Thoughts are powerful things: they can be liberating and empowering, or limiting and demoralizing.
A common story told regarding the captivating power of thoughts is that of the training of elephants. As it goes, young elephants are taken and using heavy chains are tethered to stakes driven deep into the ground. The young elephant continually pulls and struggles against the chain, eventually giving up and “learning” it cannot get free. Once this has happened, even as a full-grown elephant, it can be tethered with a rope and stake because the elephant “believes” they cannot get free.
We find the same process happens in our lives when God sends us illumination of His kingdom and it’s power. We have a series of thoughts that affect how we process this illumination; unfortunately, many times these thoughts limit what God desires to do with in us.
What is the source of these limiting thoughts? They are from the traditions of men. Speaking of the effects of the Pharisee’s’ teachings, Jesus said they were “nullifying and making void and of no effect [the authority of] the Word of God through your tradition, which you [in turn] hand on” (MK 7:13 AMP). They were nullifying the authority of the Word of God. Now how can that happen? Isn’t God’s word all-powerful? Yet they were rendering it useless. The key to grasping this is in the word “traditions.”
The word used for traditions is paradosis and means “giving over, giving up, surrender.”* It derived from paradidoomi which according to Thayer’s means: “to give into the hands (of another),” “to give over into (one's) power or use.” This word is used 121x and in 100 of them it us used in the negative sense of taking or handing over into captivity.
So the principle here is that the traditions of men create thought processes that take us into captivity. This captivity of thoughts, prevent us from see the truth or illumination of the Word of God, thus limiting its effectiveness in our lives.
*For more about the definition of tradition see blog “What Stops Us From Being Apostolic?” our book Apostolic Authority, Every Believer’s Privilege.
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7 comments:
I don't believe that could be any more true! If we would break that flimsy little rope (the rope of the past), we would be unstoppable!
The "rope" and "elephant" you speak of are (I believe) indicative of many stateside churches. Their theme song could be "I Shall Not Be Move". I also believe that there could be a factor of intimidation (as written about in John Bevere's book on the same subject) that is holding back many churches as they transition to new leadership. Great subject!
Thanks for the insight. I believe there is a great amount of peer pressure. Trying to look good, right for our cohorts. Not many want to be the first to publicly ask the hard questions then step out.
I am all for getting rid of the "traditions of man".
What has me somewhat disturbed, is that in many cases, God's "traditions" (teachings) are gotten rid of instead. They are labeled as "archaic" or "out dated", and mistakingly made out to be "traditions of man" as an excuse.
One obvious example of this would be BIBLICAL "standards" of holiness.
One old saying comes to mind more and more often now days--
Don't toss the baby out with the bath water.
In the scripture, the word tradition is associated with man's teaching. Jesus was critical of the pharisees because they taught man's traditions vs the commandments of God.
Just to make sure I am clear to all, when I speak of traditions, I am referencing man's teachings that have become entrenched in religion that make the "commandments of God of none effect."
In one verse in the Letters, it speaks of this tradition that God has given us.
Its one of the exceptions you mentioned in your articles that is a positive usage of the word.
I need to re-install my e-sword program so I can find it again lol.
I love this post and I have said Jesus was a 'Rebel' to the religious world ....that is why they wanted to kill Him. He wouldn't do things according to their tradition, He responded totally to the living Word which can't be bound!!! Oh Hallelujah! Thanks for this post and God bless!
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