Tradition and traditions - Yeago 2

Yeago’s 4 Circles of Tradition
(How Scripture and tradition work together)

The center-point: The apostolic tradition
• receiving, holding fast, handing on what the apostles handed on to the Church

First circle: the context of the Church’s life as a worshiping and witnessing assembly
• communal context
• gathering to hear the apostolic testimony/word of God, participating in practices instituted in God’s word, responding to the word with praise
• sharing together in communion with God through Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit
• carrying on the apostolic mission
• “Therefore it is only as we are formed by the life of this people, by the practices of this assembly, and by the demands of its mission, that we become competent to read the biblical texts in a way that conforms to God’s design” (27).
• Question: in what light do we read Scripture?
• Tradition “makes possible a common theological enterprise among diverse Christians of past and present” (28).

Second circle: the dogmatic decisions of the Church about the right way to read and interpret Scripture
• Dogma: a rule of interpretation, a binding communal decision about the way the apostolic legacy is to be understood (all dogmas are doctrines, but not all doctrines are dogmas)
• Eg. the Trinitarian expression of faith at Nicaea
• Gives theological diversity a shared framework and protects the people of God

Third circle: doctrinal traditions, traditions of teaching which have a claim to our attention and respect
• Classic doctrines that have proven helpful and illuminating over time
• Eg. Athanasius, Luther, etc.

Fourth circle: the mutuum colloquium et consoloationem fratum, the “mutual conversation and consolation” of brothers and sisters in Christ
• Respects the claim of other Christians (past and present) to be heard when we read and interpret Scripture
• Discernment and openness to the Spirit’s wisdom and instruction expressed through others in the Church
• Continuous network of theological give and take
• Must be connected to the center and other circles

Scripture also must be read according to the “rule of faith”
• The “apostolic message as an ordered whole with its own structure and inner logic” (37)
• Christian beliefs are not always expressed in formulated sentences, but in practices, “the central and characteristic things that the Christian community does” (39)

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Can Pentecostals agree with this sort of definition of tradition and interaction of Scripture and tradition?


~lg