What is something that you have learned as a child that your parents before you did as well? It might be a special technique used to achieve a certain look or effect in a hobby that you have, such as painting for example. Maybe there is a special way that you need to hold a paintbrush, or a very specific way that you need to mix certain colors to get the exact color you need, and this technique is passed on from generation to generation. It’s kind of like a “tradition” that your family has, passing this knowledge down through their children.
You could say that having a turkey on Thanksgiving could be considered a tradition in your family if it has been done year after year. And that is what a tradition is, a “part of culture that is passed on from person to person or generation to generation.”
2 Thessalonians 2:15 “Therefore, brethren, stand fast, and hold the traditions which ye have been taught, whether by word, or our epistle.”
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.”
The Bible is our book of teachings that we must follow. Pass it down from generation to generation, and make it your family tradition.
In Christ,
Andrew
Teufer Lake King James Bible Church 