freedom from tradition

So for the sake of your tradition you have made void the word of God.

Matthew 15:6b

My Christian faith was born in an independent Baptist church. I have no doubt in my mind that I believed the gospel and trusted Christ as my Savior under clear gospel preaching. And during my formative childhood I heard a lot of preaching on respecting and obeying the Word of God. I memorized a ton of scripture. I know I heard a lot of warning against the dangers of religious traditions (particularly of the Catholic or mainstream Protestant varieties). But for all the gospel and the hellfire preaching, I was steeped in binding traditions that diminished the Word of God as Jesus taught it.

I was taught to hate sin, but also to despise and judge sinners. I was taught that appearance was what pleased God most, so I attended three church services a week (whether I wanted to or not), went to a Thursday night kids’ ministry, visited the sick and elderly with my parents every other Friday night, attended Christian school on weekdays, endured buzz cuts in the 70’s (neighbor kids called me “bald Burch” - true story), wore suites and ties as a kid in order to be a clean cut Christian above reproach who did not “look like the world”. It was all tradition while screaming (sometimes hatefully) that it was not. I had become quite the little Pharisee. I wasn’t truly happy, but at least I looked the part of “holy”.

I don’t think I heard one sermon on Christian liberty clearly taught until I was around 17. By then, I was exhausted from legalism’s demands, keeping up outward appearance while secreting listening to “secular” music, going to the movie theatre (a big “no-no”), and otherwise finding ways to bend tradition when I could. I was waiting for God to bring the hammer down on my “worldliness”.

But a funny thing happened... or actually didn’t happen. God led me to understand how deceived I had been. As I truly read scripture for myself because I wanted to, under the guidance of men discipling me to follow Jesus and not the Law, I began to be changed by the gospel and set free from legalism. I found joy in wisely trusting the gospel alone, and shrinking away from traditions that had defined my childhood. And God’s Word became powerful when I freed it from tradition’s chains. It still is. The gospel is about freedom, not tradition. Thank Christ, He sets us free indeed!