Should Believers Rely on Scripture Alone or Also on Tradition?
1) Direct answer
Believers must rely on the Bible alone as the final authority. Any “tradition” that adds to, takes from, or stands beside the Word as equal authority is to be rejected. Customs may exist, but they carry no binding power unless they are plainly taught in Scripture.
2) Scriptural explanation
- The Bible says all Scripture is God-breathed and sufficient to thoroughly furnish the man of God (2 Timothy 3:16–17). If it furnishes us completely, nothing else can be required.
- Jesus rebuked those who made “the word of God of none effect” through their tradition (Mark 7:7–9,13).
- We are warned not to add to or take away from God’s Word (Deuteronomy 4:2; Proverbs 30:5–6; Revelation 22:18–19).
- Even if an angel preached something different, we must not receive it (Galatians 1:8–9).
- “To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, there is no light in them” (Isaiah 8:20).
- The Spirit guides into all truth (John 16:13), but Jesus defined truth: “Thy word is truth” (John 17:17). The Holy Spirit will only quicken what is written.
- Some point to “traditions” in 2 Thessalonians 2:15 and 1 Corinthians 11:2. Those were the apostles’ own teachings given to the church and now preserved in Scripture. The only traditions we “hold” are the apostolic instructions recorded in the Bible.
3) Simple clarifying logic
Now notice: if Scripture is complete and God-breathed, then putting tradition beside it creates a second authority—and two authorities will soon contradict. That’s how the commandments of men nullify the commandments of God. You see, the Word judges tradition; tradition never judges the Word. If a practice agrees with Scripture, we receive it because it is Scripture. If it is not in the Word, it cannot be binding on the believer.
4) Reinforcing statement
Man lives “by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4). Stay with the Word. The Bible is the absolute.
Ask a Follow-up Question
What did the Laodicean Church Age (our age) Angel (- messenger) Say about this?
Ranked passages from the local William Branham sermon and Church Age Book database. Relevance is relative, not a statement of doctrinal certainty.
The beginning of Jesus' fame
53-0605 §40
...all your mind to be healed. And do you do this, lady? Do you believe that you're standing---not your brother here, see---but you're in the presence of Him, the supernatural one, who had His picture taken on this paper here? You do. You're married? Could I speak to you to one side just a moment? You all just sing, Only Believe, if you will, now. Only Believe. [Break in tape.] ... just something that couldn't be said before a audience. It was ... only God, Himself, would know in that manner. Is that right, young lady...
It is I
61-0517 §84
We are strangers to each other. I never seen you in my life. You're younger than I. I--I have just never seen you. But perhaps that woman that met our Lord at the well that time, she was probably younger than He was. And that was their first time meeting. And here we meet just like they did. Now, you're a human being; I'm a human being. I don't know you; you don't know me. But by being Christians, then we have a Father Who knows both of us. If He can tell me something that you're here for, or something that you hav...