Today's ''Traditions of the Elders"

Jesus was at all out war against the additions men made to his word. After the captivity the scribes (Sopherim) began creating 'fence' or 'oral' laws.  These were designed to protect God's Law and stop people short from breaking that and risking God's judgement.  After the Scribes came the Tannaim (teachers of the law).  These made the bigger error of including the Sopherim fence laws as God's LAW.  They then built another set of fence laws around the LAW and the first fence law.  This was when Jesus was walking the land and this is what Jesus was at war with.

 Jesus constantly went against these man made laws, on purpose, to show his disdain for anything that add to the express word of God.  An example was him leading His disciples to walk through a field on the Sabbath.  The Sopherim had made walking through a field law, but it wasn't LAW (LAW being God's law).  Another example was Jesus spitting on mud and putting it in a blind mans eyes... on the Sabbath.  The Mishna (collection of the fence laws and commentary's, Talmud etc) still says this, along with injecting wine into a blind mans eyes(!) is equivalent to murder!

Today we see the same thing.  Some church leaders have departed from God's word and begin creating their own set of directives to God's people.  Because belonging is a powerful force in a human being's life, people will try to cling to the security offered with 'belonging.' It is one of a number of things that anchor humans into 'church.'  The elephant in the room being that we are only supposed to anchor into Christ, risen and glorified.

In Jesus time the religious leaders had missed the reason for the LAW.  It was a 'fence at the edge of a cliff saving them from the ambulance at the bottom.'  As long as the 'clergy class' were telling them what God was like, the people only bought into the party line.  When a church leadership make directives, even good ones, that add to the plain meaning of the text, we have a problem.  So did Paul.  In 1 Corinthians 4:6 we find him in the middle of warning the Corinthian church to only be about what is written, and not to exceed it.

Visions statements, sound bytes, motivational speeches can constitute the additional input that is today's 'Traditions of the Elders.'  They can add to what is written so that the person attending the church under the ministry has two forms of directive.  One is the Holy Spirit working through the word of God and the other is the way the leaders are directing God's people.  It may be the word of the Lord and usually starts off this way.  Most of the time good people get embroiled into the system of 'churchianity.'  The gap widens between the Lord having lead with His people and the leaders being the prime directive.  In many cases it is a given that the leaders 'must be hearing from God.'  This assumption is a hangover from Roman catholic thinking that the clergy were a God-created class who must not be questioned.  It will not come as a shock to find it was the clergy who pushed this agenda.

My challenge in this article is to ask you who is leading you.   Is it the vision statement, the mission?  Is it the perceived need in a community?   Is it a team of professionals who have the anointing?  Is it a denominational mantra that is really a condition of membership?  Is it a threat veiled in pastoral oversight?  Is it Jesus?  Church is complex but within that complexity there's some surprisingly simple advice.

 Jesus is Lord.

So is He?

Gary Ward