Who can forget the opening scene of “Fiddler on the Roof” as Tevye rolls his wheelbarrow on to the stage and addresses the audience with the now famous song, “Tradition.” The year is 1905 and the Russian Revolution is about to begin. Tevye is a pious Jew who raises his five daughters with the aide of quotations from the Bible (many of which he invents himself). He acknowledges that their traditions give order to their lives and stability to their community. Without tradition, the good citizens of Anatevka would be as shaky as a “fiddler on the roof.”

In the church, we have many traditions too. Some of them, such as the special ways we celebrate Christmas and Easter, help us draw closer to God. We even define tradition by using words such as contemporary or tradition when we describe worship music.  Tradition can be good, but tradition can lead to legalism, which is exactly where the early church found itself as it considered “tradition.”