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.
Hear His Voice
58-1005M §69
There was another by the name of Peter, who had become saved and had also been filled with the spirit. And he still wanted to hang on to the traditions of the elders. All he'd know would've been hearing the Word. And one day on a house top, when he wanted to keep the traditions of "Don't eat any meat, and the Sabbaths," and so forth. There's a many a good person still tries to hang onto stuff like that.
The End-time Evangelism
62-0603 §59
...k, and then immediately after that, Nimrod, that renegade, he built a tower, and said, "If the floods would come, we'll just climb up and get above it." And then God come along with the law that just... See, that dispensation had lived it's time out. And when Jesus came, also, after the law, the law spoke of Moses and ... spoke of the coming of Christ. But when He came, they was so set in the traditions of the fathers, they had their creeds, they had their fashions, they had their churches, they were settled down,...
What shall we do with this Jesus called Christ?
64-0126 §14
And the church had turned down their Messiah. Although He'd been so well identified to them, they had chosen rather to stay with the tradition of the elders of that day, than to believe the anointed, vindicated Word that God had promised them for hundreds of years to come. Did you notice it also prophesied that they'd be blinded? They couldn't understand this and how they'd be blinded; but they were. And they had made their great mistake. And this day they had made their final show of it. And now it's in the hands...
The anointed ones at the end time
65-0725M §77
Before all the elders, and the congregation, and all Israel. See, he wanted to show he could be just as big as Jeremiah. "You know they don't like you anyhow, so I'm a prophet also. I'm a ... more of a prophet than you are, because you're prophesying a lie. You tell me God's people is going to be under such-and-such a thing." That's what they say today, but you'll be there just the same as a church. You're accursed with a curse. All you churches, denominations that's holding to the tradition of men instead of the W...
The Mighty God unveiled before us
64-0629 §65
Now, when their tradition veil of traditions of the elders and the Word is broke through, oh, of course, today, then comes in plain view, we see Him, Deity again veiled in human flesh. Hebrews 1 said so, and also Genesis 18. You remember God was a man, standing there eating and talking with Abraham, and told what Sarah was doing in the tent behind it. And Jesus said, "As it was in the days of Sodom, so shall it be at the coming of the Son of man," Deity veiled again in human flesh. Now remember, Jesus didn't say, "...