Pernicious Traditions in Our Walk with Messiah

Tradition.

The word brings up pictures of American football on a Sunday evening, or a woman in white walking to her husband-to-be down the aisle.

Meaning that not all traditions are bad; in and of themselves they can be great. I have no issue with beautiful traditions, such as crushing the wineglass during a Hebrew wedding ceremony, or family Monopoly night, or even a weekly D&D campaign that has lasted for the past fifteen years with a close-knit group of friends who can’t let their journey end.

There is a beauty to tradition, so I prefaced this analysis of tradition with good examples of traditions that bring joy and meaning to our lives.

The Problem with Tradition

Yes, traditions can be problematic in contrast to beautiful.

No wonder, for Yeshua Himself called out the hypocrisy of keeping to traditions when challenging the Pharisees. Our Messiah is meek and mild, but also a royal warrior-king. It’s no surprise he ruffled a few feathers when He walked the shores of the Sea of Galilee, or when He overturned the moneychangers’ tables to teach them a valuable lesson on set-apartness.

Yeshua, and by extension Yahweh, hates tradition when it interferes with the plain meaning of the biblical texts. Torah was never to be added to.

Ever.

Deuteronomy 4:2 states: “Do not add to what I command you and do not subtract from it but keep the commands of the Lord your God that I give you.” This means that when regarding traditions when implemented in a faith construct, we need to give the utmost care to the potential to enhance or destroy the written Torah.

Traditions can be deadly, or they can heal. It is the context in which we carry them out that determines the result. We are to do Bible things in Bible ways. Not “this is what I think the Torah means” ways.

It doesn’t matter what I think. What Yahweh thinks is important.

Yahweh Forbids, Man Forbids, Yahweh Allows, Man Still Forbids

A man may have a tradition of drinking a few glasses of wine after work for a few nights a week. Is this wrong in and of itself?

Of course not!

But what if church doctrine says drinking is forbidden? Then what are we to do? We are to test the idea, to see if it holds water. The Bible is admonishing us to be wise when dealing with alcohol, not forbidding it. The Torah commands a man to bring strong drink to celebrate before Yahweh in joy when referring to the personal tithes during the great Feasts of the LORD.

Drinking is allowed, it is idolatrous drunkenness and being a lush that is forbidden. Having a friendly gathering with a pleasant buzz to alter the mood is nothing evil. It’s good. Jesus’s first miracle was turning water into wine at a celebration. If alcohol is evil, then why did He do that?

Many traditions say that drinking is a sin. But the Torah—the definition of sin for all believers past and future—says otherwise.

Who are we to trust? The written word, or traditions? The answer should be obvious.

Adding to or Taking Away from Torah Is Insulting Our Maker

Many Christians are familiar with the admonition to never add or take away from the Book of Revelation, lest God add the plagues written within to that person. But few are aware that the warning is an offshoot of Deuteronomy 4:2. To add what we think because of long-held traditions to the Bible is an affront to God.

It doesn’t matter if we think something is a sin, what matters is God’s instructions. Therefore, I used the example of drinking in the earlier concept. Many traditions say that drinking is a vile sin, but few Bible verses do anything to forbid the activity altogether.

In the same vein, we can’t take away concepts which are forbidden to us by diminishing from the holy, written word. The Bible is our guidepost, our light to shine the way in the darkness of this world. If a crack forms in our light, it leaves us with diminishment to our path.

A splendid example is dietary restrictions from Leviticus 11. No matter what someone thinks about giraffes, they are biblically clean food, allowed to be eaten if one so chooses. Though, I don’t suggest anyone travel to Africa with the specific intent of downing a giraffe. The point is, they are fit to eat, despite common errors seen in Christian portrayals of the Noah’s Ark record at a certain location which shall not be named.

I may step on some toes here, but God never changes. If He never changes, this means we can’t be eating ham sandwiches. They did not consider pigs to be food in the Bible, and the animal itself, the writers rarely mention it in the entirety of Scripture. We should emphasize that which the Bible emphasizes and stay silent where it is silent.

Peter’s vision of unclean animals is not a go-button for eating bacon. We must avoid traditions which say what God never said like the plague. Besides, if you wish to eat bacon, there are alternatives such as beef bacon or turkey bacon.

Traditions have lied to us, whether or not it was intentional. Pernicious, sneaky, and sometimes deadly, traditions are not commands. If God says never to turn right on a Tuesday, then as silly as that is, we are not to turn right on Tuesdays. But if man says not only must you turn right on Tuesdays, but you must hop on one foot and make screeching sounds each time you do, we have entered the dangerous territory of traditions superseding the Word.

The Heart of the Matter

The Father’s heart when congruent with a man’s heart, will line up with the will of the Father. This means no more adding to God’s word, no more taking away from it. That which is forbidden is always forbidden, and that which is permitted is always permitted. Traditions are irrelevant and poisonous to this biblical simplicity. Remember, traditions can be beautiful things, glorious and teaching truths. But the other side of the matter is that traditions adding to the holy Torah and the rest of the Bible, are to be rejected vehemently, with no opportunity for looking back on them.

Besides, look out the window. Have heaven and Earth passed yet? (Matthew 5:17-19)

If Messiah says heaven and Earth must pass before the smallest strokes of the Holy Torah, then why let tradition creep in?

Let’s stick with Jesus’s opinions.

Chuck those traditions which are not of the Father, but of the world. Make new traditions that glorify the Father’s name instead.

Then your walk with Messiah will be sweet, and the world will be a brighter place for it.