Oral Tradition?

[annsni]

I think that Baptists have many traditions, that are not commanded by scripture. That does not mean that they are unbiblical.

For example,
1. Sunday School always before church.
2. Always singing the Doxology at the beginning of the service
3. Breaking up into age and / or gender specific groups for Wed night prayer meeting (and the church touts itself as the family church):1_grouphug:
4. Must list the entire order of service in the weekly bulletin
5. Communion is served only on the first Sunday morning of the monthraying:

Okay, somebody else take the next five:wavey:

Salty

OK, of those, we only do 1 of them in our Baptist church.

1. Sunday School is DURING the service. We have 2 services so those from 6th to 8th grades are required to go to one service before they go to Sunday School in the other service and there is no Sunday School for 9th grade and above. Adult teaching classes are held on Wednesday night.

2. We don't sing the Doxology most weeks - just sometimes as the offering consecration song.

3. Wednesday nights we DO kind of split up but not for prayer meeting. We have Jr. High youth group and "KidStuf" for the young kids (K-6) with their parents. We also have "adult classes" which would be for anyone who's old enough to WANT to go to these classes. We have spanish going on right now so there are a number of kids who are going to that class (above 6th grade) because we're having more and more missions trips to Cuba and Nicaragua - they want to be able to speak to the people they meet there.

4. The order of the service is only given to those working at the service. It's not in the bulletin.

5. Communion IS done only on the first Sunday of the month unless there's a reason to change it. Like we always do communion on Good Friday.

Yeah - I know, we're weird. LOL

 

[gb93433]

You guys make some great points. However, don't you have a problem from quoting from a non-inspired sources (that's primarily fictional). That would be like be quoting from "This Present Darkness" as if it were true! How can that be condsidered the inspired word of God? I understand the bible was passed down oral until writen down. That's not issue.

The present day oral tradition may or may not be what was practiced in the early church. I am quite confident that the majority of churches practice what started in the fourth century.

In preparing a sermon it must connect with the modern day and tied back to scripture.

Eccl. 12:9-11, "In addition to being a wise man, the Preacher also taught the people knowledge; and he pondered, searched out and arranged many proverbs. The Preacher sought to find delightful words and to write words of truth correctly. The words of wise men are like goads, and masters of these collections are like well-driven nails; they are given by one Shepherd."

 

[JustChristian]

I think this is what Thinkingstuff may have been referring to:

The discussions and interactions between people in the New Testament were primarily based on oral tradition. The letters of Paul, Timothy, etc. were shared between Churches but the other books were written in the mid to late 1st century or early 2nd century A.D. Without the printing press these were spread slowly and besides the cannon wasn't even decided upon until 170 AD (first one). There were disputes as to which books were divinely inspired and which were not.

The first “canon” was the Muratorian Canon, which was compiled in A.D. 170. The Muratorian Canon included all of the New Testament books except Hebrews, James, and 3 John. In A.D. 363, the Council of Laodicea stated that only the Old Testament (along with the Apocrypha) and the 27 books of the New Testament were to be read in the churches. The Council of Hippo (A.D. 393) and the Council of Carthage (A.D. 397) also affirmed the same 27 books as authoritative.

 

[Amy.G]

I definitely think that oral traditions are very important. I floss my teeth at least once a day.

 

[russell55]

You guys make some great points. However, don't you have a problem from quoting from a non-inspired sources (that's primarily fictional). That would be like be quoting from "This Present Darkness" as if it were true! How can that be condsidered the inspired word of God?

No, not really. The source isn't inspired because the Holy Spirit wasn't carrying those authors along as they wrote. Even the words quoted weren't inspired until the writer of scripture (the ones who were carried along by the Holy Spirit (2 Peter 1)) recognized the particular quoted material as true and, under the governing oversight of the Holy Spirit, gave it to us as part of our written prophetic word.

However, there is evidence that there was an oral aspect of Torah passed down by Moses to the levites in order to understand Torah correctly. Otherwords authoritative teaching of the writen scripture.

Just because something contains true things doesn't mean it's authoritative. If a body of work were to be authoritative, then, at the very least, it can have no admixture of error, and that's simply not the case with the Jewish traditions that were passed down. There was a lot wrong in them. That's why Jesus had to do so much correcting of them.

And, BTW, it is possible for something to be entirely true and still not be authoritative. Something is only authoritative if it is truly prophetic word—if it's source is the Holy Spirit.

You see this in the early church as well before the NT was compiled. We believe for instance, that the communion celebrated by our Lord during Pass over was his way of having us remember his sacrifice that He made for us. Ok. But in epistles it states that people in Corinth were dieing because they were taking communion un-worthy manner. How then are we to understand the leaders of the church who knew the apostles or were familiar with their teachings:
"They have no care for love, no thought for the widow and orphan, none at all for the afflicted, the captive, the hungry or the thirsty. They even absent themselves from the Eucharist and the public prayers, because they will not admit the Eucharist is the self-same body of our Saviour Jesus Christ which suffered for our sins, and which the the Father in his goodness afterwards raised up again. Consequently, since they reject God's good gifts, they are doomed in their disputations." - Ignatius of Antioch letter to the Smyrnaeans Very good possibility he had communications with a few of the apostles. Was there a teaching about this that was elaberated by the apostles and generally accepted by the churches that now we've ignored for lack of an oral authoritative teaching on the understanding of scripture? We baptist, and they are many, constantly dispute with each other about all sorts of things. Maybe Clement was right. I'm not sure I buy in to the smorgasbord christianity. The early church had this issue as well and they ended up being gnostic or under the Montanist heresy.

I really don't understand the point you are making here. The early church fathers wrote all sorts of things, many of them conflicting. There was no consensus among them on anything. Obviously, some things they wrote are true, and some things are not. They're writings have never been considered authoritative by any branch of the church.

BTW, when you see quotes from Church fathers, it's wise to put them back in their context. People do a lot of quote picking from the fathers to support their own view of things, but they are often reading them out of context (and anachronistically, too) Those cherry-picked quotes often support something entirely different when read in context. I believe that is the case with the quote you have from Ignatious, but I really don't have time to do the research now.

As far as sarcasm used by Jesus in this pasage please enlighten:
"Then spake Jesus to the multitude, and his disciples, Saying "The scribes and Pharisees sit in Moses' seat: All therefore whatsoever they bid you observe that observance and do; but do not ye after their works; for they say and do not." Jesus is still saying to do what they say but not to act like them.

Sure. I'll come back later and give the reasons why I think it should be read as sarcasm or irony, and why I don't think Jesus is telling people to do what the Pharisees tell them to do, but rather, mocking the Pharisees.

 

[gb93433]

No, not really. The source isn't inspired because the Holy Spirit wasn't carrying those authors along as they wrote. Even the words quoted weren't inspired until the writer of scripture (the ones who were carried along by the Holy Spirit (2 Peter 1)) recognized the particular quoted material as true and, under the governing oversight of the Holy Spirit, gave it to us as part of our written prophetic word.

Is "Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons" true?

 

[russell55]

Okay, I'm back to explain why I interpret Matthew 23:1-3 as irony or sarcasm.

First of all, let me explain what Moses' seat was. It was a place in the synagogue where the teachers sat while they read the scriptures. It was called Moses' seat simply because they read the words of Moses there, not because it went back to Moses' time. Synagogue worship did not exist until much, much later than Moses.

So, even if I were to take this statement as a command from Jesus (The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses' seat, so practice and observe whatever they tell you), I'd say he was commanding them to do what the Pharisees tell them when they sit on Moses seat, which would be when they read the scripture. Ultimately, then, it would be making the scripture authoritative, and the Pharisees authoritative specifically when they read the scripture, but not generally authoritative.

But as I've said, I see this as satire. Here are my reasons:

• I see the whole passage as a satirical diatribe. I come to this conclusion about the genre because of the "woes", the name-calling (blind guides, serpents, whitewashed tombs, etc.), the hyperbole (you travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte, etc.) and more. So taking this as bitter irony makes if fit, genre-wise, with the rest of the passage. If I were to read this whole chapter out loud, I'd read much of it in a sarcastic, sing-song sort of voice, because I think that is probably the way it was delivered by Jesus.
• If you take the "do as they tell you" as a command, how can you reconcile it with Jesus other statements, where he says that those who do what the Pharisees tell them are being "tied up with heavy burdens, hard to bear," and are twice as much children of hell as the Pharisees are. How do you reconcile "do as they tell you" with his statement that the Pharisees, by what they are teaching, are shutting "the kingdom of heaven in people's faces."

 

[russell55]

Is "Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons" true?

Paul, in God-breathed scripture, says it is, doesn't he?

One of the Cretans, a prophet of their own, said, “Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons.” [7] 13 This testimony is true.

But it's true in the way all proverbs are true—generally. It's important to read scripture with an awareness of the literary conventions of the statements, because any statement communicates truth in the way that it's genre communicates truth. We have to treat poetry as poetry, hyperbole as hyperbole, and proverbs as proverbs.