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.
An Exposition Of The Seven Church Ages
CAB 3:E-15
Now then, I think there is something else you ought to know. The seven churches which are addressed by John are in Asia Minor and are all Gentile churches. He does not speak to the church at Jerusalem which was mostly Jewish with perhaps just a few Gentiles in it. The reason is that God had turned from the Jews to the Gentiles. Thus the whole of the church ages is God dealing with the Gentiles, and calling out a Gentile Bride to Himself. That makes the 'Church Ages' and 'The Fulness of the Gentiles' the one and the...
An Exposition Of The Seven Church Ages
CAB 5:E-165
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An Exposition Of The Seven Church Ages
CAB 4:E-108
Pentecostal theologians admit that they have no Scripture setting forth that people speak with tongues when baptized by the Holy Ghost. They admit that they infer it from the experiences set forth in the Book of Acts wherein three out of five times the people spoke with tongues. And they also say without any Scripture that there are two kinds of tongues. One is the tongue you speak in while receiving the Holy Ghost and it is the 'evidence', while later on if you believe, you can receive the gift of tongues whereby...
An Exposition Of The Seven Church Ages
CAB 4:E-135
What we have just set forth would be much easier for all to understand if all believed the doctrine of the oneness of the Godhead. For there are not three persons in that Godhead but ONE. Thus we are NOT born again by the Spirit of Life of Jesus coming in, and then subsequent to that the Holy Spirit coming in to give us power. If that were true, why are we dishonoring the Father by not giving Him a part in our complete salvation, for if salvation is of the Lord and there are three Lords, then HE (Father) must have...
An Exposition Of The Seven Church Ages
CAB 8:E-36
"He That hath the key of David." This beautiful phrase follows and comes out of the preceding phrase, "He that is true".--Christ, the Perfect Realization, contrasted with Partial Realization. Here it is. Moses was a prophet of God, but Jesus (like unto Moses) was THE Prophet of God. David (a man after God's own heart) was king of Israel, but Jesus is the Greater David, King of Kings, and Lord of Lords, God very God. Now David was born of the tribe of Judah out of whom no priests came, yet he ate of the shewbread re...