[NYer]

Ping!

[Daveinyork]

“The Pharisees thought they’d purify Israel through dietary laws and religious customs. “

Really? I thought the Torah did that.

[Springfield Reformer]

Here we go again ping ...

[pogo101]

They’re gonna rename the car “the General Sherman.”

[PJ-Comix]

Didn’t you basically write this piece last weekend or is it just my imagination?

[mdmathis6]

Christ condemned tradition when tradition was used get around clear cut commands of the revealed written laws of God. The law says “Honor thy father and thy mother”. Christ was condemning the use of tradition as a way to deny seeing to the needs of ones parents. It was less about the tradition itself and more about how the traditions of men were being used to justify sin and evil, in the NAME of that tradition, in direct controvention to the revealed word of God.

Christ set the written revealed word of his Father above tradition. Christ used written scripture to defeat the Devil’s wiles when Christ fasted 40 days in the desert. He didn’t use Talmudic taditions, maxims and phrases. “As it is written...” began the key phrases as Christ trounced the Devil’s temptings!

[Uri’el-2012]

The answer is simple. Let’s just commit ourselves to radical obedience to God’s Word. Let’s admit our need, our sinfulness, our tendency to make excuses, and humbly, genuinely lay open our lives and hearts before God’s word and listen. As Moses tells us in Deuteronomy (4:1-8) and James tells us in his letter, let’s do more than just listen. Let’s really hear and obey. Let’s give ourselves no wiggle room, but act on God’s word, regardless of how much it may cost us.

Reject the Pagan Traditions of Sunday, Christmas and Easter.

But celebrate on G-d's Feasts and Shabbat.

shalom b'SHEM Yah'shua HaMashiach

[boatbums]

The Pharisees thought they’d purify Israel through dietary laws and religious customs. Protestant Reformers of the 16th century thought they could purify the church by leaving behind ecclesiastical traditions and customs. History has proven both endeavors to be futile.

The Reformers desired to bring the church BACK to the orthodox faith that Jesus and His Apostles had established. Just as Jesus condemned the Pharisees for "Making the word of God of none effect through your tradition", the church of the middle ages had transgressed the Word of God. It wasn't the "ecclesiastical traditions and customs" of the early church that they rejected - since ALL of the Reformers continued nearly every one of those same customs in the newly formed churches - but the ones that did what the Pharisees had done, and that was to nullify, cancel or make void the word of God by their traditions.

The Geneva Study Bible says this about Matthew 15:6

As much as you could, you destroyed the power and authority of the commandment: for otherwise the commandments of God stand fast in the Church of God, in spite of the world and Satan.

The People's New Testament says:

Modern Pharisaism does the same. Church tradition leads to dogmas that set aside God's commands. The corruption of the simplicity of early Christianity is due to following human tradition.

I think Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary says it best:

15:1-9 Additions to God's laws reflect upon his wisdom, as if he had left out something which was needed, and which man could supply; in one way or other they always lead men to disobey God. How thankful ought we to be for the written word of God! Never let us think that the religion of the Bible can be improved by any human addition, either in doctrine or practice. Our blessed Lord spoke of their traditions as inventions of their own, and pointed out one instance in which this was very clear, that of their transgressing the fifth commandment. When a parent's wants called for assistance, they pleaded, that they had devoted to the temple all they could spare, even though they did not part with it, and therefore their parents must expect nothing from them. This was making the command of God of no effect. The doom of hypocrites is put in a little compass; In vain do they worship me. It will neither please God, nor profit themselves; they trust in vanity, and vanity will be their recompence.

A good example of what the church had done to pervert the Word of God with their traditions was in how they viewed the Holy Scriptures. At the start of Christianity, the eyewitness accounts of Jesus and His teachings were passed down orally along with the prophetic proof from the Old Testament concerning the Messiah. The Apostles and disciples of Jesus taught those same truths to their disciples who passed along the same teachings. This was called "orthodoxy" or the truth. Once the New Testament Scriptures were composed and they were copied and passed on to additional churches and the Apostles died along with the eyewitnesses to Jesus, these Scriptures became the repository of the same truths handed down by the oral tradition.

What the church of the early middle ages was guilty of doing was slowly substituting the authority of the Scriptures for the self-claimed authority of the magesterium and whatever "oral tradition" they ruled was part of the faith ABOVE what the Bible said. What that error led to was the creation of various customs that did what the Pharisees had done - made the Word of God null and void. The Reformer's goal was to rid the church of those dogmas and customs that could not be proved by Scripture or which made void the doctrines that were clearly taught (i.e.; justification by faith).

[AmbassadorForChrist]

YES - CHRIST absolutely CONDEMNED the following the Traditions of man, which the Catholics also follow as did the Pharisees

Mark 7:9: And he said unto them, Full well ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own tradition.

Mark 7:13: Making the word of God of none effect through your tradition, which ye have delivered: and many such like things do ye.

Matthew 15:3: But he answered and said unto them, Why do ye also transgress the commandment of God by your tradition?

Matthew 15:6: And honour not his father or his mother, he shall be free. Thus have ye made the commandment of God of none effect by your tradition.

Mark 7:8: For laying aside the commandment of God, ye hold the tradition of men, as the washing of pots and cups: and many other such like things ye do.

[UnbelievingScumOnTheOtherSide]

Worse than that, they actually used pious customs as loopholes to help them get around the difficult demands of the Torah... But the Pharisees had recourse to a non-biblical religious custom that absolved them from this weighty responsibility."

Where can I buy an Indulgence?