2 Thessalonians 2:15-17
So then, brothers, stand firm and hold to the traditions that you were taught by us, either by our spoken word or by our letter. Now may our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God our Father, who loved us and gave us eternal comfort and good hope through grace, comfort your hearts and establish them in every good work and word.
Comfort comes out.
God provides eternal comfort in the completed work of Christ at the cross and continues to comfort us in the continued work of Christ at His Father's right hand. This comfort comes from without and goes within. But it does not stop there. Comfort come outs. The comfort we experience internally is meant to manifest itself externally. What God established on the cross of Christ, He means to establish in the work of our hands and the words of our mouths.
We were made for traditions.
God gave us the apostles: their beliefs and behaviors, their prayers and practices, and their words and works. We were meant to stand firm and hold tightly to what was passed along to us by them. What they said and did are to be what we now say and do. These traditions and liturgies were spoken, written down, lived out, and passed along.
If we want our work to be established, it must be performed on the foundation of Christ and the teachings of His apostles.
Ephesians 2:19-22
Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.
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