| Author |
Message |
Ric_b
Registered user
Username: Ric_b
Post Number: 330
Registered: 7-2004
| | Posted on Saturday, October 22, 2005 - 8:10 am: |     |
I became SDA through studies with my then girlfriend/now wife (Raven here on FAF). I had many questions. And tore apart SDA prepared Bible studies. But my limited understanding of Scripture at the time was no match for church leaders well schooled in their message. They, of course, had answers to all of the simple objections I could formulate at the time. In the end, I concluded that since I could not, with my limited knowledge and ability, demonstrate them to be wrong, I must accept that it was true and right. And I did so with great vigor. It seems to be a very common story. I would be interested to know how much "Church growth" occurs in SDAism through marrying into the church. I would guess that within North America and Western Europe the combination of growth by births and by marriages accounts for a very large percentage. |
Lisa_boyldavis
Registered user
Username: Lisa_boyldavis
Post Number: 86
Registered: 3-2005
| | Posted on Saturday, October 22, 2005 - 8:19 am: | |
Willy,
There is nothing more attractive than a Godly man sold out for God. It might make your girlfriend think twice about her beliefs when she sees that when you surrender to God 100% and let his word change and grow you, let his Spirit live out through you, let His power motivate you for all He has for you, that maybe YOU have the TRUTH, not her church. If you know in your heart that SDAís are wrong, and God is showing you that, HANG ON TO God for all you are worth and RISK EVERYTHING, EVEN YOUR GIRLFRIEND FOR THE CROSS. God LOVES to give good gifts to his Children. He has a plan for your life. Don't let the truth in your heart be sold short for a possible relationship that won't be based in truth between you or between the Lord either. God gives strength, He never leaves.
Lisa B-D
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Benevento
Registered user
Username: Benevento
Post Number: 47
Registered: 4-2005
| | Posted on Saturday, October 22, 2005 - 3:29 pm: | |
Has anyone suggested you go to this website and
check out studies and there is Romans. I'm way behind the group, I'm on lesson 15, pluging along
but I have been so blessed, studying them.I think many SDA's are confused as well when
they honestly try to study the Bible and it won't make sense to them, it won't fit with what they have been taught--.Praying that the Holy Spirit will guide you all in your search for truth! |
Dennis
Registered user
Username: Dennis
Post Number: 472
Registered: 4-2000
| | Posted on Saturday, October 22, 2005 - 3:38 pm: | |
Another important truth to share with our SDA friends is that the weekly Sabbath cannot be observed without the Levitical system in place (i.e., special Sabbath shewbread set out in the Holy Place and sacrifices by the priest). Does any other commandment in the Decalogue require the Levitical system to be in place to observe it properly? Of course not!
Indeed, the fourth commandment is a ceremonial law--not a moral law. It is not in force 24/7 (every nanasecond of time) like the other nine commandments. Yearly, seasonal, monthly, and weekly convocations are all ceremonial. Significantly, both the SABBATH and TITHE laws cannot be observed without the Levitical system being fully in place. Their Jewish identity is too obvious to miss for an honest seeker of biblical truth.
By the way, today (October 22) should be a special, high day in Seventh-day Adventism. Apparently, Jesus is taking an extended sabbatical from the investigative judgment. Their church mother predicted that the end would come in just a few months in the mid-nineteenth century. Oh yes, 1844 does have some historical significance after all. Joseph Smith and his brother were killed while in jail in 1844. The latest NEWSWEEK has an article on Mormonism. I could not help but associate Adventism with many aspects mentioned in the article. It is an interesting report on Mormonism.
Dennis Fischer |
Carol_anne
Registered user
Username: Carol_anne
Post Number: 5
Registered: 6-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, October 22, 2005 - 6:36 pm: | |
I was just reading this thread and am so thankful I did. I only come around every year or so and tend to lean back towards my adventist teachings. Then, I come on here and get a good headshake. I do have a question kind of out of this thread though. I still have strong beliefs about the second coming. All around me people are talking about rapture and I won't, or can't, listen to them. I guess there are some teachings that stick to me more than others. What do any of you think of the rapture vs. what we were taught about the second coming.
Carol |
Pauls
Registered user
Username: Pauls
Post Number: 12
Registered: 9-2005
| | Posted on Saturday, October 22, 2005 - 6:42 pm: | |
Dennis, i appreciate your comments about the sabbath and its tie to the ceremonial and levitical laws---however, Gen 2:2-3 talks about God doing something on and with the seventh day at creation long before there ever was a jew...also, does exodus 16 deal with sabbath keeping before sinai or after? and was sinai the place where it all got started for the jew?
what is your take on Gen 2:2-3 and on Exo 16? is it possible exo 16 was written before ex 20 when the law was given?
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Jerry
Registered user
Username: Jerry
Post Number: 473
Registered: 6-2002
| | Posted on Saturday, October 22, 2005 - 8:15 pm: | |
On the seventh day, GOD rested from His work of Creation. Adam had not created and did not need to rest, in that sense. There is no command for anyone besides God to do no work on a specific day until Exodus 12. There is no evidence that anyone "observed" a Holy day whether weekly or otherwise until Exodus 12.
The Sabbath day Sabbath was a memorial of the seventh day of creation AND the freedom from slavery in Egypt (Deut 5).
Exodus 16 was a Sabbath of the Lord, but it was not the same as the Exodus 20 Sabbath. No one was put to death when they did work on that day. After Exodus 20, the consequence of breaking the Sabbath was death.
Certainly, Genesis 2 and Exodus 16 were related to the weekly Sabbath, but they were not the same in many important ways.
quote:Neh 9:13,14
(13)Thou camest down also upon mount Sinai, and spakest with them from heaven, and gavest them right judgments, and true laws, good statutes and commandments:
(14)And madest known unto them thy holy sabbath, and commandedst them precepts, statutes, and laws, by the hand of Moses thy servant:
Clearly the Jews believed that the weekly Sabbath was established at Sinai.
Everything else is assumption on top of assumption.
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Weimarred
Registered user
Username: Weimarred
Post Number: 90
Registered: 1-2005
| | Posted on Sunday, October 23, 2005 - 12:57 am: | |
Going back to some of the earlier discussion, and alluding to the mite and beam in the eye quote, it's depressing to me that so many SDAs, and indeed, so many Christians are so hell-bent on proseletyzing, that they fail to look inwards. So much of their dogma is outdated and disproved, and makes their particular brand of faith irrelevant, yet they can't see it. All they can see is the supposed wrong in the other person.
But with hope, we all tend to store away little things that we hear, and they pop up in our brains when we least expect them too. Whether you call it God moving in mysterious ways, or moments of epiphany, these little eureakas can get us to see past ourselves.
Willy, I wish you luck no matter how you choose to proceed. |
Belvalew
Registered user
Username: Belvalew
Post Number: 712
Registered: 7-2004
| | Posted on Sunday, October 23, 2005 - 9:21 am: | |
Pauls, have you ever stopped to think that the book of Genesis was written at about the same time as Exodus, and by the same person/group of scholars. There is a good chance that the comment made in Genesis 2:2 was a rhetorical statement made after the Levitical system had been put in place at Sinai. |
Colleentinker
Registered user
Username: Colleentinker
Post Number: 2774
Registered: 12-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, October 23, 2005 - 7:17 pm: | |
I mentioned on another thread that the Genesis account has been sorely mis-interpreted by Adventists. They say it is a memorial of creation, but nowhere does the Bible say that. On the seventh day God rested from His finished work. As my younger son said a few months ago, on the seventh day God might just as well have said, "It Is Finished." He and Adam and Eve were in complete oneness. His blessing the seventh day was (1) without evening and morning, as the other days had, and (2) was not a command. It was simply God "ceasing", not "sabbatizing". He was done. He was at rest; Adam and Eve were created and entered that rest with God.
The Levitical Sabbath was a reminder not of creation--God's working--but of His rest. It was a reminder of the unbroken existence Adam and Eve and God enjoyed after His finished work. It was never about the six days, per se--it was always about God's "ceasing" and rest.
The Levitical Sabbath also looked ahead to the again finished work of God after Jesus shed His blood of the eternal covenant. Again they would be able to enter His rest and live in unbroken communion with Him--a communion that had not been possible since Eve ate the apple. The Sabbath looked back at God's once finished work and oneness with humanity, and it foreshadowed the again finished work of God after the cross.
God didn't ask any human to DO anything at the end of creation related to the Sabbath. His rest simply WAS. Just as Adam and Eve did nothing to enter that hallowed time on the seventh day (which was without evening and morning), so we do nothing to enter God's rest TODAY (as Hebrews says in Hebrews 4) except surrender to Jesus. We again enter the holiness of God's presence.
Exodus 16 preceded Sinai by about one month. God gave Israel the symbols of the Bread of Life and His rest simultaneously. They were inseparable. Gathering the Bread of Life meant also observing the shadow of His rest every seventh day.
One month later, at Sinai, God made the Sabbath the symbol of His covenant with the nation of Israel. Until Jesus came, that day would remind them that originally, God created man to live in complete rest with and in Him, and again, they would be able to enter that rest when the Messiah came.
The entire point of salvation is entering God's rest through His finished work--by no work or observance of our own. The Sabbath was a reminder of that rest. Now that we have the reality in the finished work of Jesus and our birth from above, we have no more need of the day of reminder.
We now have Jesus Himself!
Colleen |
Ric_b
Registered user
Username: Ric_b
Post Number: 332
Registered: 7-2004
| | Posted on Monday, October 24, 2005 - 7:41 am: | |
Colleen--That is one of the most concise and straightforward explanations that I have seen. You have a true gift with words. |
Mrsbrian3
Registered user
Username: Mrsbrian3
Post Number: 20
Registered: 8-2005
| | Posted on Monday, October 24, 2005 - 8:02 am: | |
Colleen,
I agree with Ric_b. That was great! I've printed that out and will keep it with me in my purse!
Now if the FAF scholars, et al (you know who you are) would address Carol Anne's question on the teachings of the SDA church on the second coming vs the rapture, that would be great. I too, share her confusion.
Kim |
Pheeki
Registered user
Username: Pheeki
Post Number: 681
Registered: 1-2003
| | Posted on Monday, October 24, 2005 - 8:57 am: | |
I asked a friend why he thought a ceremonial commandment-the Sabbath- (and I don't believe in compartmentalizing the commandments) was smack dab in the middle of a bunch of moral commandments. He gave an answer that made me say AHA!
Commandment 1-3 are about how to treat God, commandments 5-10 are about how to treat your fellow man...Jesus is the Sabbath and Jesus is the bridge between God and Man...therefore He is smack dab between us, linking us!!! Make sense? |
Dennis
Registered user
Username: Dennis
Post Number: 474
Registered: 4-2000
| | Posted on Monday, October 24, 2005 - 10:43 am: | |
Carol,
Most Christians still do not believe in the rapture theory despite the successful sales of fictional stories by Tim LaHaye. The Bible simply does not support this humanly-appealing quick-fix to endtime scenarios. This view was first generated in the early nineteenth century by John Darby. Later Margaret MacDonald, a fifteen-year-old visionary from Scotland, also claimed to have a comparable view from a vision in 1830. Therefore, like Seventh-day Adventism, it is a relatively new teaching. For the first 1800 years of church history, this view was completely unknown. It certainly was not a part of the Protestant Reformation. More importantly, it is not the gospel that the apostle Paul preached (see Gal. 1:8).
Dennis J. Fischer
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Helovesme2
Registered user
Username: Helovesme2
Post Number: 315
Registered: 8-2004
| | Posted on Monday, October 24, 2005 - 10:54 am: | |
I've also found that 'rapture' is often used to refer to the second coming even when the speaker doesn't mean a 'secret rapture'. IIRC, rapture simply means appearing, so just because someone says they're looking forward to the rapture doesn't necessarily mean they're looking forward to the doctrinally suspect theories of John Darby or his more recent counterparts.
oh, and Pheeki? That's a beautiful answer your friend gave you about the ceremonial command in the middle of the others. |
Melissa
Registered user
Username: Melissa
Post Number: 1141
Registered: 7-2003
| | Posted on Monday, October 24, 2005 - 10:56 am: | |
Carol, there is quite a discussion on another thread. Here is the link: http://rtinker.powweb.com/discus/discus/messages/11/2869.html?1111547948
If you scroll down to August 13, 2003, you will see an entry where I posted how the term "rapture" came to be. Just in case that's of interest.... |
Brian3
Registered user
Username: Brian3
Post Number: 17
Registered: 8-2005
| | Posted on Monday, October 24, 2005 - 10:56 am: | |
I don't know about "Most Christians" but it seems the churches we've visited so far in trying to find a new church home are solidly Dispensational-Futurist. We stumbled into a Prophecy 101 adult bible study class our first few weeks at this last church and the attitude about revelation was "Well, I don't understand it but we won't be here anyway!" |
Dennis
Registered user
Username: Dennis
Post Number: 475
Registered: 4-2000
| | Posted on Monday, October 24, 2005 - 11:37 am: | |
Brian,
If the church does not make it a doctrinal belief it is not a big deal. My church, the Evangelical Free Church of America (www.efca.org) does not take a doctrinal stance on this--although it is embraced by many individual members and pastors. It is not a salvational matter after all.
The phrase "most Christians" in my post above, includes Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholics, Presbyterians, Lutherans, Episcopalians, Dutch Reformed, etc.
Dennis J. Fischer |
Brian3
Registered user
Username: Brian3
Post Number: 18
Registered: 8-2005
| | Posted on Monday, October 24, 2005 - 12:09 pm: | |
Dennis,
Your right, and I understand, that it is not a salvational matter. I guess it's more of wanting to be comfortable also. This church is also seemingly heavy handed on tithing as well. I guess I was mostly lamenting the fact that here in Texas (IMO) Dispensational-Pre-Trib Futurist seems to be the norm. But we havenít exactly exhausted potential churches in the area :-).
Brian
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Colleentinker
Registered user
Username: Colleentinker
Post Number: 2779
Registered: 12-2003
| | Posted on Monday, October 24, 2005 - 12:38 pm: | |
Yes, many evangelicals are dispensational and believe in a pre-tribulation rapture. It's not, however, a point of division--that reality has been a bit hard for me to get used to. Eschatology was always such a mark of "having the truth" in Adventism!
I worship very comfortably with people who hold widely varying and even uncertain opinions about the subject now. While probably our church leans toward the dispensational side of things, that fact doesn't inhibit GREAT Bible teaching and a deep love of Jesus and His word.
It's a relief to be able to say I'm not sure how it will all play out, even though I tend not to believe in a pre-trib rapture. (I just don't see enough Biblical evidence for it!)
Praise God He's in control; I pray He will keep me alert and undeceived.
Colleen |
Dennis
Registered user
Username: Dennis
Post Number: 476
Registered: 4-2000
| | Posted on Monday, October 24, 2005 - 1:38 pm: | |
Brian,
There is an excellent church near Dallas that does NOT teach tithing. Of course, I don't know the distances in Texas very well. It may be too far for you to travel. This church is a part of the People to People Ministries International radio program. The pastoral staff includes Bob George as the senior pastor. Also, Richard Pfeifer, a former SDA pastor, is the program director of People to People Ministries (www.realanswers.net). Check them out online and listen to their daily broadcast. You can also download an excellent article on tithing from their website. I highly recommend Bob George's book, CLASSIC CHRISTIANITY. It should be required reading for every SDA.
Dennis J. Fischer |
Colleentinker
Registered user
Username: Colleentinker
Post Number: 2783
Registered: 12-2003
| | Posted on Monday, October 24, 2005 - 3:25 pm: | |
I second Dennis's recommendation. CLASSIC CHRISTIANITY is a must-read. It was pivotal in my experience. I read it about a year after leaving the church, and it gave me new and clear understanding of my identity in Christ. Bob George is unusual in his grasp of the new covenant and the gospel of grace.
Colleen |
Gmatt
Registered user
Username: Gmatt
Post Number: 16
Registered: 3-2005
| | Posted on Monday, October 24, 2005 - 11:36 pm: | |
I agree that CLASSIC CHRISTIANITY is an amazing book! When I finished it I vowed to read it again at least once a year. |
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