Tradition Condemned?

Mark 15:3 - break commandment of God for your tradition

Commentary: - The pharisees complained that the disciples did not observe the prescribed ceremonial hand washings before, during and after the meal. These prescriptions were carefully laid down not in the Law but in the oral tradition of the "ancients" e.g. the early rabbis. Toward the end of the 2nd century they were codified in written form in the Mishnah. Such traditions were held in even higher esteem then the Law itself. Our Lord declines an aimless discussion of sophistries and sharply attacks the spirit that prompted the objection. As once before he might have denounced explicitly the legal zeal that they had suffocated charity. Instead he fights them on their own ground and shows how this blind devotion to "the tradition of the ancients" had driven them to "transgress" the law of God himself.

Mark 7:9 - set aside God's commandment, to uphold tradition

Commentary: - Jesus challenges the principle of these traditions and denounces the insincerity and hypocrisy which characterize the conduct of the Pharisees. The words in which Isaiah 29:13 denounced the insincerity of his contemporaries in their worship of God are applicable to Christ's opponents. In their eagerness to maintain traditions which had their origin in the opinions of earlier teachers, they neglected the essential obligations of God's law.

Colossians 2:6-8 - seductive philosophy according to human tradition

Commentary: - He ends the doctrinal part with an appeal for loyalty to Christ: the root of their religious life, the principle of their cohesion and progress in Christ. The time has come to confront the false teaching. Though it goes by the name of philosophy it is really a kind of bait for error -- 'an empty deceit' based on 'the traditions of men' closely allied to the '{elements or principles} of the world'. This last expression seems to note observance of days, months and years. In other words, the elements are connected with the sun and moon, or with cosmic forces generally.

1 Corinthians 11:2 - commends them for following Apostolic tradition
2 Thessalonians 2:15 - commands them to keep traditions

Commentary source: A Catholic Commentary on Holy Scripture, copyright 1954