“Why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?” (Mark 7:5, ESV)
Traditions are a funny thing within the context of the Christian religion. It can easily serve as a helpful guide when determining faithful orthodoxy and orthopraxy. It can also easily serve as an unhelpful guide when it holds an authority over the voice of God.
When the Pharisees came to Jesus in Mark 7 they brought with them a question of how Jesus’s disciples were or were not following in the footsteps of the established tradition. Mark records the Pharisees asking, “Why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?” Jesus’s response to this question is to accuse their hearts of being far from God. How, though, did Jesus know their hearts were far from God?
They preferred their traditions over the one to whom their traditions should have testified.
It should be pointed out that the context for the Pharisees was quite a bit different from our own. For instance, they were still under the constraints of the Old Covenant while we find ourselves set free by means of the New Covenant. In other words, they were living in a world in which the Old Covenant demands and regulations were being fulfilled in the person of Jesus Christ but that had not yet been completed—they were living in a transitional period.
That being said, the Pharisees found themselves living by traditions that were born out of the demands and regulations of that Old Covenant. Traditions that were created in order to keep people in line with what had been established, which is not necessarily a bad thing. It’s certainly helpful to have a set of tried and true patterns of living so that future generations can use them as an example to stay on track with what had been built before them. The problem arose when those traditions started to become more preferred than God.
In our context, traditions may seem a touch more slippery but they’re there and we ought to know them so that we can be sure not to be ruled by them. To illustrate this, allow me to ask just a few questions.
1. Why do we go to church on Sundays?
2. Why do we sit in a pew or chair when we’re at church instead of standing or kneeling the whole time?
3. Why do we have music played with pianos, drums, and guitars?
4. Why is there coffee on Sunday mornings?
5. Why does the one preaching quote from the Bible?
6. Why do we pray collectively as a church?
7. Why is our church an elder ruled church?
These seven questions all relate to tradition (good or bad) within the context of Sunday morning worship. The point of asking those seven questions was to illustrate the fact that traditions exists and are being followed even when we might realize they are.
Nowhere does the New Testament command coffee on Sunday mornings and yet we do it. Why? Because that’s how it’s been done for a long time.
Is that good or bad?
Regardless of whether or not the tradition of coffee on Sunday mornings, or pews, or an elder ruled church is a good or bad thing, it’s a good idea to make sure we are aware of those things that have been handed down to us (tradition) to make sure they’re functioning in a manner that’s healthy for the life of the brothers and sisters in Christ.