Tradition!

If you read the Bible long enough, you'll start to see a pattern.  I mean beyond the fact that most of the people discussed are Jewish.  One of the recurring themes in Scripture is that God's people have a tendency to not want to go forward into the unknown.  The children of Israel had spent 400 years in Egypt getting treated like insured rental cars at the hands of an oppressive empire.  Finally, they're freed, and what do they want to do?  Let's go back to Egypt!  How come?  Because at least in Egypt I knew what tomorrow would bring.  It was predictable.  Miserable, yes, but at least I wasn't surprised by anything.  Men would rather be flogged than trust the unseen.  Sure the Egyptian dude in the loin cloth and eye-liner had dominance over them, but the task masters couldn't control what the next day would bring.  That dye was cast.  Now before we get to hard on these folks, they had spent 400 years in this system, and that's a pretty ingrained system to suddenly abolish.

Then what about when we get to the New Testament.  Paul tells us in Galatians and Ephesians that the system of Jewish distinction that had been in place for 1,500 years is suddenly gone.  1,500 years!  So, we can understand when Peter & even Barnabas backslide into tradition.  It's harder to kick than Jugy Fruits or meth-laced Skoal.

Yet that is precisely what we are called to do.  To jump headlong into the wonder, mercy, and grace of a loving Father God.  He is good; we can trust Him.  Even if it's different than the way we used to do things.  The book of Exodus tells us that on Mount Horeb (now called Sinai), God called ALL the people to come to Him so that they could inaugurate the first true Kingdom Of Priests.  It was scary and unknown, so the people wigged out and didn't go.  Only Moses.  Imagine what all they missed!  Imagine what all we miss.  Tradition is marvelous, but it does not save.  He is good; we can trust Him.