10. One third of all the angels joined Lucifer in the rebellion against God — The Bible says only that the dragon cast a third of all the stars to the earth. Equating stars with angels is a purely human interpretation made to defend the scriptures after we found out stars are really distant suns.
9. Sola Fide (Salvation by faith alone) — This goes expressly against James chapter two, which states that faith cannot save if it is alone, as well as Matthew chapter twenty-five where Jesus makes doing good works such as giving alms a criteria for salvation.
8. Pre-tribulation rapture — In Matthew chapter twenty-four Jesus says his angels will gather the elect “after the tribulation of those days”. In order to maintain the pre-trib tradition, the additional tradition of dispensationalism, dating back to 1830, redefines the elect to mean only a certain group of people who were “left behind” and converted during the tribulation.
7. The Deuterocanonicals are apocrypha — To evade the doctrine of free will and purgatory, the Protestant tradition embraces the Old Testament canon which was defined by Jews at the Council of Jamnia in 90 CE, which itself was embraced in reaction to the early Christians use of the Greek translation developed at Alexandria.
6. The Sinner’s Prayer — Nowhere does the Bible give the formula to”accept Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior” that Protestants say is the most important act a person can do in this life. In fact, Jesus specifically rejects those followers who merely say, “Lord, Lord” and refuse to do what his Father commands them to do.
5. The wine in the bible was really grape juice — Before the era of modern refrigeration and preservative chemicals, grape juice automatically turned into wine. This comes from the same teetotaler Puritan traditions that gave us the wonderful idea of Prohibition, making the Roaring Twenties a decade of speakeasies and Mob rum-running.
4. Sola Scriptura – Bible alone — Not only is this doctrine not in the Bible, it contradicts a command that is present, 2 Thessalonians 2:15, where Paul says to “hold fast” to the traditions received from the Apostles which were given in both written and oral form. To wiggle out of this one, Christians tell me that really isn’t a command from Paul, which of course leads to the necessity of listing which parts of his epistles to follow and which to ignore, meaning the introduction of yet another human tradition.
3. The New Testament canon — The table of contents of the New Testament is not part of the inspired text. It is purely tradition.
2. Sunday worship — The Sabbath is Saturday (Friday at sundown to Saturday at sundown), and God even commands us to remember that fact and keep that period of time holy.
And the number one Extra-Biblical Christian Tradition:
1. Trinity — Nowhere does the Bible teach the doctrine that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are three Persons yet one Divinity. Indeed, it says that the God of Israel is one, and even Jesus admits the Father knows stuff that he does not.
