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Tradition or Truth?
A companion to the tract Tradition or Truth? · Balkan Baptist Church, Novi Sad
A well-worn path
Picture a path across a field. Your grandparents walked it, and their grandparents before them. It is worn so deep that the grass no longer grows there. Walking it feels safe, because everyone you love has walked it too.
But a path can be worn very deep and still lead to the wrong village. How many feet have walked it does not tell you where it goes. Only the map can tell you that.
The question is not how old the path is. The question is where it leads.
If you are reading this, you probably scanned the code on our little tract. Thank you for taking the time. This page is the full story behind it, and it ends with the most important question anyone can ask: what does it mean to be born again?
Lessons from the American Indians
The tribes of America had rich traditions: honor for elders, strong families, courage and hospitality. Many of those things are good, and the Bible praises them too.
But not every tradition was good. The Aztecs and the Inca sincerely offered children to their gods, as their fathers had done before them. They were not careless or wicked in their own eyes. They were faithful to what they had been taught.
A tradition can be old, beautiful and sincerely believed, and still be wrong.
What Jesus said about tradition
This is not only a problem for faraway tribes. Jesus said the same thing to the most religious men of His own day:
“Full well ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own tradition.”
— Mark 7:9
A few verses later He warned that they were “making the word of God of none effect through your tradition” (Mark 7:13). Tradition is not wrong in itself. It becomes wrong when it stands where only God's Word should stand. (For more on this passage, read The Rose and the Thorns.)
Keeping the heritage, laying down the error
Today many Native Americans have trusted Jesus Christ. They have not stopped being who they are. God “hath made of one blood all nations of men” (Acts 17:26), and He loves every one of them. They still honor their elders and their heritage. But wherever a tradition stood against God's Word, they laid it down.
That is the choice in front of every people and every family, including ours: keep what agrees with Scripture, and let go of what does not.
PAUSE AND REFLECT Is there something I believe only because my family always has, and I have never checked it against the Bible? |
The original gospel of the Balkans
Some people hear a message like this and think it is something new, brought in from America. It is not. This truth has been preached in the Balkans since the time of Christ.
Long before modern traditions and religious systems, the people of the Balkans, like all people, needed the same thing we need today: a right relationship with God.
“Right belief”
“Orthodoxy” is a Greek word meaning “right belief.” That is a good thing to want. So what did the first Greek-speaking Christians here believe?
In the city of Philippi, the apostle Paul and Silas were beaten and locked in prison. At midnight an earthquake shook the doors open, and the terrified jailer fell down before them and asked, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” Their answer was simple:
“Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.”
— Acts 16:31
No ceremony was required first. No list of works. The jailer believed, and he was saved that very night.
Was the gospel really preached in the Balkans?
Yes. Paul crossed into Europe after a vision of a man saying, “Come over into Macedonia, and help us” (Acts 16:9). He preached in Philippi, Thessalonica and Berea (Acts 16–17).
Later he wrote that “from Jerusalem, and round about unto Illyricum, I have fully preached the gospel of Christ” (Romans 15:19). Illyricum covered much of the western Balkans. And near the end of his life Paul mentions that Titus had gone “unto Dalmatia” (2 Timothy 4:10), on the Adriatic coast.
The gospel is not a new message. It is the same good news God has always given: we are sinners, Christ died for our sins, He rose again, and all who trust in Him are saved.
No tradition, ceremony, or good work can remove sin. Only the finished work of Jesus Christ can do that.
What does God say about salvation?
1. We have all sinned
“For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). Not some of us. All of us, religious and non-religious alike. And sin carries a price: “For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 6:23).
2. Salvation cannot be earned
“For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast” (Ephesians 2:8–9). A gift you pay for is no longer a gift. Our good works, however sincere, cannot buy what God offers freely.
3. Christ paid for us
“But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). He did not wait for us to clean ourselves up. He died in our place, “and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures” (1 Corinthians 15:4).
4. Ye must be born again
Jesus said this to Nicodemus, a man who kept every tradition (John 3:7). And the promise is open to everyone: “For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved” (Romans 10:13).
What does it mean to be born again?
A visitor by night
Nicodemus was “a man of the Pharisees… a ruler of the Jews” (John 3:1). If anyone could reach heaven by tradition, it was him. He knew the Scriptures, he prayed, he fasted, he kept every custom of his fathers. Jesus even called him “a master of Israel” (John 3:10).
Yet when he came to Jesus by night, Jesus did not tell him to try harder. He told him he needed to start over:
“Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
— John 3:3
A new birth, not a better life
Nicodemus was confused: “How can a man be born when he is old?” (John 3:4). Jesus explained that He was not talking about our first birth, but a second one: “That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit” (John 3:6).
Being born again is not turning over a new leaf, joining a church or keeping better traditions. It is God giving you new life from the inside. John says those who receive Christ are “born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:13). Not by family line. Not by effort. Not by any priest or ceremony. By God.
And then Jesus told Nicodemus how it happens, in the most famous verse in the Bible: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16).
Tradition can shape how you live. Only God can give you new life.
What became of Nicodemus
The man who first came by night, afraid to be seen, is the same man who came in the open after the cross. He brought about a hundred pound weight of myrrh and aloes to bury the body of Jesus (John 19:39). Something had changed in him. The traditions had not saved him. The Saviour had.
PAUSE AND REFLECT Am I trusting what I do for God, or what Christ has done for me? |
Bringing it home
Back to the path
Think again about that well-worn path. You do not have to stop loving the people who walked it before you. But you do have to ask where it leads. God has given us the map in His Word, and it points to one place: Jesus Christ.
If you have never been born again
You can settle it today, right where you are. Admit to God that you are a sinner. Believe that Jesus died for your sins and rose again. Trust Him alone to save you, not your traditions, not your works.
“That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved” (Romans 10:9).
There are no magic words. But if it helps, you can pray something like this, meaning it from your heart:
Lord Jesus, I know I am a sinner, and I cannot save myself. I believe You died for my sins and rose again. I trust You alone to save me. Please forgive me and give me eternal life. Amen.
You can know for sure
Many people are taught that no one can be sure of heaven. But God wants you to be sure: “These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life” (1 John 5:13). And Jesus promised, “I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish” (John 10:28).
Tradition says, “Work hard and hope.” Truth says, “Believe, and know.”
If you trusted Christ today, or if you have questions, we would love to hear from you. We would be glad to open the Bible with you and help you take your next step.
ABOUT THIS PAGE This page goes with our gospel tract “Tradition or Truth?”. You are welcome to join us at Balkan Baptist Church, Ćirila i Metodija 42a, Novi Sad: Sundays at 11:30 and 18:30, and Wednesdays at 18:30. |
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