years. Just a short 50 or 60 years ago it was a common thing for a wife to open up a recipe book and prepare a meal that had been passed down for years through the family. Specific ingredients, or precise methods that needed to be followed in order to achieve that specific recipe, and if it was followed correctly it would turn out the same, every time.
You could say that a having a special meal on a certain day could be considered a tradition if it has been done in the family for years. That is what a tradition is, a part of culture that is passed on from person to person or generation to generation.
In the topic verse today, it was Paul’s wish that the church would hold fast onto the traditions which they had been taught, both by what they had heard in the church and in the letters which they had received from the Apostles. He wanted them to hold onto them, meaning to keep them always in their mind, and to continue to abide in those teachings.
1 Corinthians 11:1-2 “Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ.
Now I praise you, brethren, that ye remember me in all things, and keep the ordinances, as I delivered them to you.”
There things which Paul wrote he had learned from Christ, and he passed on those teachings to those underneath him. As Paul traveled throughout the countryside, preaching, he started a tradition for Christians to follow. Leaving us his letters to read and grow in, Paul’s teachings have become a very large part of our instruction of how we can be pleasing to God. To love others, not hate. To forgive, not to withhold forgiveness. To be filled with the fruits of the spirit. To live as Christ wants us to live, not as we want to live.
The Bible also gives very clear instructions of what we need to do if anyone who claims the name of Christ but doesn’t abide in His teachings. If someone doesn’t keep the traditions that are written down in the Bible then we need to withdraw ourselves from them.
2 Thessalonians 3:6 “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.”
2 Thessalonians 3:14 “And if any man obey not our word by this epistle, note that man, and have no company with him, that he may be ashamed.”
Romans 16:17 “Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them.”
Have you made the teachings found in the Bible a tradition in your life? Are you keeping God’s word?
In Christ,
Andrew
Teufer Lake King James Bible Church 