THE SECOND EPISTLE TO THE THESSALONIANS - Chapter 2 - Verse 15

Verse 15. Therefore. In view of the fact that you are thus chosen from eternity, and that you are to be raised up to such honour and glory.

Stand fast. Amidst all the temptations which surround you. Comp. See Barnes "Eph 6:10"

and following.

And hold the traditions which ye have been taught. On the word traditions, See Barnes "Mt 15:2".

It means properly things delivered over from one to another; then anything orally delivered—any precept, doctrine, or law. It is frequently employed to denote that which is not written, as contradistinguished from that which is written, (comp. Mt 15:2,) but not necessarily or always; for here the Apostle speaks of the "traditions which they had been taught by his epistle." Comp. See Barnes "1 Co 11:2".

Here it means the doctrines or precepts which they had received from the apostle, whether when he was with them, or after he left them; whether communicated by preaching or by letter. This passage can furnish no authority for holding the "traditions" which have come down from ancient times, and which profess to have been derived from the apostles; for

(1.) there is no evidence that any of those traditions were given by the apostles;

(2.) many of them are manifestly so trifling, false, and contrary to the writings of the apostles, that they could not have been delivered by them;

(3.) if any of them are genuine, it is impossible to separate them from those which are false,

(4.) we have all that is necessary for salvation in the written word; and

(5.) there is not the least evidence that the apostle here meant to refer to any such thing. He speaks only of what had been delivered to them by himself, whether orally or by letter; not of what was delivered from one to another as from him. There is no intimation here that they were to hold anything as from him which they had not received directly from him, either by his own instructions personally or by letter. With what propriety, then, can this passage be adduced to prove that we are to hold the traditions which professedly come to us through a great number of intermediate persons? Nowhere is the evidence here that the church was to hold those unwritten traditions, and transmit them to future times?

Whether by word. By preaching, when we were with you. It does not mean that he had sent any oral message to them by a third person.

Or our epistle. The former letter which he had written to them.

{*} "Traditions" "doctrines"