What Would Your Father Say?
What Would Your Father Say?
"Tradition." The very word sends cold chills up and down the spine of many within the evangelical church in America. Scenes of ritualistic deadness and dry orthodoxy in a stagnant, non-evangelistic church are evoked when that word is mentioned. So, we avoid it like the plague. Anything that looks like tradition (i.e., old stuff) is discarded out-of-hand just because it is old. We are the generation of the "now." We think we know more than any other generation before us. Since we think we know more than any generation before us, then we must know better than any generation before us.
If people within our evangelical ranks would bother to pay attention to what our forefathers in the church have said, we would discover that we know a whole lot less than we think we know. What keeps us from heeding the words and ways of those who have gone before us? Pride.
Pride is, of course, the opposite of humility. If humility is esteeming others better than ourselves (Phil. 2:3), then pride must involve esteeming ourselves better than others. I propose to you that is exactly what we do when we ignore the counsel of the ages and, like Rehoboam, bring in our peers to tell us what we want to hear. Then we, like Rehoboam, wonder what went wrong when everything falls apart. Why is the kingdom divided? The kingdom is divided (so to speak) because we have fostered our pride by thinking we have a better way than our fathers. We need a good dose of ecclesiastical humility.
The ecclesiastical humility about which I speak is how we--the part of the church that exists today in the twenty-first century--relate to the church that has trod this earth before us and is now that great cloud of witnesses. The church militant must heed the voice of the church now triumphant. When we discuss humility it is usually in a context related solely to our inter-personal relationships within the church today. No doubt, the situation with which Paul was dealing in Philippi had to do with individuals (e.g., Eudia and Syntyche). This aspect of humility needs to be stressed. But the principle of humility goes beyond our present-day relationships to our relationship with our fathers. Not only are we to exhibit humility in our relationships within the church, but we are also to exhibit humility in our relationship to the church.
Many Reformed brethren quote the creeds of our fathers every Lord's Day saying that we are a part of one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church. As we recite those words together we are helped to remember that this church has existed long before the twenty-first century. In the millennia of the church's existence, God has given the church gifted men. These gifted men were God's gifts to the church so that we would be built up until "we all come into the unity of the faith and knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ" (Eph. 4:12-13). When we do not honor the teachings and traditions of those who have gone on before us (mere recitation of the creeds is not enough), we display supreme arrogance. And while dishonoring our fathers we find that we have dishonored God Himself. We have dishonored Him by rejecting His gracious gifts. Declaring our independence, we say that we don't need God or His gifts to do His work.
Some will retort that this is a new day in which we need new methodologies (and even new theology), that we are not rejecting God by our new ways. But how can this line of reasoning be justified when we reject the gifts He has given to the church? Granted, not all the men who have gone on before have been wise or right. For every Anselm there is an Arius. For every Luther a Tetzel. How do we know this? Because there were men who were both wise and right. They fought battles and won. They have taken hills and have left us with the spoils. But many in our evangelical circles, thinking that we have a better war strategy, have squandered our inheritance.
I know this to be the case. I come from a background where this is so. As I joined in the battle, by God's grace, I began to learn that there were men who had gone before. Many of those hills had already been taken. My job was to take up the weapons where they had
left the battle-lines. This is what Paul was telling Timothy, the young soldier, when Paul was about to leave this world. In his second letter to Timothy, Paul is giving Timothy his last words. He was encouraging the young pastor. What was Timothy to do? Did Paul exhort him to be innovative and think up new ways to "do church?" No! Paul told him, "But evil men and impostors will grow worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived. But you must continue in the things which you have learned and been assured of,
knowing from whom you have learned them" (3:13-14). Timothy was to honor those who had gone before by saying and doing what they had said and done.
There is really no need to reinvent the wheel in the church. We have a rich heritage. To dishonor that heritage by practicing chronological snobbery, by not listening to the counsel of our fathers in the areas of our message and methods, is to give them a slap in the face. It is to behave as not with humility, but as impudent children. We should learn from their wisdom and walk in their ways.
I am not saying that we should adopt traditions and teachings just because they are "from the past." Antiquity is not the measure of truth. All things should be examined carefully and with great humility. We must realize that we are not the smartest kids on the ecclesiastical block. May God grant us the grace to walk humbly toward those who have gone before us that our children may know the faith of our fathers.