Quotes, Thinking Biblically

Custom, Ceremony, and Tradition…

Custom, ceremony, and tradition have fallen on hard times.  There is a tendency to dispense with the tried-and-proven ways of doing things and to innovate.  We look for spontaneity, newness, the “unstructured,” sometimes thinking that we are on Jesus’ side by so doing, for did He not condemn the Pharisees for clinging to tradition?  It was their clinging to tradition to the point of putting aside the commandments of God that He condemned.  If the plate has more importance than the Bread of Life, they have absolutized the minutiae of the law.  This deserved the Lord’s condemnation.

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On the other hand, let us not dismiss wise custom simply because it is custom.  Very likely it is the best way of doing a thing. This is precisely why it has become customary.  Otherwise it would not have survived.

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Lord, may we humbly learn from the wisdom of others, not presuming to have our own way for the sake of “originality,” but keep us, Lord, from insulating ourselves from the Bread of Life by mere tradition.

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~Elisabeth Elliot
From The Music of His Promises, pg. 196