… there are a lot of old sayings. For some, old means outdated. For others old means tested and true. Some will scoff, others will listen and apply, still others will avoid anything remotely linked to the wisdom of the past or even present day. From Shakespeare to Plato, from Jung to Nietzsche, from Grandma and Grandpa to schoolteachers or preachers, there will always be old (maybe not very old) saying(s) that are adopted or rejected not because we have thought them through but because we have relegated them to live or die in our minds based on how comfortable or uncomfortable they make us feel. Maybe the graveyard in our brains is full of life cut short because I don’t like to feel uncomfortable.

Christianity is full of old sayings.

When I say “sayings,” I mean concepts that are often boiled down to a few sentences or given a name that is supposed to be representative of a theological idea, a doctrine that is far more complex than a name or a few sentences can possibly convey. To use an old saying we “throw the baby out with the bathwater,” because our limited knowledge based on dipping our toe in the ocean, reading the name or a few sentences description, causes us to reject the idea in its totality. Married to our tribe, our denominational and experiential predilections we look at all other tribes as having nothing to offer based on a name or a few sentences, an old saying if you will.

Tradition does not define our faith but…

…faith can be expressed and communicated through tradition. To again use an old saying, the same one as before because it appears I don’t know any other old sayings, from generation to generation throwing the baby out with the bathwater has almost become a right of passage. I realize now that “right of passage” might be an old saying as well so I guess I know two old sayings. I’m not sure when it started but I will suggest that continuous generational rebellion is a rather new phenomenon. Hating what your parents love and doing what your parents told you not to do as a right of passage, as the rule rather than exception, seems to be a concept that garnered western world approval starting in the mid twentieth century. It is disruptive enough when it was societal, but it has become destructive in the body of believers. Anything that is not new is just old tradition. Anything that is tradition is just an old saying that needs to be viewed as outdated and must be opposed and replaced.

I am not saying that an old saying may not need to change…

… I am saying that change for the sake of change is not productive. Going from well established doctrine to anything because we don’t want to be tied to an old saying or because we are not comfortable with it does nothing to further the mission of the church. Married to a need to be cutting edge, fitting them into our denominational and experiential predilections we look at all others as having nothing to offer based on a name or a few sentences, an old saying if you will because it is old.

In the end there are old sayings that need to change but…

… more often than not, the old sayings need new wording or an updated presentation, not a total change especially for the sake of change. And while we are at it, creating a new saying to differentiated ourselves from someone else’s saying (doctrine) simply to fight it out to get our own bent recognized is the tribalism that makes old sayings irrelevant and tradition unreliable. I will repeat, tradition does not define our faith, but faith can be expressed and communicated through tradition. The foundation of Christianity before old sayings became hated tradition and biblical truths unwanted guardrails that limited us from living the sinful lives we want, was, salvation is grace through faith not by works but for works. Somewhere it has become a twisted version that either elevates works over faith or embraces worldly living over transformation to be and do what we are called to do.

In the end let’s start here, “Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners —of whom I am the worst. 1 Timothy 1:15 (NIV) Once we see ourselves as sinners, maybe even the worst of sinners, we will be less likely to come up with our own sayings just to make us comfortable. The further we get from the Bible in time and in doctrine the less trustworthy our sayings become.