God's Word, Not Human Tradition

Test the Teaching · Article 4 of 9 · 2026-11-05 · Key passages: Mark 7:7–8; Proverbs 30:6. Quotations are from the World English Bible (WEB); please check each one in your own Bible.

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What we confess.

To us there is “one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we for him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and we live through him.” (1 Corinthians 8:6). Jesus is “the Christ, the Son of God” (John 20:31), who “has come in the flesh” (1 John 4:2). He “died for our sins according to the Scriptures” (1 Corinthians 15:3), was buried, and “was raised on the third day” (1 Corinthians 15:4). “God has made him both Lord and Christ” (Acts 2:36), and “This Jesus, who was received up from you into the sky, will come back” (Acts 1:11).

Can a teaching bind you that you cannot find in Scripture? The question was put to Jesus himself, in another form, by scribes who had come down from Jerusalem. They had watched his disciples eat with unwashed hands, and they asked him: “Why don’t your disciples walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat their bread with unwashed hands?” (Mark 7:5). The tradition of the elders was not Scripture. It was teaching handed down by respected men, kept carefully, and treated as the measure of faithfulness. Jesus' answer to it is the subject of this article.

The question is asked in two forms, and this article takes them in turn. Some teach that the apostles' teaching reaches us by two channels — the written word, and a living tradition carried by the church — and that the church's tradition and teaching office bind the believer alongside Scripture. Others teach that the publications and direction of a headquarters or leadership body are God's present guidance for his people, to be received as his word for today. Both forms agree on the point this article tests: something handed down by men may bind the conscience with God's authority. What leaders and teachers are truly owed is honored throughout — this series' first article and the Statement's answers keep their authority real, and bounded. Where Scripture is silent, we will say so and stop.

Passages: Mark 7:1–5; Matthew 15:1–2.

Read These First

  • Mark 7:1–13: the commandment of God, and the tradition of men.
  • Proverbs 30:5–6: every word of God is flawless; don't add to his words.
  • Deuteronomy 4:2; 12:32: you shall not add to the word.
  • Colossians 2:8, 20–23: after the tradition of men; rules that have an appearance of wisdom.
  • 1 Corinthians 4:6: not beyond the things which are written.
  • 2 Thessalonians 2:15: the traditions the Thessalonians were taught — read with 2:2 and 3:17 of the same letter.

First: what Jesus himself did with a tradition.

You Set Aside the Commandment of God

What the text says. Jesus answers the scribes by opening Isaiah against the tradition itself: “Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written, ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. They worship me in vain, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’” (Mark 7:6–7). Isaiah's own sentence is the same charge: “their fear of me is a commandment of men which has been taught” (Isaiah 29:13). Then Jesus names the act, twice: “For you set aside the commandment of God, and hold tightly to the tradition of men” (Mark 7:8). “Full well do you reject the commandment of God, that you may keep your tradition.” (Mark 7:9). He gives one worked example. Moses commanded honor to father and mother; the tradition let a man answer his parents' need with a word — “Whatever profit you might have received from me is Corban” (Mark 7:11), that is, given to God — and do nothing more for them. Jesus' verdict on the device: “making void the word of God by your tradition which you have handed down. You do many things like this.” (Mark 7:13). Matthew's account ends the example in one sentence: “You have made the commandment of God void because of your tradition.” (Matthew 15:6).

What we conclude. This is the text, and it is not hedged. Jesus does not condemn the elders for remembering, or for handing down what they had received; the washings themselves are never called sinful. What he condemns is twofold: teaching the commandments of men as doctrines — worship itself becomes vain — and a tradition that sets aside and makes void the word of God (Mark 7:7–9, 13). Scripture plainly rules out a human teaching presented as God's doctrine, which God's word does not teach — above all, one that overrides what God's word commands. The test Jesus applies is not a tradition's age or its holders' sincerity. It is whether God's word still stands where the tradition speaks.

The strongest objection. Those who teach that tradition binds cite Paul, and their charter text is his own command:

So then, brothers, stand firm and hold the traditions which you were taught by us, whether by word or by letter.

— 2 Thessalonians 2:15

As they argue it, Paul himself joins the two channels: the apostles taught some things by letter, which we have, and some things by word, which we could not have unless a living tradition carried them. To hold only the written is to drop half of what Paul commands us to hold.

Our answer. We concede the verse, in the words our Statement concedes it: what the apostles taught binds every believer, by word or by letter. Paul says “the traditions which you were taught by us” (2 Thessalonians 2:15) — taught by us, the apostles, to that church, by men whose voices the Thessalonians had heard. We believe this verse entirely. But read the letter it stands in. Earlier in this same letter Paul warns the church against exactly the claim now built on it: not to be troubled “either by spirit or by word or by letter as if from us, saying that the day of Christ has already come” (2 Thessalonians 2:2). A claim to carry Paul's word “by word or by letter as if from us” (2 Thessalonians 2:2) was already being made, falsely, within the apostles' own lifetime, and Paul's answer is not to bless all such claims but to give the church his test of them: “I, Paul, write this greeting with my own hand, which is the sign in every letter. This is how I write.” (2 Thessalonians 3:17). The apostle authenticates his teaching by his own hand, in writing. And the tradition the Thessalonians held was one content, not two: Paul had called them “through our Good News” (2 Thessalonians 2:14) and could remind them of “the tradition which they received from us” (2 Thessalonians 3:6), because word and letter carried the same teaching from the same known men. Our conclusion is that 2 Thessalonians 2:15 commands holding the apostles' own teaching, then present by word and letter, and now held in Scripture; it does not promise that teaching arising later, which the apostles never taught, binds because a later body claims their authority. The apostles' authority is plain; that none of it binds outside Scripture is our step, and we name it as such.

A second objection. They also cite Corinth: “Now I praise you, brothers, that you remember me in all things, and hold firm the traditions, even as I delivered them to you.” (1 Corinthians 11:2). As they argue it, Paul praises a church for holding traditions he delivered — proof that delivered tradition, not writing alone, is the apostolic pattern.

Our answer. Read what the delivery looks like in the same chapter. Paul praises them for holding what he delivered, and then delivers it again — in this letter, in writing: “For I received from the Lord that which also I delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night in which he was betrayed took bread.” (1 Corinthians 11:23). The traditions of 1 Corinthians 11:2 are not lost to us; the chapter that opens with the praise goes on to deliver them — the teaching on the head and its covering (1 Corinthians 11:3–16) included — and the church has read them ever since. His pattern for himself is the rule he gives the same church elsewhere in the same letter's opening chapters: “that in us you might learn not to think beyond the things which are written” (1 Corinthians 4:6). Our conclusion is that 1 Corinthians 11:2 honors the apostles' delivered teaching — which Scripture itself delivers to us.

Pause. In Mark 7:7, what does Jesus say men were teaching as doctrines — and in 2 Thessalonians 3:17, what sign does Paul give by which his letters are known? (See You Set Aside the Commandment of God.)

Don't Add to His Words

What the text says. The rule against adding runs the whole length of Scripture. At the giving of the law: “You shall not add to the word which I command you, neither shall you take away from it, that you may keep the commandments of Yahweh your God which I command you.” (Deuteronomy 4:2). At its close: “Whatever thing I command you, that you shall observe to do. You shall not add to it, nor take away from it.” (Deuteronomy 12:32). Agur prays it as wisdom:

“Every word of God is flawless. He is a shield to those who take refuge in him. Don’t you add to his words, lest he reprove you, and you be found a liar.

— Proverbs 30:5–6

Paul applies the same rule to himself and his fellow worker: “Now these things, brothers, I have in a figure transferred to myself and Apollos for your sakes, that in us you might learn not to think beyond the things which are written, that none of you be puffed up against one another.” (1 Corinthians 4:6). And he warns the Colossians where added teaching leads: “Be careful that you don’t let anyone rob you through his philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the elemental spirits of the world, and not after Christ.” (Colossians 2:8). The added rules there were strict ones: “‘Don’t handle, nor taste, nor touch’ (all of which perish with use), according to the precepts and doctrines of men?” (Colossians 2:21–22). “These things indeed appear like wisdom in self-imposed worship, humility, and severity to the body, but aren’t of any value against the indulgence of the flesh.” (Colossians 2:23). Passages: Colossians 2:20.

What we conclude. Three witnesses, one rule: God's word is not to be added to (Deuteronomy 4:2; Proverbs 30:6), and the church's own teachers are measured by the written word, not beyond it (1 Corinthians 4:6). Paul does not say the added rules of Colossians 2 were too lax; they had an appearance of wisdom (Colossians 2:23) and were still men's precepts. Our conclusion is that a rule's strictness, age, or sincerity does not make it God's. Its source does: what God has spoken binds; what men add does not bind as his word, however wise it appears.

The strongest objection. The holders answer from the end of John's Gospel:

There are also many other things which Jesus did, which if they would all be written, I suppose that even the world itself wouldn’t have room for the books that would be written.

— John 21:25

As they argue it, much of Jesus' teaching was never written. The written word is therefore incomplete by its own confession, and what was not written must have been carried another way — by the tradition of the church.

Our answer. Read what John says the unwritten things are: “many other things which Jesus did” (John 21:25) — deeds, not doctrines. John had made the same point at his Gospel's first ending, and there he states what the writing is for: “Therefore Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name.” (John 20:30–31). The written is not a fraction of the faith; it is what God chose to give “that you may believe” (John 20:31). The one saying of Jesus that no Gospel records proves the rule: “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” (Acts 20:35). It survives for us because Scripture recorded it — the unwritten we can check is the unwritten that got written. A command that cannot be read cannot be checked, and cannot be obeyed either — obedience cannot rest on words no believer can open. Our conclusion is that John 21:25 measures the greatness of Jesus' works. It does not describe a second, unwritten body of binding teaching, preserved elsewhere.

A second objection. They also cite Paul's charge to Timothy: “The things which you have heard from me among many witnesses, commit the same things to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.” (2 Timothy 2:2). As they argue it, here is the living chain: teaching passes from man to man by word of mouth, generation to generation, outside and beyond the written text.

Our answer. We honor the chain — and notice what travels in it. Timothy is to commit what he heard: “The things which you have heard from me among many witnesses, commit the same things to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.” (2 Timothy 2:2). It is a known content, heard in the open, not an open channel for later additions. Paul calls it a deposit to be guarded, in the same letter: “Hold the pattern of sound words which you have heard from me, in faith and love which is in Christ Jesus.” (2 Timothy 1:13). “That good thing which was committed to you, guard through the Holy Spirit who dwells in us.” (2 Timothy 1:14). And the same letter tells Timothy where the complete equipment for the work lies: “Every Scripture is God-breathed and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for instruction in righteousness, that each person who belongs to God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.” (2 Timothy 3:16–17). Faithful men teaching others is God's ordinary gift to his people, and this article depends on it. Our conclusion is that 2 Timothy 2:2 commissions teachers of a delivered deposit; it does not authorize any link in the chain to add his own teaching to it and bind others with it.

The Council That Laid No Greater Burden

What the text says. Scripture records one council of the apostles and the elders, and it met over exactly this question. Men had come teaching an added requirement as necessary for salvation: “Unless you are circumcised after the custom of Moses, you can’t be saved.” (Acts 15:1). Believing Pharisees stated it in the meeting: “It is necessary to circumcise them, and to command them to keep the law of Moses.” (Acts 15:5). Peter answered with the burden test: “Now therefore why do you tempt God, that you should put a yoke on the neck of the disciples which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear? But we believe that we are saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they are.” (Acts 15:10–11). James grounded the judgment in the written word: “This agrees with the words of the prophets. As it is written,” (Acts 15:15). And the council's letter did two things at once. It disowned the teachers who had gone beyond their commission: “some who went out from us have troubled you with words, unsettling your souls, saying, ‘You must be circumcised and keep the law,’ to whom we gave no commandment” (Acts 15:24). And it kept its own burden as small as an apostolic burden can be: “For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit, and to us, to lay no greater burden on you than these necessary things” (Acts 15:28). And the decree went out the way the apostles' teaching went in these pages — by word and by letter together: “They wrote these things by their hand” (Acts 15:23), and the men sent with the letter “who themselves will also tell you the same things by word of mouth” (Acts 15:27). The same decree, from the same known men, in both forms — the pattern this article has claimed throughout.

What we conclude. The one council that laid a burden was the apostles' own; it agreed with the words of the prophets (Acts 15:15) and laid “no greater burden” (Acts 15:28) than necessary. Its whole movement is the opposite of the teaching this article tests: where men pressed an added requirement, the council removed it; where teachers taught beyond their sending, the council disowned them; where the council did bind, it bound little, apostolically, and from the Scripture it quoted. Our conclusion is that Acts 15 gives later assemblies a pattern to follow, not a power to copy: agree with the written word, and lay no greater burden.

The strongest objection. The holders rest their case on the decree's own words:

For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit, and to us, to lay no greater burden on you than these necessary things: that you abstain from things sacrificed to idols, from blood, from things strangled, and from sexual immorality, from which if you keep yourselves, it will be well with you. Farewell.

— Acts 15:28–29

As they argue it, here the church, guided by the Holy Spirit, issues a binding decree on a matter Scripture had not settled in so many words. Councils after this one do the same, by the same Spirit, and their decrees bind the same way.

Our answer. We receive the decree as the apostles' own, and we note everything about how it was made. The council did not appeal to an unwritten tradition; it searched a live dispute and answered it from the prophets' written words (Acts 15:15), and the burden it laid was “no greater” (Acts 15:28) — a holding back, in a chapter where the pressure was all toward adding. Those who cite Acts 15:28 for the authority of later councils must take the whole verse's pattern with it: a body that claims this chapter today must do what this council did — show its agreement with the written word, and refuse burdens beyond the necessary things. Our conclusion is that Acts 15 authorizes the pattern, not an unlimited succession of new decrees; the decree's own modesty is part of its teaching.

A second objection. They also cite the keys: “I will give to you the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will have been bound in heaven; and whatever you release on earth will have been released in heaven.” (Matthew 16:19). As they argue it, binding and loosing is a standing authority given to Peter and his successors, so their binding carries heaven's own ratification.

Our answer. The keys are real, and Peter used them as the Gospels and Acts show him using them: he opened the kingdom by the preached word — to Israel at Pentecost, and to the nations by God's own choice, as he reminds the council: God “made a choice among you that by my mouth the nations should hear the word of the Good News and believe” (Acts 15:7). The binding of the companion passage is spoken over a discipline case, brother against brother in the congregation (Matthew 18:15–18), not over new doctrines. And the Peter of Acts, holding the keys, is the man who at the council refused to put a yoke on the disciples (Acts 15:10). And where the claim is pressed further — that the binding passed to successors — we ask for the text: a succession that binds is itself a teaching, and by the apostle's rule it binds only if it is written (1 Corinthians 4:6). No verse names one. Our conclusion is that Matthew 16:19 gives the apostle authority to open and to discipline by the word he was given; it does not give him, or any successor, authority to bind consciences with teaching Scripture does not contain.

Pause. What did the Jerusalem council answer to men who taught more than they were sent with — and how large a burden did the council itself lay? (See The Council That Laid No Greater Burden.)

Hard to Understand Is Not a License

What the text says. The last objection is the honest one, and Peter himself supplies its text. Of Paul's letters he writes: “In those, there are some things that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unsettled twist, as they also do to the other Scriptures, to their own destruction.” (2 Peter 3:16). Notice first what Peter assumes: Paul's letters are already read as Scripture — “the other Scriptures” (2 Peter 3:16) — and they are read by the ordinary believers Peter is writing to. Notice, second, the safeguard Peter gives. It is not an office. It is a warning and a growth: “You therefore, beloved, knowing these things beforehand, beware, lest being carried away with the error of the wicked, you fall from your own steadfastness. But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” (2 Peter 3:17–18).

What we conclude. Difficulty is real, and God has given his people real help with it: teachers. The leaders Scripture commends are commended for a specific thing — they are “men who spoke to you the word of God” (Hebrews 13:7) — and the response it commands is to consider their conduct and “imitate their faith” (Hebrews 13:7). Their authority is honored standing up: “Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they watch on behalf of your souls, as those who will give account” (Hebrews 13:17). And the pattern for receiving even an apostle's teaching is Berea's: the hearers “received the word with all readiness of mind, examining the Scriptures daily to see whether these things were so” (Acts 17:11), and Luke calls them noble for it. Paul was not diminished by the test; he was honored by it. Our conclusion is that teachers are God's gift and their word is to be weighed — by the Scripture, in the open, by the people they teach. That is not rebellion against teachers. It is the Bible's own description of good hearers. The church's first habit had the same shape: they “continued steadfastly in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship” (Acts 2:42) — devoted to the apostles' teaching itself, where it could be held and heard.

The strongest objection. The holders argue from Peter's warning itself, and we give the verse in full:

as also in all of his letters, speaking in them of these things. In those, there are some things that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unsettled twist, as they also do to the other Scriptures, to their own destruction.

— 2 Peter 3:16

If the ignorant and unsettled twist the letters, then letters alone are not safe in every hand. An authorized interpreter — a teaching office Christ appointed — must stand over the text, or each reader becomes his own authority and the twisting Peter fears is guaranteed.

Our answer. Peter's text names the disease and prescribes the cure, and the cure is not an office: it is steadfastness and growth in the knowledge of the Lord himself (2 Peter 3:17–18). He writes his warning to the readers, expecting them to hold the letters, weigh claims about them, and stand. The claim that interpretation belongs to an office alone is itself a teaching — and by the rule this article has followed from Mark 7 onward, it must be found in Scripture to bind. Second Peter 3:16 does not state it; it assumes the opposite, a church reading apostolic letters and answerable for how it reads them. Our conclusion is that hard passages call for teachers, patience, and the whole counsel of Scripture read together — never for handing the book to an office whose own readings may not be tested.

The Teaching We Differ From

The two teachings this article tests agree in one thing. Both hold that something handed down by men — a tradition, a council, a body of direction — may bind the believer's conscience with God's authority, beyond what Scripture itself states. We take them in turn.

The first form: Scripture and Tradition together. The Catholic Church teaches it in these words. The Gospel, its Catechism says, was handed on in two ways — orally, “by the spoken word of their preaching, by the example they gave, by the institutions they established, what they themselves had received” (Catechism of the Catholic Church 76), and in writing, by those who “committed the message of salvation to writing” (Catechism of the Catholic Church 76). The two are one stream: “Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture, then, are bound closely together, and communicate one with the other. For both of them, flowing out from the same divine well-spring, come together in some fashion to form one thing, and move towards the same goal.” (Catechism of the Catholic Church 80). And so the conclusion follows: the Church “does not derive her certainty about all revealed truths from the holy Scriptures alone. Both Scripture and Tradition must be accepted and honoured with equal sentiments of devotion and reverence.” (Catechism of the Catholic Church 82). Interpretation belongs to the office: “The task of giving an authentic interpretation of the Word of God, whether in its written form or in the form of Tradition, has been entrusted to the living teaching office of the Church alone. Its authority in this matter is exercised in the name of Jesus Christ.” (Catechism of the Catholic Church 85). “The task of interpreting the Word of God authentically has been entrusted solely to the Magisterium of the Church, that is, to the Pope and to the bishops in communion with him.” (Catechism of the Catholic Church 100).

We share much with those who hold this form. The apostles' teaching binds us — word and letter alike, as it bound the Thessalonians — and we say so without qualification. Scripture is “the speech of God as it is put down in writing under the breath of the Holy Spirit” (Catechism of the Catholic Church 81), and we confess it with them. We also gladly repeat the guard the same teaching sets on itself: “Yet this Magisterium is not superior to the Word of God, but is its servant. It teaches only what has been handed on to it.” (Catechism of the Catholic Church 86). That sentence is true, and it is the measure: a servant may hand on the master's word in full; where his teaching adds to it, the addition is the servant's, and Mark 7 tells us what Jesus calls teaching the commandments of men as doctrines.

Their verses are the ones read above — 2 Thessalonians 2:15, 1 Corinthians 11:2, 2 Timothy 2:2, John 21:25, Matthew 16:19, Acts 15:28 and 2 Peter 3:16 — each answered where it stands. We answer from the text both sides open. Paul commands holding the traditions the apostles taught (2 Thessalonians 2:15), and in the same letter marks his own hand as their sign (2 Thessalonians 3:17). God forbids adding to his words (Proverbs 30:6; Deuteronomy 4:2). And the pattern council removed burdens and disowned teachers who went beyond their sending (Acts 15:24, 28). Our conclusion is that the two-channel claim fails at its center: nothing in the apostles' letters promises a second channel beside them, carrying binding teaching they did not write.

The second form: direction received as God's guidance. Jehovah's Witnesses hold this teaching, and we state it in their own words. Their magazine teaches that Jesus feeds his followers through an appointed channel: “That faithful slave is the channel through which Jesus is feeding his true followers in this time of the end. It is vital that we recognize the faithful slave. Our spiritual health and our relationship with God depend on this channel.” (The Watchtower 2). The channel is a body of men at a headquarters: “that slave is made up of a small group of anointed brothers who are directly involved in preparing and dispensing spiritual food during Christ’s presence” (The Watchtower 10), and “In recent decades, that slave has been closely identified with the Governing Body of Jehovah’s Witnesses.” (The Watchtower 10). The response asked of believers is loyalty to the channel: “Let us be determined to show our appreciation by giving our loyal support to the anointed brothers who make up that faithful and discreet slave.” (The Watchtower 20). And the charge laid on the channel reaches the whole of the household's life: it is “charged with the responsibility to manage the household of faith” (The Watchtower 14), overseeing “material assets, the preaching activity, assembly and convention programs, and the production of Bible literature” (The Watchtower 14). The slave passages themselves — who the slave is, and what the illustration teaches — are examined in this series' first article, One Mediator. This article tests the narrower claim built on them: that direction from this body is to be received as God's present guidance.

We share the starting point of those who hold this form. God does feed his people through teachers, order in his household is a good gift, and loyalty to those who labor in the word is a Bible virtue (Hebrews 13:17). We share, too, the seriousness: they treat direction as a matter of one's relationship with God, and so it is — which is why its source matters.

Their verses are the same apostolic texts read above, and the answer is the same. Direction binds the conscience exactly as far as God's word binds it, and no farther: “They worship me in vain, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.” (Mark 7:7). Even an apostle's teaching was received at Berea by “examining the Scriptures daily to see whether these things were so” (Acts 17:11), and the examiners are the ones Scripture calls noble. The magazine says plainly: “Our spiritual health and our relationship with God depend on this channel.” (The Watchtower 2). In the text, a believer's standing rests on the word of God itself, which every believer may open. Our conclusion is that publications and direction from any headquarters are helps to be weighed by Scripture, not a channel of God's word beside it.

A verse that rules out a teaching does not say that those who hold it are lost, and we do not say it either. Many who hold these teachings love the Scriptures, honor the apostles, and obey God as they have been taught to see him. Some of us were taught the second in our own homes of worship, and one of us held it for fifteen years. We ask every reader to do with us what we ask throughout this series: open the text, and read it in context. Keep what is true.

Questions Answered

These questions touch this article. Each is answered from Scripture and labeled. The Statement of Faith, section 15, gives the same answers.

Which books belong in Scripture. Our conclusion: Scripture is the sixty-six books, Genesis to Revelation. Jesus received the Hebrew Scriptures in their three parts — “the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms” (Luke 24:44) — and from inside the New Testament, Peter already sets Paul's letters beside the other Scriptures (2 Peter 3:16) and Paul quotes the Gospel as Scripture (1 Timothy 5:18; Luke 10:7). Read the other way: Hebrews 11:35; Jude 14–15. Confidence: Solid for the Old Testament, Narrow for the New Testament list. Hebrews 11 retells Israel's history, including things no canonical book records (Hebrews 11:37); Jude quotes Enoch's prophecy as Paul quotes a Cretan prophet and calls his saying true (Titus 1:12–13) — a quoted sentence is received, not its book. Scripture gives no list of the New Testament books, as far as we can find; the contents of the third part of the Old are likewise received with the parts, not enumerated. We receive the books the apostles and their circle wrote.

The authority of church leaders and teachers. Our conclusion: leaders have real authority to teach, shepherd and correct by the Scriptures. No leader, council or church may bind a believer to anything Scripture does not teach (Matthew 23:8; Mark 7:7). Read the other way: Hebrews 13:17; Matthew 16:19; 18:18; Acts 15:28; 2 Thessalonians 2:15. Confidence: Solid. The leaders of Hebrews 13 are those “who spoke to you the word of God” (Hebrews 13:7), and the binding of Matthew 18 is spoken over a discipline case (Matthew 18:15–18). The one council that laid a burden was the apostles' own; it agreed with the words of the prophets (Acts 15:15) and laid “no greater burden” (Acts 15:28) than necessary. Leaders’ duties and their limits are both plain; applying them case by case is our step.

Teaching handed down outside Scripture. Our conclusion: what the apostles taught binds every believer, by word or by letter, and that teaching is now held in Scripture. No later teaching, however old, binds a believer unless Scripture teaches it (1 Corinthians 4:6). Read the other way: 2 Thessalonians 2:15; 2 Timothy 2:2; John 21:25. Confidence: Solid. Paul himself warns of a claim “by word or by letter as if from us” (2 Thessalonians 2:2) and gives his own hand as the sign (2 Thessalonians 3:17); what Timothy heard from him was heard “among many witnesses” (2 Timothy 2:2), and the same letter sends its readers to the Scriptures that equip “for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16–17). John says the many other things Jesus did are unwritten, and that what is written is written “that you may believe” (John 20:31; 21:25). The apostles’ authority is plain; that none of it binds outside Scripture is our step.

Days Scripture does not command, such as Christmas and Halloween. Our conclusion: each believer may keep such a day to the Lord or not keep it, fully assured in his own mind, and no one may judge another over it. A thing once used for idols is not forbidden for that alone, as Paul allowed meat from the market. But no one may worship another god, or worship God in the ways the nations served theirs, and no one may teach such a day as God’s command, nor teach its avoidance as God’s command where Scripture does not command it (Romans 14:5; 14:6; 14:13; 1 Corinthians 10:21; 10:25; 10:26; Mark 7:7; Colossians 2:21). Read the other way: Exodus 32:5; Deuteronomy 12:30–32; Jeremiah 10:2–5; Galatians 4:8–10; 2 Corinthians 6:14–17; Ephesians 5:11; 1 Kings 12:32–33; 1 Corinthians 10:28–29; Acts 15:29. Confidence: Solid. Scripture never names these days. Romans 14:5–6 speaks of days without naming them, and Colossians 2:16 of the Law’s feast days; applying them to days Scripture does not command is our step, with 1 Corinthians 10:25–26 for things once used for idols. Scripture plainly forbids worshipping other gods, sorcery and consulting the dead, on any day (1 Corinthians 10:20–21; Galatians 5:20; Isaiah 8:19). Deuteronomy 12:30–31 is the text that presses closest; its own reason is what the nations did to their gods (Deuteronomy 12:31), and our step is to draw the line where that reason puts it — at worship itself, not at things once used in it.

Whether salvation depends on these questions. Our conclusion: salvation depends on believing the good news about Jesus and remaining in his teaching. It does not depend on settling every question in this document (John 8:24). Read the other way: John 8:24; 1 John 2:23; Galatians 1:9. Confidence: Solid. John names the belief he requires: “that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God” (John 20:31). John’s denial is denying that Jesus is the Christ (1 John 2:22), and his test of teaching is the confession that Jesus Christ came in the flesh (2 John 7, 9). Galatians 1:9 curses a rival good news, not an unsettled question; Romans 14:1 shows that not every question divides.

What Scripture does not say. Scripture does not say that any teaching arising after the apostles binds a believer as God's word, or name a church, council, or headquarters whose word is God's word for today. It does not say that the apostles left part of their teaching unwritten and preserved apart from their letters, for a later body to deliver as binding. It does not forbid creeds that summarize what Scripture teaches, or customs held without binding, or teachers who teach the word — it forbids teaching the commandments of men as doctrines, and adding to his words. It does not say that any believer needs another's permission to open it. Where Scripture is silent, we do not build.

“The secret things belong to Yahweh our God; but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.” (Deuteronomy 29:29).

Where We Stand

Scripture says

  • In vain do they worship God, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men (Mark 7:7).
  • A tradition can set aside the commandment of God and make his word void (Mark 7:8–9, 13; Matthew 15:6).
  • Their fear of me is a commandment of men which has been taught (Isaiah 29:13).
  • You shall not add to the word, nor take away from it (Deuteronomy 4:2; 12:32).
  • Don't add to his words, lest he reprove you (Proverbs 30:6).
  • Learn not to think beyond the things which are written (1 Corinthians 4:6).
  • No one is to rob you after the tradition of men, and not after Christ (Colossians 2:8).
  • Men's rules appear like wisdom but are of no value: “Don’t handle, nor taste, nor touch” (Colossians 2:21–23).
  • The traditions the apostles taught bind those they taught, by word or by letter (2 Thessalonians 2:15).
  • Paul's own hand is the sign in every letter (2 Thessalonians 3:17).
  • The apostles' council agreed with the words of the prophets and laid no greater burden than necessary things (Acts 15:15, 28).
  • The Scriptures make the person of God complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work (2 Timothy 3:16–17).
  • Leaders who spoke the word of God are to be remembered, their faith imitated, and their watching obeyed (Hebrews 13:7, 17).

We conclude

  • Our conclusion: what the apostles taught binds, and that teaching is now held in Scripture; no later teaching binds a believer unless Scripture teaches it (1 Corinthians 4:6).
  • Our conclusion: direction from any church, council, or headquarters binds the conscience only so far as Scripture binds it; beyond the text, it is advice to be weighed, not God's word to be obeyed (Mark 7:7–9; Acts 17:11).
  • Our conclusion: a creed or confession binds only in what it restates from Scripture; as a summary it serves the text, and where it adds to the text it carries no authority of its own (Proverbs 30:6).
  • Our conclusion: teaching a day, or its avoidance, as God's command where Scripture does not command it is this same error in miniature (Mark 7:7; Colossians 2:21).

Hope

There is a kindness in a finished word. The same Deuteronomy that forbids adding ends its warning with a gift: “the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law” (Deuteronomy 29:29). The revealed things are ours — given to be read at our own tables, by our own children, without asking any man's leave. Jesus prayed for his own in exactly these terms: “Sanctify them in your truth. Your word is truth.” (John 17:17). And Paul, facing death, did not entrust the Ephesian elders to a successor or a channel. He entrusted them “to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to build up and to give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified” (Acts 20:32). The word is able. It is enough to build a believer up and to hand him his inheritance: “Every Scripture is God-breathed and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for instruction in righteousness, that each person who belongs to God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.” (2 Timothy 3:16–17). And it lights the road while we walk it: “Your word is a lamp to my feet, and a light for my path.” (Psalm 119:105).

Open the text. Read it in context. Keep what's true.

Living It Out

These are applications, offered as invitations.

  • Try reading Mark 7 and Matthew 15 side by side, and marking every place where Jesus answers a tradition by quoting the commandment it set aside.
  • When a teaching is pressed on you as God's command, you might ask one quiet question: where is that written? (1 Corinthians 4:6.)
  • Thank God for your teachers this week — and honor them the Bible's way, by weighing their words in the open text, as Berea weighed Paul's (Acts 17:11).
  • If you were raised under direction received as God's own voice, Proverbs 30:6 may free you: the words God forbade adding to are the words that are yours to keep.
  • Hold your customs and summaries gladly where they serve the text, and loosely where the text is silent — and let no one bind you, or be bound by you, beyond it (Mark 7:7; Romans 14:1).

Questions for Reflection

  1. What did the scribes ask Jesus about his disciples, and what did he answer them?
  2. In the Corban example, what had the tradition done to God's commandment — and what does Jesus call it? (See You Set Aside the Commandment of God.)
  3. What warning and what sign does Paul give inside the very letter that says “hold the traditions” (2 Thessalonians 2:15)? (See The strongest objection under You Set Aside the Commandment of God.)
  4. How did the Jerusalem council treat burdens, and teachers who taught beyond their sending? (See The Council That Laid No Greater Burden.)
  5. Why is “hard to understand” (2 Peter 3:16) not a reason to hand Paul's letters to an authorized interpreter? (See Hard to Understand Is Not a License.)
  6. What does it mean for you that the revealed things belong to us and to our children forever? (See Hope.)

Check It Yourself

  • Opening: Mark 7:1–5; Matthew 15:1–2.
  • The commandment and the tradition: Mark 7:6–13; Matthew 15:6; Isaiah 29:13.
  • Don't add: Proverbs 30:5–6; Deuteronomy 4:2; 12:32; 1 Corinthians 4:6; Colossians 2:8, 20–23.
  • The traditions the apostles taught: 2 Thessalonians 2:14–15; 2:2; 3:6, 17; 1 Corinthians 11:2, 23; 2 Timothy 2:2; 1:13–14; 3:16–17; John 21:25; 20:30–31; Acts 20:35.
  • The council and the keys: Acts 15:1, 5, 7, 10–11, 15, 23–24, 28–29; Matthew 16:19; 18:15–18.
  • Teachers, honored and bounded: 2 Peter 3:16–18; Hebrews 13:7, 17; Acts 17:11; Acts 2:42.
  • The teachings tested: Catechism of the Catholic Church 76, 80–82, 85–86, 100; The Watchtower (July 15, 2013) 2, 10, 14, 20.
  • Answered: Statement of Faith, section 15; Deuteronomy 29:29.
  • Hope: John 17:17; Acts 20:32; 2 Timothy 3:16–17; Psalm 119:105.

Next

Next in Test the Teaching: Every Believer Is God's Child. Are all who believe in Jesus born of God — or only a small class among them?

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© 2026 Elvis Lucas, Open the Text. Original: https://openthetext.com/series/test-the-teaching/04-gods-word-not-human-tradition/
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