We are all human and like to be praised. It strokes our egos and we mentally pull up our imaginary gun belts in the best Barney Fife fashion with a bit of humility hopefully, instead of pride. Pastors are sometimes praised by people in the church, and I too have had people thank me for various things but in all reality, I just showed up in August of 1978. The foundation of Corinth had been laid sixty-five years earlier by a group of country folk that loved God and wanted to serve God. The church began in Stone Mountain on a piece of land that sat on the corner of two dirt roads. Later, those roads would be named Rockbridge Road and Pounds Road. The church was just a simple wooden structure sitting on some foundational rocks, and it had been painted white. Later a new granite building was erected across Pounds Road and the cemetery was expanded. When true believers meet, the conversation mostly revolves around the things of God. Corinth was no different. These rural people wanted three things: (1) They wanted to hear the Word of God. A desire in their hearts for the Bible was a goal they wanted personally on a regular basis; (2) They wanted the gospel to be preached in their community; (3) There was a desire for others in other lands to hear the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ, so missions is also a part of the beginning.
Tradition is not touted or honored in a great number of churches, especially in the west and it has been wrongly handcuffed to the Pharisees that Jesus condemned during His earthly ministry. Tradition is made out to be a relic of the past, simply to be discarded to the dustbin of history. Not for me! I am proud of the history of our church and others like it. The foundation that began in 1913 is still the foundation on which we operate today. We still love the Bible. We still want the community to hear the gospel. We still believe in world-wide missions. In my mind, we have two debts. One to the past and one to the future.
Our debt to the past, to tradition, does not mean you always serve and minister the way it was done 100 years ago. But there must be an understanding that things which were done 100 years ago may have had a biblical passage or principle behind it. Do not discard something until you take time to understand why. The debt to the past to which I am referring in this article is to the people, not things, that came before me. I mean the long dead, people that began the church and those that continued the three main goals of the church. Let me share a quote from GK Chesterton.
“Tradition may be defined as the extension of the franchise. Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. Tradition is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those men who happen to be walking about. All democrats (not the Democratic party) object to men being disqualified by the accident of birth; Tradition objects to their being disqualified by the accident of death.” (The Quotable Chesterton, p.351)
We ought to appreciate those that came before us. Just because they are dead does not cancel their influence, at least it should not. We ought to show our appreciation by being faithful to the foundation. Faithful to the preaching of the Bible, sharing the gospel in our community, and sending the gospel of Jesus Christ around the world.
A future debt is ours to be borne also. I was not responsible for the work that began in 1913. I was not a part of that generation. I was not responsible for the next generation that came along roughly four decades later, but I am responsible for what takes place during my generation. The Bible tells us that “David served his generation by the will of God” (Acts 13:36). Each of us has an obligation to stay faithful. When our time to die comes, may it be said about us that “we served our generation by the will of God.” If future generations turn their backs on the foundation, “the faith once delivered unto the saints,” that generation will answer to God. Yes, the dead still get a vote in my mind. Every one that faithfully preached the word of God, those that faithfully taught their Sunday School classes, those that faithfully sang in the choir until they had no voice, those that played instruments service after service, those that took care of the grounds, coached the church teams, gave sacrificially to the church and to missions, or just sat quietly in the pew praying for the preacher and the needs of their brothers and sisters in the church family. Every single one of them has a vote and if you and I are as faithful as they were, perhaps there will be a generation following ours that gives us a vote also.