The Traditions of Men make Void the Commandments of God

 A good question to begin on is, “where did we learn to do all the things we do today in our Sunday or Wednesday meeting?”  Have you ever thought about all the different things that are done in the name of

Christianity?  Are these things we do really what the Bible teaches us to do?  Where and when did all these things begin?

From the simple act of dressing up in our good clothes to the actual “church service” we attend, there are hundreds of traditions mixed into our lives each time we “go to church”.  These are just a few of them.

The practice of getting dressed up to “go to church” began in the middles ages as the wealthy were inspired to impress one another with the latest attire of royalty.  Can you imagine the believers of the first century decking themselves out in their latest robe and sandals that they just picked up from “Camel’s Sport Wear Shop”?  These believers were a simple folk who lived simple lives. They could care less what anyone else had on let alone what the latest attire was for the month.  They probably sat together on the floor of someone’s home (dirt more than likely) or in the field near someone’s farm.  They also had no concept of “going to church” because they were the church.  We could use a dose of what those Christians knew.

            What about these church buildings?  Are they scriptural?  Where did they get their beginnings?  I know.  You’re going to tell me that they developed out of the need to house all the believers that were being saved, right?  Wrong! Read your Bibles.  They were meeting “in the homes of men” all through the first three centuries and there were thousands added to the Church year after year.

            What changed the pattern of these home meetings spoke of in the New Testament?  It was a Roman emperor by the name of Constantine in the year 324 AD.  He along with his mother, Empress Helena, invented the church building.  Both of them had been born and raised as pagans.  They were part of the elite of the empire.  In keeping their position and the political customs of the day, they had often erected pagan temples in honor of various gods.  After Constantine was converted, he continued the custom, with only the slightest variation.  Now he erected “Christian” temples.  The “Christian” temples commemorated dead saints instead of pagan gods.  The first such temples built at Constantine’s command were in Rome, Jerusalem, Bethlehem and in the new city called Constan-tinople.  All were commissioned in the same year 342 AD p. 223, “The Early Church” by Gene Edwards, Published by Christian Books, Goleta, California 93017 © Gene Edwards 1974.

            It was during this period, the age of Constantine, that the church was made part of the world system.  The church was literally ordered to become part of the Roman Empire’s department of religion.  This age saw politicians become ministers. . . for one reason:  their property was exempt from taxation if they were clergymen.  (Even the term clergy was taken from pagan temple priests).  This was the age when the Emperor offered his soldiers silver to convert to Christianity, when the church became the official religion of the Empire, when the department of religion was given the power to collect taxes, when the church lost its simplicity and became a corrupt political power.  This was the age when the early church slipped quietly off the pages of history and something like “Christianity”, patterned in structure and in practice after the Roman Empire, took the center stage.  This was the age the church building was invented or, to be more exact, was adopted from pagan temples pp.223-224, “The Early Church”, by Gene Edwards, Published by Christian Books, Goleta, California 93017, © Gene Edwards 1974.

            Along with the “church building” we have, thanks to tradition again, the Sunday School building, or department.  About 1800, from the Chicago slums, D. L. Moody began to teach in what we now call the Sunday School or Educational Department.

            We might also mention here that children were a vital part of the believers meetings as we can see in Acts.  Remember the young boy who fell out of the window after Paul’s long dissertation?  No Sunday School there.

            How about the stain glass windows, steeples, pews, bulletins and choirs?  All of these surprisingly traditional also.  The steeples and windows from the 12th century, from the Basisica of St. Denis in France.  The pews from the 1500’s Reformation, the choir from the 3rd and 4th centuries from the pagan temple rituals which included chants also.  As for the bulletins and order of worship; they are very much a part of our “modern Christian society”.  Martin Luther is responsible for the 11:00 a.m. “church service” and the bulletin came out of the 1500’s from Wittenburg, Germany.  Along with those two came the invention of the hymnal and the offering plate.

            Just about every Protestant denomination on earth, regardless of how they differ from one another in creed, follows almost exactly the same worship procedure (listed here) . . . every Sunday morning.

            It goes pretty much like this:

                        Opening song

                        Pastor prays

                        Three more songs

                        Prayer

                        Offer plates are passed

                        Another song or some kind of special music

                        Sermon

                        Closing song

                        Closing prayer.

p. 225.”The Early Church” by Gene Edwards, Published by Christian Books, Goleta, California 93017 © Gene Edwards 1974.

            The pulpit was invented during the Reformation.  Actually, the structure itself could be found in just about any Roman Catholic cathedral even before the Reformation.  At that time the “pulpit” was actually a small wooden bucket affair attached to one of the interior pillars of the cathedral.  The Catholics used this box mostly for making announcements.  During the Reformation, many of those cathedrals were taken from the Roman Catholics by the Protestants.  (They called the process “religious wars”.)  With the wooden buckets turned into the modern day pulpit . . . [in that pulpit stands the pastor] . . . the word “pastor” does not appear in the New Testament.  “One” time!  But never, anywhere, is that office clearly explained.  It is not defined, and there is no illustration of it anywhere in the first century literature.  Certainly the Scripture contains nothing similar to this modern day thing called “our pastor”.

            Today “the pastor” is literally the cornerstone of Christianity.  He holds Christianity together.  But is the present day position of “pastor” Scriptural?

            Of course not!  The present day concept of the pastor originated no further back than the Reformation.  A pastor has less Scriptural foundation than the pulpit he leans on.

            Martin Luther unwittingly invented the modern pastor.  Soon after Luther broke with the Pop he turned his ex-Roman Catholic cathedral into a place to expound the Bible.  (He didn’t get burned at the stake for this because he had the army of Fredrick the Wise, ruler of his part of Germany, to protect him).  Many priests and nuns left the Roman Catholic church after he did and literally came pouring into his town by the oxcart load.

            These priests turned Lutherans wanted to remain in religious service.  They, along with others who sat under Luther, picked up his way of doing things.  Many of these men later left Wittenburg and began taking charge of other Roman Catholic-cathedrals-turned-Lutheran cathedrals in other cities.  They just naturally continued the practices they had learned from Luther.

            So was born something that later acquired the handle of “pastor”.  It would be nice if someone . . . . would tell the “pastors”.  pp. 226-227, “The Early Church” by Gene Edwards, Published by Christian Books, Goleta, California 93017 © Gene Edwards 1974.

            Let’s look at another of the traditional exhibits of the modern day church which we are constantly bombarded with through the television, radio and Sunday night meetings.  The “missionary”.

            The modern missionary was invented by a man named William Carey, back during the late 1700’s.  Carey fathered what is called “the modern missionary movement”.  He gave Christianity the vision of evangelizing the world; he showed Christians their responsibility to save lost men in foreign lands.  (He himself went to India.)

            During the early 1800’s many denominations picked up Carey’s idea of the missionary.  Then, to raise money to send these people overseas, denominations invented something called “the mission board”.  Inter-denominational faith mission boards came later.  These boards send out missionaries too.  But, of course, they do not get much money from churches, as the denominations do, so they solicit money directly from individuals.

            The missionary, as commendable as he may be, and his methods, as ingenious as they are, and his way of raising money, as abominable as it is, does not look anything like the Apostles and workers of the first century.  They are even a stumbling block to a recovery of the Lord’s ways.

            D.L. Moody, who helped found the YMCA (“training Christian young men in body, mind and spirit”) and John R. Mott, founder of the Student Christian Movement (“the evangelization of the world in our generation”) hold the honors of more or less inventing the modern “inter-denominational organization” of the late 1800’s.  At first these organizations were patterned after the foreign mission boards with one major difference:  they served the home front.  There weren’t many of these interdenominational organizations.  Raising funds was a problem.  But that changed.

            It was the 16th amendment of the United States Constitution, establishing the income tax that caused the proliferation of these organizations. Today they fill the earth.  That amendment eventually established tax deductions for gifts given to religious organizations.  Soon non-profit, religious organizations were springing up everywhere.  If the tax deduction privilege were taken away from taxpayers, the religious organizations of today would close up overnight.  Since the end of World War II, the non-profit, tax exempt, inter-denominational organizations have become so powerful, so numerous, so large, and inclusive of so many, many areas of Christian service, that they now rival denominations n size and influence.  (pp.227-228, “The Early Church” by Gene Edwards, Published by Christian Books, Goleta, California 93017 © Gene Edwards 1974)