One of the most common exhortations throughout the Scriptures is to stand firm, endure, etc. The letters of Paul are particularly replete with this clarion call to hold fast to the Faith in the face of heresy and persecution. One of the most famous, and perhaps most controversial, of these passages is found in 2 Thessalonians 2:15:
So then, brothers, stand firm and hold to the traditions that you were taught by us, either by our spoken word or by our letter.
Hmm...
I think this is one of those passages that many people have read over time and time again without really comprehending what is being said. As a member of a denomination that is historically tied to the Protestant Reformation, I am forced to ask: How do Protestants account for this?
The Reformers, disenchanted with the endless traditions of the Roman Catholic Church, established the Scriptures as their exclusive foundation for doctrine, practice, and worship. They viewed themselves not as revolutionaries, but as restorationists, re-establishing the standard that the RCC had abandoned. They were not concerned as much with the inspiration and infallibility of the Bible, issues that would come to the forefront in the 19th and 20th Centuries, but with the matter of sufficiency. They insisted that the Word of God is sufficient to establish all things necessary for faith and practice, an all-encompassing phrase.
The history of the Reformed Churches, marked with schism, has been an experiment in the viability of this standard. As we observe the many groups within the Reformed tradition that have formed due to bitter disagreements over the interpretation of Scripture, climaxing in the proliferation of American denominations and independent congregations, one may begin to lose hope in the merits, or at least the sustainability, of Sola Scriptura. What do you do when every pastor become a Pope? Is an objective standard possible without an authoritative interpreter? What is to be done when genuine Christians genuinely interpret the Scriptures in radically opposing ways? These are the questions that face the Reformed Churches.
The side-effects of the Reformation noted, let us look at Paul's exhortation again. He encourages, even commands, the Thessalonian Christians to stand firm and to hold to the traditions that they had been taught by Paul and his retinue (or perhaps by the entire Apostolate). He then makes a very interesting, and quite natural, distinction between the teaching he had imparted orally and that which he had imparted through his epistles. Again, I am confronted with a question: Do we only have half of the traditions taught by the Apostles?
It's a fair question. If we emphasize the Scriptures, the written traditions, at the expense of the oral traditions, are we missing something? Even without Paul's distinction here, it would seem to be common sense that much of what the Apostles taught (and what Jesus taught them) was never inscripturated. There is no sense in the New Testament writings that the Apostles and Evangelists were trying to create an all-sufficient canon. They did not set out to give us a Systematic Theology, Order of Worship, or Book of Church Order. Their teaching was relational and situational, occasionally written, but more often spoken.
So, we are presented with a final question: Do we have to become Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox to have the fulness of the Apostolic Faith?
My answer, which is based on the Scriptures, ante-Nicene writings, and a general understanding of Church history, is a resounding No! No single patriarchate, whether Rome or any other, holds the keys to the Kingdom in their sole possession. The traditions of the Apostles are not some esoteric collection of truths entrusted to a single, nepotistic institution. It is not a bishop, but the bishops, that hand down the Faith once delivered.
To assert that the Roman Catholic Church or the Eastern Orthodox Church is the crux of unity for the Body of Christ is to abandon true catholicity. Consider the Church Councils. Beginning with the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15, clergy from around Christendom were called to respond to doctrinal and ecclesiastical issues as a Catholic Church, united though disparate. No single jurisdiction or bishop possessed sole or final authority. To place one tradition at the center or head of the Church both denies the headship of Christ and corrupts genuine catholicity.
So, whether you are a Protestant, Roman Catholic, or Eastern Orthodox, your goal should be to decipher and observe the teachings of the Apostles, whether they were imparted by spoken word or by letter. If we hold to the written Scriptures at the expense of all else, we risk lacking the fulness of the Apostolic Faith. That statement may be shocking, particularly to those for whom the Five Solas remain paramount, but we must not place upon the Scriptures a burden that they do not claim to bear.
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