Sometimes when I am teaching or speaking about something, I just assume that people are going to understand what I am talking about. But, as was the case Sunday morning in our adult Sunday School class, that does not always happen. To be fair, part of it was probably owing to a lack of clarity on my part, but based on the feedback I was receiving in the discussion it was evident that popular misconceptions were at work as well.

Essentially, what I was attempting to teach on was the Reformed tradition expressed in our confessional documents, and specifically what authority we give that tradition. However, when people hear the word “tradition” their immediate thought is to use it as an adverb—traditional worship, high church liturgy, ritual and symbolism, and so on. Most of the people who attend Sunday School do not come from Reformed, and especially confessional, backgrounds, and thus it took a bit of work to define tradition in the sense I was using it. But once they started to understand, we had a more fruitful discussion.

In the last few weeks we had been talking about worship, and while we consistently went back to Scripture to form our understanding, we also kept looking at portions of the Westminster Standards in particular. By doing so, I was implying that the Standards carried some authority. Realizing two things—first, that as modern evangelicals, most of them were going to be of the mindset that “me and my Bible” was a sufficient authority for determining faith and practice; and second, that they might think I am putting the Standards on the same level as Scripture—I wanted to spend some time discussing the place of our confessional documents in the life of the church.

Anyway, enough about context; here are some of the points I made:

1. We don’t live in an historical vacuum. I’ve made this point recently, and so won’t spend a great deal of time on it again. It is just important to note that we don’t live in a vertical “here-and-now” but that we are part of something much bigger than ourselves; we are part of a story that begins with creation and will climax at the consummation. As such, the Church of today does not stand alone, separated from the historical Church. What has come before us has shaped us in every way, and we ought to recognize all the implications that go along with that, including theological ones.
2. Our tradition carries authority by virtue of the fact that our theology and doctrine were cultivated in community. When a body of believers sets themselves to the task of pursuing biblical truth, they are guided by the Spirit in their work. As I mentioned above, the “me and my Bible” mentality so prevalent in the church today is insufficient. While we certainly confess the ability of the individual to understand Scripture, the individual also becomes part of a community of faith when he becomes a believer. It is to that community, the Church, that the deposit of truth is entrusted. I used the example of Martin Luther to illustrate this point. When he first discovered the hallmark doctrine of justification by faith, he spent a great deal of time in anguish wondering, "Could I really be right about this?" He was convinced of the authority of the Church, and struggled immensely with standing in opposition to her teaching.
3. Abraham Kuyper once wrote that in doing theology, we should begin with the assumption that the Church is right, and largely for the reasons I just mentioned. The Church, though certainly not standing in a realm of total objectivity and greatly influenced by a host of different factors, nonetheless holds an authority of a much more objective nature than we as individuals do. God has entrusted His truth to a people, a community, and we should be wary of assuming that we can discover the fullness of that truth outside of the body.
4. Finally, I wanted to emphasize to the class that our confessions form the grammar for how we speak in Reformed and Presbyterian churches. One who is familiar with confessional documents such as the Westminster Standards would begin to understand the depths of the Reformed tradition a great deal more than if he merely attended worship services on a Sunday morning. I encouraged the class to spend some time reading and studying them because the confessions help form a theological basis that would otherwise be very difficult for an individual to formulate on their own. They give orientation and direction, and a solid foundation to stand on.

In no way do I want to take away from the primacy of the authority of Scripture or the need and importance of studying the Word of God. Absolutely not! What I wanted to demonstrate was simply that it is impossible for us not to approach Scripture from an angle; and because of that, it is helpful to begin with a frame of reference which has been cultivated among a body of godly and devoted believers wholeheartedly committed to the Gospel, to the authority of Scripture, and to the pursuit of truth and the furtherance of Christ's Kingdom.

As is likely evident here, I told the class that I myself was working through some of the things I was trying to get them talking about. At this point it is hard to say what they took away from it, but my hope and intention was to give them a new understanding and appreciation for the idea of tradition, and specifically our Reformed heritage (although that probably deserves another lesson—or two, or three—on its own).

At any rate, I post this here because I want to engage you as well, readers. Any thoughts about all of this?