To Encourage You

2 Thessalonians 2:15 “So then, brothers, stand firm and hold to the traditions that you were taught by us, either by our spoken word or by our letter.”

Throughout the Bible we are warned over and over again about being deceived by false teachers. This was one of the problems Paul dealt with in his first and second letters to the Thessalonians.  Here in the first century church many false teachers had already risen up, motivated by Satan, with the objective of destroying the Church just as it was getting off the ground. And if the Church was plagued by such things then, how much more in our day and age?  So, what’s our protection against such teachings?  How do we guard against being led astray, for if that was not a real and present danger, God would not have made such an issue of it in His holy Word? 

So, what does Paul tell the Thessalonians?  In the verse above he tells them to “stand firm and hold to the traditions that were taught by us, either by our spoken word or by our letter.” Of course, anything Paul would have spoken to them would have been in complete agreement with his letters, so this is basically one and the same advice to us who cannot hear Paul speak with our own ears. What he taught the Thessalonian and other churches we have written down in black and white in the New Testament epistles which he wrote under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. 

But note the specific word he uses to describe what he taught. He calls them “the traditions.” What did he mean by this? What “traditions” would such a young church have been familiar with, for when we think of this term, we think of age-old things that have been with us for many years.  Well, the Greek word that was translated “traditions” here means “the delivery of precepts, especially the traditionary Jewish Law” (https://www.blueletterbible.org/lexicon/g3862/kjv/tr/0-1/).  In other words, Paul was referring to the Old Testament (which were the only Scriptures that were in existence at that time) as well as his New Testament teachings that more fully explained the meaning of what had been previously written. For us then, the means by which we are to “stand firm” in the faith, is to always go back to the “traditions,” i.e., the Word of God, to test any teaching we might hear today by it. 

Peter warned about this same thing with these words about false teachers: “For it would have been better for them (i.e., false teachers) never to have known the way of righteousness than after knowing it to turn back from the holy commandment delivered to them” (2 Peter 2:21).  Here, “delivered” is the same root word from which Paul’s word “traditions” is derived.  And then this from Paul: “But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed” (Galatians 1:8-9). 

What an extraordinary warning this is.  Paul tells the Galatians that even if he, someone they surely should have been able to trust, came to them and started to veer from the Word of God that he had earlier taught them, that he should be accursed. 

How careful we should be then with the things we hear from anyone regarding spiritual things (and that includes me in any of these Facebook or blog posts!)  The Word of God is always the final authority.  We should never go off with any teaching, experience, or even miracles such as “signs and wonders” we might witness and not check it closely against the Word of God.  In the end, when we are examined by the incarnate Word of God, if we have not made use of the written word of God, we are warned in the following sobering words from Jesus:  “On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness’” (Matthew 7:22-23). 

Lawlessness – violating the “Law of God” that was delivered to us by the traditions of the Word of God.  It’s always the final test. May God help us to judge all we see, hear, or experience by it.