When Tradition Conflicts With Truth

DANGER​—WATER NOT FOR DRINKING. We may be used to seeing such warnings. In many areas people are careful about what they drink because they know that some water supplies are being poisoned by what has been labeled “a witch’s brew” of toxic contamination. As a result of this pollution, says one study, instead of being a “sustainer and protector of life,” water can become “a transmitter of disease organisms and . . . chemical contaminants.”​—Water Pollution.

Polluting the Waters of Truth

Traditions that conflict with truth are like polluted water supplies. We might innocently hold fast to traditions​—information, opinions, beliefs, or customs handed down from one generation to the next—​that have, in fact, been contaminated by “a witch’s brew” of false, misleading ideas and philosophies. Just like contaminated water, these may cause untold harm​—spiritual harm.

Even if we feel that our traditional religious beliefs are based on the Bible, all of us should take the time to examine them carefully. Remember, when Martin Luther held to the traditional belief of the day and condemned Copernicus, he believed that he had the support of the Bible. Yet, Luther failed to follow the fine example of the ancient Beroeans who ‘were noble-minded in carefully examining the Scriptures as to whether these things were so.’​—Acts 17:10, 11.

Think of the harm that traditional beliefs caused some of the Jews of Jesus’ day. They fervently believed that their traditions were true. When they protested that Jesus’ disciples did not keep the traditions, Jesus challenged them with the question: “Why is it you also overstep the commandment of God because of your tradition?” (Matthew 15:1-3) What had gone wrong? Jesus identified the problem when he quoted the words of the prophet Isaiah: “It is in vain that they keep worshiping [God], because they teach commands of men as doctrines.”​—Matthew 15:9; Isaiah 29:13.

Yes, in place of truths that originated with God, they substituted ideas that originated with men or, worse still, that originated with the demons. For example, Insight on the Scriptures, Volume 1, page 506, explains: “Pharisees at that time taught that once a person declared his possessions to be ‘corban,’ or a gift dedicated to God, he could not use these to satisfy the needs of his parents, however needy they might be, though he could make use of such possessions himself until his own death if he chose to do so.” The human wisdom that contaminated the waters of truth had bad effects on the Jews spiritually. The majority even rejected their long-hoped-for Messiah.

Christendom Adds to the Pollution

Similar spiritual damage was caused after Jesus’ death. Many who claimed to be his followers appealed to oral tradition as authority for new teachings. According to the Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature, by McClintock and Strong, some so-called Christians felt that such tradition was “instruction received from the mouth of the apostles by the first Christian churches, transmitted from the apostolic age, and preserved in purity until their own time.”​—Italics ours.

In reality many of these traditions were impure, wrong ideas. As the Cyclopedia explains, these new philosophies were “not only at variance with other traditions, but with the very writings of the apostles which they had in their hands.” This was not totally unexpected. The apostle Paul had warned Christians: “Look out: perhaps there may be someone who will carry you off as his prey through the philosophy and empty deception according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary things of the world and not according to Christ.”​—Colossians 2:8.

Today, also, many traditional beliefs are ‘at variance with the very writings of the apostles.’ Christendom has poisoned the waters of truth with numerous demon-inspired ideas, such as the Trinity, hellfire, immortality of the human soul, nationalism, and idolatry.a (1 Timothy 4:1-3) History testifies to the spiritual sickness that has overtaken people who fell prey to the demonic teachings that have become the traditional teachings of Christendom.​—Compare Isaiah 1:4-7.

Such contaminating of truth has, in fact, been going on from man’s beginning. Satan has continued the process he started in Eden of poisoning people’s minds with lies and deceit. (John 8:44; 2 Corinthians 11:3) As the human family spread throughout the earth following the Flood of Noah’s day, people of all cultures became victims of a deliberate poisoning of the reservoirs of human knowledge with demon-inspired philosophies and ideas.

Effects of Spiritual Pollution

What harm can such spiritual contamination cause? We can compare it to the effects of polluted water on our physical health. Says one authority: “About 200 million people are victims of schistosomiasis (bilharzia) [snail fever, which produces anemia, discomfort, general ill health, and even death], caused by contaminated water on the skin. Five hundred million people have trachoma, one of the main causes of blindness, because of dirty wash water. . . . Some two billion members of the human species do not have safe drinking water.” (Our Country, the Planet) Millions of people have been spiritually debilitated, blinded, and even killed as a result of following traditions adulterated with false, demonic teachings.​—1 Corinthians 10:20, 21; 2 Corinthians 4:3, 4.

Many, for example, are confused or blinded as to the relationship between Jesus Christ and his Father, Jehovah God. It became the custom among some who claimed to be Christians to omit God’s sacred name, Jehovah, from the Christian Greek Scriptures. Says George Howard in the Journal of Biblical Literature: “This removal of the Tetragram[maton], in our view, created a confusion in the minds of early Gentile Christians about the relationship between the ‘Lord God’ and the ‘Lord Christ.’”

Think, too, of the confusion, superstition, and fear caused by the unscriptural tradition that the human soul is immortal. (Compare Ecclesiastes 9:5; Ezekiel 18:4.) How many people are in bondage to ancestor worship or live in constant fear that the dead will come back to harm them? This belief has even encouraged people to kill themselves and others.

Many Japanese feel that at death their departed spirits will meet up in the world beyond. Some parents who commit suicide, therefore, have thought it best to kill their children also. An English Dictionary of Japanese Ways of Thinking explains: “In Japan suicide is not always condemned, but is often looked on as an acceptable way of apologizing for one’s grave error . . . Even family suicides are likely to be reported with sympathetic words.”

Test the Traditions

In view of the dangers involved in blindly following traditional beliefs and customs, what should we do? Toward the end of the first century, the apostle John gave this advice to his fellow Christians: “Beloved ones, do not believe every inspired expression, but test the inspired expressions [just as you would test water for purity] to see whether they originate with God, because many false prophets have gone forth into the world.” (1 John 4:1; see also 1 Thessalonians 5:21.) How do you know whether a tradition is harmful? You need some kind of authority, some standard of purity, to test what you believe.

The Bible is such an authority. Jesus Christ stated: “Sanctify them by means of the truth; your word is truth.” (John 17:17) He also said: “The hour is coming, and it is now, when the true worshipers will worship the Father with spirit and truth.” (John 4:23) By using God’s inspired Word, you get to the pure waters of truth rather than the polluted waters of human and demonic philosophy.​—John 8:31, 32; 2 Timothy 3:16.

Remember, even minute amounts of pollutants can have dire consequences. Sometimes it takes years before the effects show up. “Dirty water,” says Shridath Ramphal, former president of the World Conservation Union, “has become the world’s most dangerous killer. At least twenty-five thousand people die every day from their use of it.” Spiritually contaminated traditions are even more dangerous.

Do you have the courage to break free from traditional beliefs that you may have followed for years if it turns out that they conflict with the truth? Heed the warnings. Protect yourself and your family by making sure that your traditions harmonize with God’s pure Word of truth.​—Psalm 19:8-11; Proverbs 14:15; Acts 17:11.

[Footnote]

[Picture on page 7]

God’s Word of truth is like a river of pure, clean water