”Then some Pharisees and teachers of the law came to Jesus from Jerusalem and asked, “Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? They don’t wash their hands before they eat!” Jesus replied, “And why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition?“
Matthew 15:1-3
Some traditions are good, some are not. However, man-made traditions are secondary to God’s will for us. If we carry on in the traditions of our Fathers and those traditions lead us to believe and act in a way contrary to God’s will and the Lord’s commands – depart from these traditions.
I’ll put it this way. If the ways you were taught to believe contradict the ways taught in scripture, choose this day who you will serve – your traditions or God? Never allow your traditions to be placed higher than God’s own word and the gospel.
Examples: praying to angels, praying to saints, baptizing babies, holding to false prophets, salvation by works, my church only mindset, and others… I ask myself, do I have a tradition nestled within me that is not mentioned? Does a belief I hold only exist with the use of eisegesis? What does that word mean, eisegesis? Eisegesis is the interpretation of a text (as of the Bible) by reading into it one’s own ideas, including but not limited to, one’s opinions, personal experiences, and one’s upbringing.
We must read the Bible using NOT eisegesis, but exegesis.
exegesis, the critical interpretation of the biblical text to discover its intended meaning
May our faith be in God alone.
