A very poor holy man lived in a remote part of China. Every day before his time of meditation in order to show his devotion, he put a dish of butter up on the window sill as an offering to God, since food was so scarce. One day his cat came in and ate the butter. To remedy this, he began tying the cat to the bedpost each day before the quiet time. This man was so revered for his piety that others joined him as disciples and worshipped as he did. Generations later, long after the holy man was dead, his followers placed an offering of butter on the window sill during their time of prayer and meditation. Furthermore, each one brought a cat and tied it to the bedpost.
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The moral to the story is this: Tradition can be a good thing. In fact, apostolic traditions form the canon of scripture, (cf. 1 Corinthians 11:2). However, the blind following of tradition can not only lead to absurd practices, but unscriptural ones, endangering our souls. Let us all know and understand the scriptural reasons behind all that we teach and practice.
