2 Thessalonians 2:15

In view of their calling, Paul urged his readers not to abandon what he and his associates had taught them in person and by letter. He wanted them to hold firmly to the inspired instructions that he handed on to them (i.e., "the traditions").

"We are almost incurably convinced that the use of notebooks is essential to the learning process. This, however, was not the case in the first century. Then it was often held that if a man had to look something up in a book he did not really know it. The true scholar was a person who had committed to memory the things he had learned. Until a man had a teaching in his memory he was not considered really to have mastered it." [Note: Leon Morris, The Gospel According to John: Revised Edition, pp. 38-39.]

"There is a distinction in the Pauline writings between the gospel received by revelation (as in Galatians 1:12) and the gospel received by tradition (as in 1 Corinthians 15:3), and the language of didache ["teaching"] and paradosis ["tradition"] is appropriate to the latter, not to the former. Even communications made dia pneumatos ["by the Spirit"] must be tested by their conformity to the paradosis and if they conflict with it they are to be refused (cf. 1 Thessalonians 5:19-22)." [Note: Bruce, pp. 193-94.]