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Mark 7:9 NLT

Then he said, “You skillfully sidestep God’s law in order to hold on to your own tradition.”

The problem with tradition is that it can become the very reason for doing something, and we forget why we follow that tradition in the first place. At university, after I became a Christian, different inherited traditions caused havoc across the Christian Union.

Some demanded a tradition where women covered their heads to pray, while others insisted we only use the Authorised (King James) Bible. There were those who declared confidently that the gifts of God’s Spirit had ceased with the closing of the New Testament period, while others excitedly issued invitations to ‘Baptism in the Spirit’ evenings. At one CU, we had a plethora of opinions, all firmly rooted in long-standing Christian tradition. Even UCCF, a Christian organisation who facilitate university CUs, had their own traditions that dictated who might hold office and who might speak at a CU.

I followed the line of those who discipled me as a new Christian. I soon discovered it was assumed I would hold and define the position of my particular ‘camp’. And naturally I did, believing this was the truth and everyone else was wrong. Deep within I yearned for one body united around Christ with a diversity of views, yet I still felt I needed to defend the truth expression out of which I’d been birthed.

It took me years to begin to trust my own instincts. My message, expressed through my way of life far more than my words and, in my view, expressed far more effectively, offered hope ahead of condemnation, hospitality ahead of hate. My horizons expanded where once they were continually reduced by my defining myself by what was wrong with another and what I was against.

QUESTION: Consider carefully what your faith is made of and where your traditions come from.

PRAYER: Lord, help me hold to the truth of your word with humility and with grace and to love my brothers and sisters in Christ.