By way of introduction, I think it is worth pointing out that there are, broadly speaking, two approaches to the question as to how to, as it were, ‘do’ Church; by ‘do’ I mean how to determine sound doctrine, which practices to include and which to exclude etc.
The first theory is commonly known by its Latin title, sola Scriptura (meaning ‘Scripture alone’) and states that Scripture and only Scripture should be used in matters of faith, doctrine and practice, and in particular the New Testament. This view is adhered to by many, but not all, evangelicals, including I believe your goodselves. The drawback with this position is that it has produced a mass of contradictory interpretations (and thus splits and splinters within the Body of Christ) over what Scripture means on topics as diverse as the Last Days, church government and structure, the extent to which man has free will as opposed to being predestined by God to salvation or damnation, views on baptism and the Breaking of Bread, amongst many others. The NT is many things – divinely inspired, infallible, containing rich theology etc, but it is not a comprehensive, “all-singing, all-dancing” guide to how to be a Christian, nor does it claim to be thus sufficient. It does not, for example, prescribe what time Christians should meet on the Lord’s Day, how many times they should meet or what exactly should occur at such a meeting, nor does it say who should preside at the Lord’s Table or perform baptisms, still less what precise words should be used at either event. In matters of church structure, the Presbyterian, the Episcopalian and the Congregationalist can all in theory argue, with some justification, that their own particular forms of church governance may be found in the pages of the NT, yet they cannot all three of them (or even two of them) be correct. Each ‘side’ in these debates tends to claim (of course!) that they have the full measure of the Holy Spirit and that therefore their interpretation is correct and the others have simply Got It Wrong, but they plainly can’t all be right and this approach does beg the very obvious question: who decides what interpretation is correct (and on what basis)?
The second school of thought recognises the above problem and admits that Scripture on its own is insufficient to deal with it; this approach therefore looks to another source for matters of doctrine and practice, not in contradiction to Scripture, but in addition to and complementary to Scripture. This other source is known as Tradition (this term comes from the Latin translation, traditio, of the Greek used in 2 Thess 2:15, paradoseiV (paradoseis), meaning ‘hand over’ or ‘hand down’). It is this method of Scripture+Tradition which I wish to explain further. In so doing, I have no desire and do not seek to justify or commend the Roman Catholic view of Tradition (and it should be pointed out that the Roman Catholics are only one out of several denominations who adopt this method of interpretation).
By way of background, I think what has to be remembered (and here I am indebted to Richard Hooker for his analysis written in the 16th century on this front) is that Scripture - and in particular the NT - is not a 'how to do church' manual, whether it be church government or liturgy etc; there are some hints, of course, but it is not comprehensive on these subjects, as we have seen above.Therefore it was left to the Church - both in the Apostolic and post-Apostolic periods - to, of necessity, work out these matters itself and it was possible for the Church to do this whilst still maintaining fidelity to Scripture. We are fortunate in that we do have a written recordto a large extent of how that happened; this record is contained within the writings variously known as ‘The Apostolic Fathers’, ‘the Patristic Writings’ or, more commonly, ‘The Early Church Fathers (ECFs)’ – men like Ignatius of Antioch, Polycarp of Smyrna, Clement of Rome, Clement of Alexandria, Justin Martyr of Rome, Irenaeus of Lyon, Hippolytus, Cyprian of Carthage etc. Their writings are not on the same level as Scripture – they are not infallible and in some instances disagree with each other – but where there is unanimity and agreement between them (known as the consensus patri) – and there is that a-plenty – then their thoughts carry an overwhelming amount of weight.
So, for some of us, then, the NT is not the sole arbiter of matters of faith and practice. Indeed, that was the case with the Church in the first few centuries of its existence; in fact in many ways they were worse off than us in that respect. For the first seventy years or so, the entirety of the NT had not yet been written, and the Church did not decide upon or recognise all of the 27 books we have today until the end of the 4th century. Up until then, therefore, Christians had to have some other method of determining the truth of the New Covenant. The key to that other method is the record of what the Church has done and said – its practice in other words; the other reason some of us do what we do, in addition to the NT, is because our ‘spiritual ancestors’, as it were, did it, and so did their spiritual ancestors, right back to the earliest existence of the Church, ‘handed down’ (traditio) from generation to generation and, more often than not, recorded by the ECFs.
This Tradition, as it has historically been called, in addition to ‘filling in the gaps’ where Scripture is silent, also helps to explain and interpret Scripture for us, to assist us in arriving at the correct understanding of what the Scripture means. For we see the pernicious effects of using Scripture as the sole rule of faith and doctrine all around us in the divisions which plague the Body of Christ referred to above. These problems are nothing new to Christendom and gave rise to the famous test of sound doctrine coined by Vincent of Lerins in the 5th century: "Quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus" - "that [which has in relation to Christian doctrine been believed] everywhere, always, by everyone." In fact, I think that Vincent came out with a number of excellent points which are worth quoting in expanded format here from his Commonitory (here, ‘catholic’ simply means ‘universal’):-
“I have often then inquired earnestly and attentively of very many men eminent for sanctity and learning, how and by what sure and so to speak universal rule I may be able to distinguish the truth of catholic faith from the falsehood of heretical pravity; and I have always, and in almost every instance, received an answer to this effect: That whether I or any one else should wish to detect the frauds and avoid the snares of heretics as they rise, and to continue sound and complete in the catholic faith, we must, the Lord helping, fortify our own belief in two ways; first, by the authority of the Divine Law, and then, by the Tradition of the catholic church.
"But here some one perhaps will ask, Since the canon of Scripture is complete, and sufficient of itself for everything, and more than sufficient, what need is there to join with it the authority of the Church's interpretation? For this reason,—because, owing to the depth of Holy Scripture, all do not accept it in one and the same sense, but one understands its words in one way, another in another; so that it seems to be capable of as many interpretations as there are interpreters. For Novatian expounds it one way, Sabellius another, Donatus another, Arius, Eunomius, Macedonius, another, Photinus, Apollinaris, Priscillian, another, Iovinian, Pelagius, Celestius, another, lastly, Nestorius another. Therefore, it is very necessary, on account of so great intricacies of such various error, that the rule for the right understanding of the prophets and apostles should be framed in accordance with the standard of ecclesiastical and catholic interpretation."
