Conserving Well, Changing Wisely: Part 1

 

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“Therefore, brethren, stand fast, and hold the traditions which ye have been taught, whether by word, or our epistle” (2 Thess. 2:15).  In this verse, the apostle Paul calls the Thessalonian believers to act on the reality of God’s call on their life.  In the previous two verses, he had written, “But we are bound to give thanks alway to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth: Whereunto he called you by our gospel, to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ” (13-14).  According to the apostle, God had effectually called them by the sanctifying work of the Spirit through the gospel to belief of the truth so that they would obtain the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ in the age to come.  God did not call them to some vague spiritual state.  He did not call them merely to be nice people.  He did not call them to have wealth and health.  Rather, he called them to embrace the gospel and in doing so to believe the truth.  God calls us to believe the truth.

This is what a Christian is: a Christian is a person who believes the truth, the truth about God, about himself, about the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.  A Christian is a man or woman, boy or girl, who follows Jesus as he is revealed to us in the pages of the Holy Scripture.  A consequence of this is that the church, the community of believers gathered together by the word of God under the word of God, has as its primary function to defend and proclaim God’s unchanging truth in this world.  Thus Paul tells Timothy, “These things write I unto thee, hoping to come unto thee shortly: but if I tarry long, that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth” (1 Tim. 3:14-15).  What is the church?  It is the pillar and ground of the truth, the thing that holds the truth up to be seen (pillar) and the thing that holds the truth fast (ground, or foundation).  

Because the very purpose of God’s call is to bring us to believe the truth, Paul in verse 15 exhorts the believers to hold that truth fast.  Here, by the way, we see God’s sovereignty and man’s responsibility.  God has sovereignly called you to believe the truth; it is our responsibility to hold that truth fast. That is what Paul calls us to do as well.  We are to stand fast, hold fast, be firm.  How were they to do this?  In what way were they to do this?  They were to stand firm by holding the traditions which they had been taught, whether by the spoken or written word.

This is meant to be in contrast to the effect that false teaching was having on some people.  Note how this chapter begins: “Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto him, that ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand. Let no man deceive you by any means” (2 Thess. 2:1-3).  Stand, as opposed to being shaken in mind and troubled.  Stand, as opposed to being “tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive” (Eph. 4:14).  Don’t be shaken by false teaching from false apostles, but stand fast in the traditions of the true apostles of Jesus Christ.  That’s the point and the exhortation.

Now we are here today in 2 Thessalonians, not because I am walking away from Romans – we are going to get back there, Lord-willing! – but because in the next few weeks I want to preach a series of messages which I am entitling, “Conserving Well, Changing Wisely.”  And as you’ve probably guessed, one of the purposes of this series is to get motivation from the apostle in order to help us think about how we can conserve the truth of God’s word together as a church.  Of course, there is also another part to the title, and that is “changing wisely.”  We don’t normally put those two things together, but I think you can’t help it.  We are imperfect people in an imperfect world, and there are inevitably going to be areas where we need to change.  So the question I want to address in this series is: how can we as a church conserve the things that need to be conserved while changing things that need to be changed?  How do we conserve well by changing wisely?  And how does appropriate change actually help us to preserve the things that shouldn’t be changed?

To be honest, I got this from a quote by Os Guiness that I came across in a book I’m reading.  The quote goes like this: “In order to conserve well, we must change wisely.”  I’ve been thinking a lot about that, and in particular the interplay between conservatism and change.  It’s important that we get this right.  And in the process of these messages we want to consider the things that we want to conserve and some things that we might want to change.  But we need to do this wisely.

Unwise Change

Some churches today – many churches, I’m afraid – make changing the church more important than conserving the truth.  And they change the truth by modifying their position on important doctrinal and ethical truths, walking away from the Bible in order to be more relevant and inviting to the culture.  They do this because they know that this can produce growth.  If it didn’t, this wouldn’t be as much of a problem.  Did you know that in the 1960’s, the churches in the US that were the most vibrant, fastest growing, and with a seemingly bright future, were the liberal churches?  By liberal, I mean those churches and denominations that had by and large rejected historic Christian orthodoxy: the virgin birth, the divinity of Christ, substitutionary atonement, the resurrection and miracles of Jesus, and so on.  On the other hand, the conservative churches were by and large relatively small and despised. The future for them did not look so great at that time.  But now where are we?  Those churches which had such a promising future sixty years ago are dead and dying.  It turns out that when you reject the authority of Scripture and ordain women to the pulpit and advocate for abortion and sexual immorality (as the Bible defines it), Christ removes the candlestick.  Now those churches were growing sixty years ago, but what we see now is that that growth was just bloat, actually part of the process of their dying.  The growth ironically was part of the decay.

By the way, I’m afraid that there are many self-identifying conservative, evangelical churches that are making similar mistakes today.  This is where the devil is so clever.  They may not be explicitly trading out orthodoxy for heresy, but they have replaced a commitment to the regulative principle of worship with seeker-friendly and attractional church models that, while they don’t outright deny the truth and may even preach it, drown out the effectiveness of the gospel with an entertainment-driven model of church worship.  The truth may be preached but it doesn’t seem to be getting through. You can see this in surveys of professing evangelicals.  They may go to “orthodox” churches but they themselves are not orthodox.  For example, in the recent “State of Theology” survey, 49% of evangelicals agreed with the statement, “Jesus was a great teacher, but he was not God.”   That is a very disturbing statistic and does not bode well for the state of evangelicalism in our country.  We have allowed change in other ways to obscure the clarity with which the church engages its own people with the truth.

Unwell Conservatism

But there is another problem on the other end.  There are those who make conservatism an end in itself, and that can be just as bad.  There is a conservatism that is as dangerous as liberalism in the church, because like liberalism this kind of conservativism is not rooted in Scripture but in culture.  The difference is that whereas liberal Christianity is rooted in present cultural expressions, this conservatism is rooted in past cultural experiences.  But they’re both rooted in the culture.

It shouldn’t surprise us then that this also can lead to decline and an inability to conserve well.  I was talking to a Primitive Baptist minister a few weeks ago and he was lamenting with me how many PB churches have closed their doors in recent years, churches that he has personally seen go from prospering-and-growing to dead-and-doors-closed.  He listed out one after the other that he has known.  Then he turned to me and said, “Something is wrong.”  Well, I can’t say that I know everything that is wrong with the PBs.  But I do have a hunch that part of the problem is that we have made conservatism an end in itself, without rooting it in Scripture and without being willing to change when Scripture points in a different direction.  Here’s the thing: an inability to change at all will inevitably lead to an inability to conserve anything for long.

How do we conserve well by changing wisely?

So that brings us back to the question: “How do we conserve well by changing wisely?”  What do we conserve and what do we change and how do we decide?  I want us to be able to do what the apostle Paul says here.  I want our church to stand fast and hold the traditions.  I want us to conserve well.  I want us to be able to take the good heritage that this church has and to conserve and pass it on to the next generation, because I think that is an infinitely worthwhile investment.  I want us to conserve well.  But that will mean thinking about and being willing to think about change where change is needed and necessary.  

And our church does have a glorious heritage.  It is a heritage that has several important influences on it.  A couple of examples: the ministry of Elder Lasserre Bradley, Jr., and the Primitive Baptist culture to which it has been connected from the beginning (especially in terms of the simplicity of our worship).  Now PBs are not known for change, but even in our church there have been changes that have helped to preserve and conserve our heritage.  For example, Elder Bradley didn’t start out in his pastoral ministry preaching expositorily through books of the Bible, and it certainly was not the “done thing” by PBs.  But Elder Bradley saw the need for it, the Biblical authority of it, and he did it.  He didn’t start out doing Biblical counseling either, but he saw that the Bible really does call for it, and so he did it, back when it was not a popular thing to do even among evangelicals.  Many PB preachers condemned him for it, saying that he was mimicking psychologists – which was the opposite thing he was doing, of course!  Elder Bradley came to see the error of conditional time salvation which has had a constricting hold on the theology of almost every PB church in our country, but through the careful study of God’s word he came to see that it was an error and changed to be more in conformity with God’s word.  

My point in saying this is that Elder Bradley has shown us in his own ministry how we can conserve well by changing wisely.  What is the principle?  It is this: change where the Bible leads us to change, and hold fast where the Bible leads us to stand.  This is one of the things that I have come to love and appreciate about Elder Bradley: his straightforward commitment to the authority of God’s word and his unwavering trust in its truth and power.  And I’m thankful that this church has absorbed these commitments.  This is a heritage that we need to conserve.

And that brings me back to our text.  How does it help us to keep doing that?  It helps us by reminding us of where the ultimate authority of the church lies and therefore where its direction comes from when it comes to discerning what to hold fast and what can be changed.  The church is to stand fast and hold firm.  Where are we to stand?  What are we to hold?  Paul answers: “the traditions which ye have been taught, whether by word, or our epistle.”  

You will notice that there is a very explosive word here in verse 15.  It is the word “traditions.”  The Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox churches believe that the tradition of the church is as authoritative as the written Scriptures.  They are not sola Scriptura people.  For them, the Bible is not the only final, authoritative, and infallible guide for the church.  For them, the teaching of councils and popes and patriarchs are equal in authority.  But there are many Protestant churches that in some ways act in a similar way.  They may mouth a commitment to sola Scriptura, but their commitment really shows that they functionally act as if the teachings of their particular denomination is as authoritative as the Bible itself.  

That leads me to the primary thing I want us to consider today, and that is to consider the role of tradition for the church, in terms of how it interacts with both change and constancy.  This is where we must start: is there bedrock beneath our feet or shifting sands?  Are we stuck with the opinions of men, however exalted in the church they may be, or is there a firm foundation for us in the words of Scripture?  As a church, we affirm that we are not left with shifting sand but with the firm and safe shelter of the word of God.  In other words, the argument that I want to make this morning is this: the traditions on which the church must stand and to which it must hold fast are the traditions of the apostles; that is to say, the Bible.

To lay out this argument I want to begin by arguing that “tradition” in 2 Thess. 2:15 cannot be used to support later church tradition or ongoing revelation in any sense.  Its only application for the church today is in the pages of Scripture.  Then I want to consider the traditions of men and how they can relate to the Biblical traditions.  It turns out that not all man-made traditions are bad.  Some can be good.  Some can even serve the truth.  Others are bad.  However, even good human tradition can become bad human tradition, and this text and others like it help us to see when and how that can happen.  But, at the end of the day, there are really only two types of tradition: inspired and uninspired. The former must always take precedence over the latter, no matter how good or useful the latter may seem to be.

Inspired Tradition

Sometimes people may point to verses like 2 Thess. 2:15 and say, “But doesn’t the apostle himself point us to traditions alongside the Bible as authoritative together?”  And the answer is, no, he doesn’t.  The traditions that the apostle refers to here are apostolic traditions, which today is just the same thing as saying that they are Biblical traditions.  These were traditions that the Thessalonians had heard Paul and his associates preach (word) or which had been read to them in his letters (epistle).  This text cannot, in other words, be a support for those who argue for ongoing tradition or ongoing revelation in the church.  This is apostolic tradition.  And for the church today, that means Biblical tradition, and nothing else.

Why do I say that?  I do so because there are no apostles after the apostles of the first century.  Thus, though Titus and Timothy were clearly apostolic representatives, nowhere does Paul call either of them an apostle as he was.  So when the first century apostles died, there were no more apostles.  And there is therefore no ongoing, spoken apostolic tradition.  There is no more ongoing apostolic tradition that is being written down.  The only apostolic tradition we have today is the tradition that is inscripturated in the pages between Matthew and Revelation.  Of course, we are not discounting the Old Testament here.  The apostolic tradition includes the OT because it was built upon it.  The tradition of the apostles has authority because it came from Christ, and our Lord of course affirmed the authority of the OT.  So though we cannot stretch the meaning of tradition in 2 Thess. 2:15 to include later church pronouncements, it is a legitimate application to refer the whole Bible under the banner of apostolic tradition.

You also see that there are no more apostles in that when the early church pointed to the authority of the Scriptures of the New Testament, one of the tests of canonicity was apostolicity.  But no one referred to this or that current bishop, whether at Rome or anywhere else for that matter, to ask for the aforesaid apostolicity.  In fact, the church father Ignatius, who was martyred in the early second century, wrote, “I do not, as Peter and Paul, issue commandments unto you. They were apostles; I am but a condemned man: they were free, while I am, even until now, a servant.”  The early church of the centuries following the apostolic era pointed only to the first century apostles like Peter, Paul, and John for authoritative tradition.  Why?  Because there are no more apostles!

Hence, apostolic tradition can only refer to the witness of the apostles which they have left for us in the Scriptures.  And I’m calling this tradition inspired because it is in fact inspired by the Holy Spirit in such a way that their words are God’s words to us.  Paul says that “all Scripture is given by inspiration of God” (2 Tim. 3:16), and then Peter says this; “And account that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation; even as our beloved brother Paul also according to the wisdom given unto him hath written unto you; as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction” (2 Pet. 3:15-16).  Did you get that?  Some people twist Paul’s words “as they do the other scriptures.”  Paul’s words are Scripture.  Paul’s words are therefore inspired.  

This is the way the apostles themselves understood their words.  For example, the apostle John wrote, “We are of God: he that knoweth God heareth us; he that is not of God heareth not us. Hereby know we the spirit of truth, and the spirit of error” (1 Jn. 4:6).  John says that he wrote from God, and that those who belong to God and are born of God recognize that.  Paul wrote, “Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual” (1 Cor. 2:12-13).  Paul is essentially saying that he wrote under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.  He would write to the Ephesians, “How that by revelation he [the Lord] made known unto me the mystery; (as I wrote afore in few words, whereby, when ye read, ye may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ) which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit” (Eph. 3:3-5).  Paul spoke and wrote by revelation, by the revelation of Christ himself under the direction and inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

Hence, what the apostle Peter posited of the Old Testament prophets applies with equal force to the New Testament apostles: “Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation. For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost” (2 Pet. 1:20-21).

Because of this, their words come with unique authority.  We must never lose sight of this.  We are not saying the Bible is the only authority.  Of course not.  There is parental authority in the home, there is governmental authority in the state, and there is pastoral authority in the church.  We also want to acknowledge a sort of authority of the church of the past.  Now by this I don’t mean just the past 100 years or 200 years but the past 2000 years of church history!  A church which cannot connect itself to the previous history of the church is probably a cult.  But we must affirm without hesitation or evasion that there is no authority like Biblical authority.  There is no other authority that is final and infallible; that is an authority that can only be claimed by the Bible.  

Consider this.  Jesus told his disciples in Matthew 23, “The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat: all therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do; but do not ye after their works: for they say, and do not” (2-3).  Our Lord is saying that, even though the scribes and Pharisees were a bunch of hypocrites, yet the disciples were to do what they “bid you observe.”  Why?  Because they were in a position of legitimate authority.  They sat in Moses’ seat (which combined religious and state authority).  But later, when the apostles were told by these authorities to disobey God, this is what they said: “Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye. For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard” (Acts 4:19-20).  Even legitimate authorities have no right over us when they command us to disobey God.  And since the Bible is God’s word, even legitimate authorities (including churchy ones) have no right to compel any man or woman to disobey God’s word.  It must have the final authority over our lives.  It must have the final authority over the church.

There is just no authority like it.  God speaking to the prophet Jeremiah, put it this way: “The prophet that hath a dream, let him tell a dream; and he that hath my word, let him speak my word faithfully. What is the chaff to the wheat? saith the Lord. Is not my word like as a fire? saith the Lord; and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces?” (Jer. 23:28-29).

And it is a sufficient authority.  One of the reasons why people reach out for other things to lean on instead of the Bible is that they are just not satisfied with what the Bible has to say.  But all that we need for life and godliness is found in the pages of the Bible, in the apostolic tradition.  I remind you again of Paul’s words to Timothy: “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works” (2 Tim. 3:16-17).

Praise God for apostolic tradition.  Praise God that he has spoken to us in an infallible, inerrant, authoritative, life-giving word.  

But can other types of tradition play a role in the church?   Yes they can, and in fact I would say that it is quite impossible that it should be otherwise.  But we must be careful here.  And that leads me to the consideration of the category of uninspired tradition.

Uninspired Tradition

All tradition that is not Biblical tradition is uninspired tradition, even religious or church traditions.  However, that doesn’t mean that all human or uninspired traditions are bad.  There are some traditions that churches have – like being called Baptist – which can be useful even if they aren’t explicitly rooted in Scripture.  Of course the word “Baptist” is in Scripture as referring to the forerunner of Jesus, but my point is that there isn’t a passage or group of passages in Scripture that tell us to name our churches “Baptist.”  There are historical circumstances that made that a sensible thing to do, but no one can say it is a Biblically normative thing to do.  My point is that the name is a human tradition that is not strictly Biblical, but neither is it a bad thing and there were good reasons for folks who embrace believer’s baptism to have been called that.  So there are apostolic traditions that are authoritative and then there are human traditions that may have good reasons for them, but which are not finally authoritative.  It’s not wrong to have them, but neither would it be wrong to not have them.

And then there are bad man-made traditions.  The Bible talks about these, too.  For example, the apostle Paul explains that part of the reason why he persecuted the church was because he was “more exceedingly zealous of the traditions of my fathers” (Gal. 1:14).  Our Lord also took the Pharisees in his day to task for elevating the traditions of the fathers in such a way that they negated the teaching of Scripture:

“Then came to Jesus scribes and Pharisees, which were of Jerusalem, saying, Why do thy disciples transgress the tradition of the elders? for they wash not their hands when they eat bread. But he answered and said unto them, Why do ye also transgress the commandment of God by your tradition? For God commanded, saying, Honour thy father and mother: and, He that curseth father or mother, let him die the death. But ye say, Whosoever shall say to his father or his mother, It is a gift, by whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me; And honour not his father or his mother, he shall be free. Thus have ye made the commandment of God of none effect by your tradition. Ye hypocrites, well did Esaias prophesy of you, saying, This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me. But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.”  (Mt. 15:1-9)

Don’t miss the fact from this passage in Matthew that many of these traditions that our Lord rebuked and rejected were enforced by the religious authorities of the day in the name of preserving Biblical teaching.  And it was the religious authorities of the people of God who were doing it, people who had to some extent genuine authority according to our Lord in Matthew 23.  That’s very important to point out because the Roman Catholic Church anchors the authority of church tradition in its popes, bishops, and councils who it says are the true legitimate representatives of God with authority delegated to them from heaven. But even if we were to grant them that point (we don’t) that doesn’t mean that their traditions can’t end up denying God’s word.  In fact, that’s exactly what had happened in Jesus’ day. The religious authorities didn’t uphold the Bible by their tradition; they denied it.  

In other words, some traditions are bad even though they are dressed up in the language of Biblical fidelity.  They claim to be Biblical but, like wolves in sheep clothing, their claim to uphold the faith is invalidated in the fact that they actually end up contradicting it.

So there are at least three types of tradition: apostolic tradition that is alone infallible (and always good), human tradition that is not infallible but can be good and serve a useful end, and human tradition that is bad.  However, there is only one kind of infallible, authoritative tradition, the apostolic kind.  And here is why it is extremely important to make this distinction: when we elevate even good human traditions above apostolic traditions, or when we say that you have to uphold these good human traditions in order to be apostolic, then you have actually turned them at that moment into bad traditions. For example, to tell a church that it must be called “Baptist” in order to be Biblical is in fact a violation of the principle of sola Scriptura.  And that means that at the end of the day such a claim is a rejection of the authority that only Christ has over the church.

Tradition and Conservatism and Change

Now let’s bring this back to the theme: conserving well and changing wisely.  The point I have been making is to remind us of what I think we all know and believe: that we want to conserve the apostolic traditions but at the same time be willing to change any non-apostolic traditions that are hindering us from doing that.  Now by conserving apostolic tradition, I don’t mean hiding it away.  I don’t mean locking it away in a sort of time capsule.  What we want to do is to conserve it for the next generation.  We want to do what the Scriptures themselves tell us to do: to take God’s word and hold it and pass it on to the next generation: “We will not hide them from their children, shewing to the generation to come the praises of the Lord, and his strength, and his wonderful works that he hath done” (Ps. 78:4).  

In the coming weeks, I want to consider with you the traditions we want to conserve well: the doctrines of grace and of God’s sovereignty, the practice of simple worship, the heritage of Baptist ecclesiology and church polity, and the fellowship that we have with like-minded believers.  But I also want us to consider ways we might change in order to preserve the things we need to preserve.  The point is neither change for change’s sake or even conservatism for conservatism’s sake, but obeying the prescription of 2 Thess. 2:15 – to stand fast and hold the traditions handed down to us from the apostles.  

There are a number of benefits from a series like this.  For one thing, I hope it will unify us around the precious things that we hold most dear: the glory of God in the gospel of grace through Jesus Christ, which we understand in terms of the sovereignty of God’s grace.  For another thing, I hope it will also clarify what we are as a church.  What sort of church are we?  What is our identity?  Where do we fit among the constellation of churches?  

These are important questions because this also affects our vision as a church, doesn’t it?  Every church needs a vision for the future.  Without it, churches may go on for a time, but with nowhere to go, there is nothing to encourage others to join them.  A church without a vision will and must eventually die, and actually that’s a good thing.  We don’t need churches which have no vision and who aren’t trying to build something.  A church can have a great and wonderful past, and this can and should inform the future, but it cannot live off of that, can it?  

When I talk about a vision for the church, I am talking about a shared goal and purpose that stems from a shared identity.  The shared identity piece is very important because in a very real sense everything we do is in some way going to be shaped – or marred – by it.  A shared identity provides a platform from which to go somewhere; it provides a compass to guide one in the journey.  As we understand our shared identity in the Biblical traditions that form us, my hope is that it will further inspire us in a common mission for the glory of God and the advancement of the kingdom of Christ.  So brothers and sisters, let’s anchor ourselves in the traditions of Scripture in order to conserve well and change wisely.