Stand firm and hold to the traditions that you were taught by us.

Acquisition of property was highly regulated under Roman law. Items, land, and even slaves abandoned during conquest could be claimed by Roman citizens under a section of the law entitled res nullius (literally: nobody’s property). Property passed from an existing owner to another fell under a different section called tradtio.

We derive the english word tradition from this process, in hope we can transfer significant parts of the human experience from one generation to another. In recent history, individualism has proven to be a hostile environment for tradition. Family traditions rarely extend beyond one or two generations. Political traditions are under fire. Religious traditions have been on the decline for decades.

When we turn away from tradition, from the past, we are left only with the present. As a result we try to recover what we’ve lost in tradition through flailing moments of intention. Mobile apps offer us help with a few minutes in the morning to control our breathing and turning habit formation into a game.

Hacks to reclaiming the moment aren’t bad — but they don’t lead us beyond ourselves. Surely one of the ways we gather strength from those who went before us, as Hebrews exhorts, is to be formed by what formed them. We experience something great inside ourselves when we join our faith to those who walked before us.

Paul’s challenge to the Thessalonians to return to the traditions of the faith isn’t a cry to return to a nostalgic past. Quite the opposite, it was an invitation to gather strength from the saints and root their lives in something transcendent. The gospel is an invitation to community.

Yielding to tradition renews our ability to express the grace God first showed to us. Fresh experiences in tradition are a way we can experience ownership of our faith. But settling for a life unhinged from spiritual tradition is a way to deny the world has an owner and stake a claim of lordship over our own lives.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve found myself in a bunch of conversations in which the unspoken assumption was that the main goal of life is to maximize happiness. — David Brooks

In secular culture the meaning of life is to be free to choose what makes you happy in this life. Suffering destroys that meaning. And so, in the secular view, suffering can have no meaning at all. It can’t be a chapter in your life story — it is just the interruption or even the end of your life story.

On the one hand, God is absolutely sovereign over suffering. It’s never out of his control. It’s always part of his plan. On the other hand, God has come into the world himself and actually suffered with us.

No other religion says that God is both a sovereign and a suffering God. This is the theological foundation for why Christians can be so realistic and yet so hopeful about suffering at the same time.

Notice this phenomenon. When people remember the past, they don’t only talk about happiness. It is often the ordeals that seem most significant. People shoot for happiness but feel formed through suffering.