Tradition

Traditions

Neither Packer nor I are claiming that all tradition is bad. I agree with Packer’s statement that,

“All Christians are at once beneficiaries and victims of tradition—beneficiaries, who receive nurturing truth and wisdom from God’s faithfulness in past generations; victims, who now take for granted things that need to be questioned, thus treating as divine absolutes patterns of belief and behavior that should be seen as human, provisional, and relative. We are all beneficiaries of good, wise, and sound tradition and victims of poor, unwise, and unsound traditions.”

Surprised by the Power of the Spirit by Jack Deere, (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publ. House, 1993), p. 53

Imitating a Holy Man

A very poor holy man lived in a remote part of China. Every day before his time of meditation in order to show his devotion, he put a dish of butter up on the window sill as an offering to God, since food was so scarce. One day his cat came in and ate the butter. To remedy this, he began tying the cat to the bedpost each day before the quiet time. This man was so revered for his piety that others joined him as disciples and worshipped as he did. Generations later, long after the holy man was dead, his followers placed an offering of butter on the window sill during their time of prayer and meditation. Furthermore, each one bought a cat and tied it to the bedpost.

Source Unknown

Some Traditions Die Hard

William Poteet wrote in The Pentecostal Minister how in 1903 the Russian Czar noticed a sentry posted for no apparent reason on the Kremlin grounds. Upon inquiry, he discovered that in 1776 Catherine the Great found there the first flower of spring. “Post a sentry here,” she commanded, “so that no one tramples that flower under foot!” Some traditions die hard.

Leadership, Summer, 1989, p. 43

Quote

•      Tradition is the living faith of those now dead. Traditionalism is the dead faith of those still living. – Jaroslav Pelikan, The Vindication of Tradition, p. 65.