Tradition

Tradition, in biblical usage, is teaching or custom handed down from one generation or teacher to another, and Scripture evaluates it by whether it transmits God’s command or merely human rules. The Greek noun behind “tradition” is paradosis, literally a “handing over” or “handing down”—an established linguistic fact that covers both the act of transmission and the content transmitted.

The text says both negative and positive things about tradition. In Matthew 15:6 Jesus says, “You have made the commandment of God void because of your tradition,” and in Matthew 15:9 he cites Isaiah’s charge, “they worship me in vain, teaching as doctrine rules made by men.” A related scriptural priority appears when Jesus quotes, “I desire mercy, and not sacrifice” (Matthew 12:7), and he locates defilement in what does “come out of the heart” (Matthew 15:18), listing “evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, sexual sins, thefts, false testimony, and blasphemies” (Matthew 15:19). Colossians 2:8 warns against “the tradition of men” that is “not after Christ,” and 1 Peter 1:18 describes redemption from “the useless way of life handed down from your fathers.”

By contrast, 2 Thessalonians 2:15 says, “stand firm and hold the traditions which you were taught by us, whether by word or by letter,” and 2 Thessalonians 3:6 speaks of a brother who walks “not after the tradition which they received from us.” Historically, these disputes arose in a Jewish setting where ancestral customs and oral teaching were handed down and could be appealed to alongside Scripture; the same term can therefore name a life-giving apostolic deposit or a human inheritance that competes with God’s command.

Christian traditions differ over how to weigh these strands. Catholic and Orthodox teaching treats sacred Tradition as a positive transmission of apostolic faith, often citing 2 Thessalonians 2:15, while distinguishing it from the human traditions criticized in Matthew 15 and Colossians 2:8. Many Protestant traditions stress that Scripture judges every tradition and read those warnings as a check on church custom, even while retaining creeds and confessional inheritances as subordinate teaching. Some restorationist communities emphasize the apostolic pattern of 2 Thessalonians 3:6 and the warning of 1 Peter 1:18, so that “tradition” is heard mainly as a danger. These differences concern theological authority and the interpretation of Scripture, not merely the meaning of the word.

AI-generated reference entry, grounded in the passages where this term appears — history and Scripture stated as such, interpretation labeled as interpretation. Not a substitute for the text itself.