Major world churches, smaller associations of churches and denominations, right down to individual saintly believers, all have traditions, recorded outside of their main scriptures. Whether it be apostolic succession, Dispensationalism, Biblicism, right down to belief in authority of prophecy and interpreted tongues, all these traditions must, of course, be subordinate to the commands of God in Christ. You cannot hold to a tradition, for example, which requires you to lie to other believers. If your tradition forces a brother or sister to sin, it must be set aside or modified. Often the traditions are like distinctive doctrines, and sometimes adherence to these can, perhaps intentionally, make it difficult for saints from different groups to mix or marry. That can cause distress in smaller communities where various churches exist with few in each church, or few younger people still attending church. In Christ there is no way to be part of the body of Christ in isolation from other parts at a spiritual level. There is only one head, so all those joined to him are necessarily joined to all others. It glorifies Christ and builds us up in heavenly ways to have communion or mass or Lord’s Supper where we recognise the broken flesh and shed blood of Christ are the same for all in his overall body the Church. So we are all, to some extent, required to recognise those to whom the Holy Spirit has been given, as God has marked each with a seal, each one who God Himself knows and Jesus Christ accepts. Then we account to Christ Jesus for how we behave towards every such marked individual in his body.
