II Thessalonians 2:15

II Thessalonians 2

15 So then, brothers, stand firm and hold to the traditions that you were taught by us, either by our spoken word or by our letter.

In this chapter, Paul is talking about the end times and how people that have rejected Christ will be greatly deceived. He reminds the believer to walk in Christ and remain worthy of the calling they received from God. Then, verse fifteen says to stand firm and hold to the traditions you were taught.

Traditions in this verse don’t refer to traditions as we think of them. We think of things like traditional services or the order of service, hymns, different practices your denomination holds to, etc. But Paul specifically says traditions that you were taught by us, either by our spoken word or by our letter. So the ‘traditions’ taught are literally the Biblical truths and doctrines set forth in Scripture.

It seems obvious that we should be holding to Scripture, following it closely. So why the reminder to ‘stand firm?’ Straying from Scripture and/or entertaining false gospels is incredibly dangerous. You can probably think of preachers that gradually moved away from sermons full of Scripture to those full of other teachings. How long was it until their message changed? Or maybe you know someone that stopped going to church. How long before their life was completely different or before things were justified that they were previously adamantly against?

As people called to be in the world (not of it), we are exposed to false ‘gospels’ everyday. Ideologies like ‘all roads lead to heaven,’ ‘eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we die’ (in other words- live it up because this is all there is), ‘YOLO,’ ‘You get to heaven if your good outweighs your bad on the scales of life,’ ‘______ (money, fame, sex, pleasure, etc) brings happiness.’ The list goes on and on.

If we stray from the foundational truths of Scripture, we can quickly be deceived by the vast array of false teachings. While we can definitely pray for the Holy Spirit to help us recognize false gospels, we also have a responsibility to be grounded in Scripture and to ‘stand firm,’ holding fast to the doctrines and truths within it.