“Ordinance” From Concise Bible Dictionary:
This term in the Old Testament generally signifies that which God “ordered” for His people to observe. “They kept His testimonies, and the ordinance that He gave them” (Psa. 99:7). “Ye are gone away from Mine ordinances” (Mal. 3:7). It is also applied to things in creation: God giveth “the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for a light by night” (Jer. 31:35). David made an ordinance (Ezra 3:10: Compare Neh. 10:32). In the New Testament it refers especially to the enactments of the law: “ordinances of divine service” (Heb. 9:1,10); “blotting out the handwriting of ordinances” (Col. 2:14). It is also applied to human laws (Rom. 13:2; 1 Peter 2:13); and to the rules of the moralists (Col. 2:20). The directions that Paul had given to the Corinthians are in the AV called “ordinances” (1 Cor. 11:2); margin, “traditions.”
“Tradition (παράδοσις)” From Concise Bible Dictionary:
This may be described as that which is handed down as oral teaching. It may be from God, as in 2 Thessalonians 2:15; 2 Thessalonians 3:6; and 1 Corinthians 11:2 (where it is translated “ordinance”), instruction handed down before the word of God was complete. Or it may be from man, as was the tradition of the elders of Israel, which was strongly denounced by the Lord, and declared to be a subverting of the commandments of God (Matt. 15:2-6; Mark 7:3-13; Gal. 1:14). In Colossians 2:8 it is the mere teaching of the moralists, of which much has survived to the present day. What man institutes, man holds to most tenaciously.
Strong’s Dictionary of Greek Words:
Transliteration:
paradosis
Meaning:
from 3860; transmission, i.e. (concretely) a precept; specially, the Jewish traditionary law
KJV Usage:
ordinance, tradition