| Author | Message | ||
| Grace2 Registered user Username: Grace2 Post Number: 25 Registered: 8-2013 |
I know of one SDA who wants to study the current ss study guide lesson with me. I disagree with the SDA perspective on the law. Here is the introduction to this week's study: "A woman is driving way over the speed limit. Suddenly, she sees in her rearview mirror the flashing red and blue lights of a police car and hears the familiar wail of the siren. She pulls over, grabs her purse, and takes out her driver’s license. The police officer approaches, takes her license, and returns to his car. She wonders how much the ticket is going to be (she was way over the limit); she also worries about how she will be able to pay it. A few minutes later the police officer comes back and says, “OK, miss, what we are going to do, so that you don’t have to face the penalty of the law again, is abolish the law. You no longer have to worry about the speed limit.” As ludicrous as that story is, it’s no more so than the theology that teaches that after Jesus died, the law, the Ten Commandments, was abolished." I disagree with the analogy because the law (Pentateuch) was given for a particular people with a particular time frame in mind. It's like saying to a teenager: because you always struggled to be in bed by 8 pm now you don't need to abide by that rule any longer. No, the reason the teenager doesn't need to go to bed at 8 any longer is that this rule was intended for a particular time when he needed more sleep. Now that he's older that rule does not apply. It's abolished not because he failed to abide by it but because it never was intended to guide him through all his life in the first place. It seems to me that some need to cling to the law at all costs because they might lose something (read this as meaning "the sabbath"). In order to avoid cognitive dissonance they say that the law is still applicable, never minding the confusion that follows. I heard someone ask why we still consider it sinful to dress in cross-gender style (transvestites) when the same chapter of Leviticus also condemns dressing in clothes made of different fibres (wool and linen) and we don't have an issue with that. Is it any wonder there is confusion, as long as the law and its sphere of influence and applicability is misunderstood? For those wanting to go the ss-site here it is: http://www.absg.adventist.org/2014/2Q/SE/PDFS/EAQ214_06.pdf | ||
| Resjudicata Registered user Username: Resjudicata Post Number: 40 Registered: 4-2014 |
Sabbath Keeping is genuinely impossible in an advanced industrial society that is interdependent on various forms of labor that are necessary 7 days a week, 24 hours a day. Gary North has demonstrated that Sabbath Keeping is totally impossible: "Modern sabbatarians are hypocrites, because the fourth commandment, if followed today, would require that Christians refuse to use electricity and heating in their homes and churches on the Sabbath. North writes, “We often pride ourselves on the efficiency of modern technology, forgetting that many men and women must go to work and operate the machines that provide the power the fuel for our gadgets. These workers are committing Sabbatarian capital crimes each Sabbath, and every Christian sabbatarian who uses these gadgets, apart from some legitimate emergency, sends people to hell every Sabbath, morning and evening, as he sits in the comfort of his air-conditioned church. If the sabbatarian creeds are correct, then sabbatarians are weekly condemning others to the flames of eternal torment, just so they can sit in 75-degree comfort.” North, a “theoeconomist, argues that Sabbath Keeping, if it were placed anywhere NEAR being a national priority, would instantly lead to the complete collapse of Western Civilization. Think about it: Just an Apple i-phone for instance. Assuming that it was made in China, where they work seven days a week. The price you pay for your phone automatically translates 1/7 going directly to pay for massive Sabbath Breaking at the assembly plant. Assuming that it was shipped by ocean, you have an entire freighter crew of 100's that violates the Sabbath for at least four or five weeks. Cargo ship employees work 7 days a week. You pay for that Sabbath Breaking shipping in the cost that you pay for your phone. Once it reaches the United States, it might go to an Apple store, or say Verizon. They operate at least 6 days a week, but you are paying the salaries for people that work on the sales floor on Saturday in the cost of your phone. If it is shipped UPS from Amazon, you subsidize the salaries of Sabbath Breakers at both. When your phone is activated, you subsidize the Sabbath Breaking done by employees of the phone company, which "never sleeps." When you pay your phone bill, it helps pay the salaries of those Sabbath Breakers. They work for you on the Sabbath. Even what I have written here likely severely understates the extent of the Sabbath Breaking that you cause when you buy virtually anything. All in all, just by buying an iphone, you have violated the 4th Commandment's strict prohibition against manservants and maidservants working on the Sabbath several thousand times, maybe even 100,000's of times. Everyone in the supply line worked for you as it is described in the 4th Commandment. This is precisely why the Apostles and their followers harshly denounced the Law as a miserable, completely unworkable yoke. They railed at people who wanted to mix Christianity with the Sabbath, and accurately called them "hypocrites." Sabbath Keeping in the modern age is just preening self-flattery and unctuous self-delusion. People pretend and lie to themselves that this is not happening, because everything you buy has a "buffer" (paying with impersonal money) against the truth of what you are actually doing. When the Sabbath was in play in the ancient land of Israel, it was workable. Not now. Unless someone lives out in the woods completely "off of the grid," grows all of their own food, refuse to pay taxes, and buys literally NOTHING, they are breaking the Sabbath by "hiring" and "paying the salaries" of millions and millions of "manservants" and "maidservants." You can pretend that you are obeying the Sabbath by not working yourself. That is the only part of the 4th Commandment that you are keeping, and probably not even that. If your "manservants" and "maidservants" decided not to work on Sabbath while your iphone was being made, shipped or distributed they would be fired immediately. Again, true Sabbath Keeping can only happen in an extremely primitive, localized subsistence-farming society where virtually no trade - and especially international trade - whatsoever happens and where the economy can easily shut down completely for one day a week. Here's Gary North again: "Rethinking the sabbath question will involve a rethinking of the whole of Western industrial civilization. It will certainly involve the questioning of the last two centuries of rapid economic growth. Strict sabbatarians should at least be aware of the possible effects of their proposals. If the world should be conformed to Christian standards of Biblical law, and if the standards of Hebrew sabbath practice are, in fact, still the rule for the Christian dispensation, how would those standards be imposed on the population at large? Would it not make impossible our modern version of industrial specialized society? In other words, if such standards had been enforced for the past two centuries, could this civilization, which most modern Christians accept as far as its technological conveniences are concerned, have come into existence? How much of our economically profitable, efficient Sabbath technology would we be forced to destroy? The costs, I suspect, would be considerable. It is time for strict Sabbatarians to count these costs." Gary North, "The Economics of Sabbath Keeping," in Rushdoony, Institutes, p. 824. Judaism has broached this massive fatal flaw in Sabbath Keeping with aggressive measures to avoid Sabbath Breaking: [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_on_Shabbat_in_Jewish_law]Electricity on Shabbat in Jewish law - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/url] [url=http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/1159378/jewish/Electricity-on-Shabbat.htm]Electricity on Shabbat - Parshat Vayakhel - Mitzvahs & Traditions[/url] That still comes nowhere near to fixing the problem The Israelite Society that was plainly the subject of the Mosaic Law was agrarian, primitive and homogeneous ethnically. Society could and did shut down completely on the Sabbath. No other society that has ever existed since then has had that ability. And no other society ever will again. The idea that ANYONE in an industrialized society can "keep the Sabbath" is just an elaborate fairy tale. . | ||
| Mjcmcook Registered user Username: Mjcmcook Post Number: 1445 Registered: 2-2011  |
IMO~ "keep the Sabbath" is just an elaborate fairy tale.." It is more than just a 'fairy tale' told by someone to entertain children~! It is a "Lie," perpetrated by Ellen G. White, (to people "this side of the Cross"). Her assumption that she was 'speaking' for GOD, I believe is blasphemous! ~mj~ | ||
| Foofighter Registered user Username: Foofighter Post Number: 323 Registered: 7-2005 |
The other sticky-wicket in the Sabbath keeping that SDA's attempt, is the fact that the Israelites kept time by the moon for determining when the 7th day was. The count started the day after the New Moon was spotted. So many SDA's don't believe this is true. Some actually think that the Sabbath of today is the same seventh day time frame from Creation. | ||
| Mjcmcook Registered user Username: Mjcmcook Post Number: 1446 Registered: 2-2011 |
And...another "sticky-wicket" is the 'timing' of when 'sabbath' begins and ends in time-zones other than those in the western hemisphere! ~mj~ | ||
| Mjcmcook Registered user Username: Mjcmcook Post Number: 1447 Registered: 2-2011 |
To clarify~~~ 7TH day "Sabbath" observance begins at different times even from state to state here in America, and it goes without saying all across the globe! The "Sabbath" was the "Covenant Sign" between GOD and Israel, and has No bearing whatsoever on Christians under the "New Covenant"~ CHRIST is 'Our' "Sabbath" Rest! ~mj~ | ||
| Foofighter Registered user Username: Foofighter Post Number: 324 Registered: 7-2005 |
Agreed mj, There are 5 or 6 texts in the OT, where it is stated that the Sabbath was the sign of the covenant between God and Israel. There may be more texts. Nonetheless, SDA's are able to ignore or re-interpret any texts that put the Sabbath in the proper context, and with the proper group it was given to. Frustrating! | ||
| Mjcmcook Registered user Username: Mjcmcook Post Number: 1448 Registered: 2-2011 |
Yes~ It is beyond "Frustrating"~! Even so, I remind myself of how "sticky" the 'web' of "sabbath" keeping was for me, until some years ago! Then ~ The 'web' was pulled off of my 'spiritual eyes'~ ! To GOD be the Glory, Great things HE has done! ~mj~ (Message edited by mjcmcook on May 08, 2014) | ||
| Resjudicata Registered user Username: Resjudicata Post Number: 41 Registered: 4-2014 |
The Mishnah Torah is extremely clear: Gentiles that attempted to practice Sabbath Keeping were to be put to death. Without a complete conversion, Sabbath Keeping was prohibited. That is why the Mosaic Law took great pains to spell out that Gentiles were eligible for the "afterlife" if they declared that they were bound by the 7 Noahide commandments in front of three "credible jews." By doing that, Gentiles had ALL of the benefits of being a fully-converted Jew, without having that unfortunate encounter with the grinning Rabbi and the dull circumcision knife. | ||
| Resjudicata Registered user Username: Resjudicata Post Number: 42 Registered: 4-2014 |
Even BEFORE the New Testament, Gentiles NEVER kept the Sabbath! Really! NOTHING changed in the New Testament.....the Gentiles were just as prohibited BEFORE the New Testament as they were afterwords....nothing that Jesus or Paul ever said changed that ban on Gentile Sabbath Keeping. People just do not understand how informed on the law both Jesus and Paul were. | ||
| Colleentinker Registered user Username: Colleentinker Post Number: 14810 Registered: 12-2003  |
What a concept...that Jesus and Paul intimately knew the law... who'd have thought that could be the case?  Adventist Sabbath keeping is not only contrived, it's deceptive. Colleen | ||
| Resjudicata Registered user Username: Resjudicata Post Number: 44 Registered: 4-2014 |
I will tell you what, Colleen. Looking at the New and Old Testament strictly through a "Attorney's Eyes" has massively increased the credibility of the books in my opinion. It also debunks the tired Adventist mantra that Jesus and Paul were only opposed to the "man made traditions and interpretations" of the Law. There is NO such distinction made, ANYWHERE. One thing that is undeniable about Judaism: The way they viewed "their" law is holistically. They would never DREAM of taking one of the 613 Mitzvot away from all of the rest. There are 613 Commandments ("Mitzvot") in the Old Testament, all of them given by God. No way can humans decide which ones are more or less important to God. So they keep ALL of them with the same effort and dedication. The Sabbath Mitzvot is just one of 613. When You read the Babylonian Talmud and the Mishnah Torah, you just have to be struck by the awe-inspiring effervescent brilliance of those writers. It makes you realize that IQs of 250 aren't just possible, they are ordinary. And they devised a system that was extraordinarily committed to fairness. Look at how Paul was treated in his two trips to the Sanhedrin in Acts. His buddy Gemaliel, who was supposed to be acting as a neutral and disinterested judge of facts and law, comes across more like a defense attorney. Paul was taught the Mishnah Torah and Babylonian Talmud by Gemaliel and there is simply NO way of reading the written Torah without comprehending the Mishnah Torah and the Talmud. No way. We just fooled ourselves in Adventism. And we are benefited from the once-in-a-generation combination of Jewish Law and Greek philosophy centered in just one person. The Greeks at Athens were just awestruck by him. He spoke their language, and they just could not get enough of this strange Jew that spoke their own language of their gods and their philosophy. On Mars Hill, there is a plaque that the Greeks put there as a memorial to him, after he stunned and shocked the Greeks with the story of this half God/Half Human creature that killed itself and Resurrected itself: "the olive Grove of Academe, Plato's retirement, where the Attic bird Trilled his thick-warbled note the summer long;" In a totally stunning display of the mastery of the Aristotelian Rhetorical conventions, the Saint called them forth with their own pride in rationality. How can you have these messy gods that are everywhere, but nowhere and unavailable and unknowable? I have 500 eyewitnesses that saw this half God/Half Man Creature submit to death voluntarily and then self-Resurrected itself. The Greeks lined up 500 deep at Mars Hill to sign on the dotted line. He promised them the same brotherly love and relentless and selfless heroism: what had won their hearts with their own heroes at Marathon and Themopylae. At Corinth, there is a tiny whitewashed Chapel with a stone plinth out front carved with the words of 1 Corinthians 13. I spent two hours in that chapel as the Monks swished by with their incense, just bawling uncontrollably, like I was purging myself of the terrible years of Adventism. Because up the hill from that Plinth are the massive ruins of the Temple of Aphrodite, a terrible scene of relentless and inhumane human bondage. 10,000 Temple Prostitutes worked there at its height, virtual full-time sexual slaves. My girlfriend at the time was an ancient Greek scholar and we went in among those ruins and the stern words that could still be read exhorted those poor poor prostitutes to Be Strong and do your duty for the gods. They became instantly obsolete and in ruins with the massive, reverberating hydrogen bomb shock of that half man/half God creature and that Resurrection that still reverberates and shocks and stuns us to this very day. You just have to stand in stunned awe at the Plinth when you read those mighty words..... "If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal....." The plinth stands mighty and alone and proud, absolutely victorious over one of the most hellish scenes of human degradation and misery in human history. The Saint deliberately understated 1 Corinthians 13. Love completely won the war. (Message edited by Resjudicata on May 09, 2014) | ||
| Asurprise Registered user Username: Asurprise Post Number: 3363 Registered: 7-2007 |
Oh, there are SO many things wrong with that Sabbath-school lesson! There's the change of covenants and the new one doesn't even include the Sabbath shadow. Also Adventists err in thinking that any of their law keeping commends them to God because only accepting Christ as their substitute, NOT example, can save them. I grieve for them because so MANY will hear Christ say to them: "I never knew you," because they strove to keep the law to help keep themselves saved and never completely accepted Christ's sacrifice for them. | ||
| Resjudicata Registered user Username: Resjudicata Post Number: 45 Registered: 4-2014 |
Asurprise, If you ever have an opportunity to study some of the Responsa writings of the Jewish Diaspora, you will probably be like me: Really ashamed and embarrassed that I ever thought I could even think about the Sabbath, let alone keep it. I am not fit to lick the mud off the boots of some of those Responsa writers. One of them spent 50 years studying just the Sabbath, 20 hours a day and said there was at least another 50 years of intense study necessary for a fuller understanding of the Sabbath. Those guys are beyond brilliant: they are also unbelievably humble. What were we thinking? REALLY? A "halo around the 4th Commandment? REALLY? | ||
| Colleentinker Registered user Username: Colleentinker Post Number: 14813 Registered: 12-2003 |
Resjudicata, thank you for writing the above. It is unconscionable that we grew up disbelieving the unity of the law. In fact, I find it embarrassing and curious that there weren't more people questioning the veracity of EGW long ago. I've come to believe that the way Adventism has succeeded in hiding EGWs strangeness is that we are not fighting flesh and blood but principalities and powers (Eph. 6). If she were just a manipulated, uneducated woman, she and the organization couldn't have succeeded. Yes. "A halo around the 4th Commandments? REALLY?" Sigh. Praise God He sent Jesus to be a propitiation in His blood, so that He would be shown to be both Just and the Justifier of those who believe! (Rom. 3:26-27). Jesus is the Singularity that completely changes the history of humanity. Oh, one more thing: I think all of you would enjoy reading (or re-reading) an article from an old Proclamation written by MacGregor Wright. He's never been SDA, and he has a doctorate in apologetics from Denver Seminary. This article is one he wrote for an Adventist friend of his several years ago; it was so good we ran it in Proclamation. It's at this link, and the article is on Page6 of the PDF document. It's entitled, "What Was Nailed To the Cross?" http://www.lifeassuranceministries.org/Proclamation2005_JulAug.pdf Colleen | ||
| Resjudicata Registered user Username: Resjudicata Post Number: 50 Registered: 4-2014 |
I read that article, and you know what? He is 100 percent consistent with the way Judaism views the same subject! My only beef is that there is NO place in the Bible that mentions a Gentile keeping the Sabbath. That is completely consistent with Judaism's prohibition against Gentile Sabbath Keeping. Quite obviously, Gentiles were bound only by the 7 Noahide Mitzvot: Before, During and After Christ. Acts 15 really only reiterates this long-standing doctrine of Judaism. Once again, Judaism and Christianity were in complete agreement. Yes. "A halo around the 4th Commandments? REALLY?" Sigh. I think most of us will take years and years of healing before we can begin to comprehend how sacrilegious and blasphemous that quoted statement is to devout Jews. | ||
| Philharris Registered user Username: Philharris Post Number: 3032 Registered: 5-2007  |
Here is a short list of things I found hard to let go of even after knowing they were wrong: 1. 'Sabbath Keeping' 2. Mandatory tithing 3. Prohibition on alcoholic beverages 4. Christians who smoke It has taken years to confront my embedded unconscious beliefs and events that molded the way I behave. Fearless Phil | ||
| Grace2 Registered user Username: Grace2 Post Number: 26 Registered: 8-2013 |
Phil You made some interesting remarks: that it took years for you to confront embedded unconscious beliefs. How do you feel about these now? How were you able to let go of "feeling guilty" for doing stuff that objectively is not sin? | ||
| Philharris Registered user Username: Philharris Post Number: 3034 Registered: 5-2007 |
Grace2, This ‘short list’ is a long way from being a comprehensive list. They were simply items that came ‘off the top of my head’ to illustrate how I, or perhaps each of us, hang onto things even when we intellectually know they are not true. The root issue in understanding myself is that I tend to be a ‘law keeper’ even as I know that is wrong. Even though I don’t post here on the forum as much as I once did, being a part of this forum has been a major part of my current spiritual growth. A combination of the many testimonies here on the forum along with the searching out the real meaning of Scripture as I have been involved in Quarterly commentary has changed who I am. Since I never was a smoker I have had a worldly tendency to ‘feel proud’ of myself and unconsciously compare myself as better than those who are addicted to this habit, all the while, being anything but ‘victorious’ in other areas of my personal behavior. My life falls somewhere between the end of Romans chapter seven and the promises of chapter eight. The more I understand the real meaning of grace and simply surrender myself to our Savior the more I experience ‘victorious living’. In the mean time I see things that are working out in my life that have virtually nothing to do with my own works or abilities. Like the Apostle Paul, I am truly the greatest of sinners and am left in wonder that our Savior would willingly love and die for such a person as myself. The only reason I continue to maintain the nickname of ‘Fearless’ when in reality I am anything but fearless is that Jesus is my Savior. But, that is a whole different story. Fearless Phil | ||
| Colleentinker Registered user Username: Colleentinker Post Number: 14823 Registered: 12-2003 |
Phil, I love how you put that: "My life falls somewhere between the end of Romans chapter seven and the promises of chapter eight." Praise God that He knows how to de-program us. It has been the searching out of Scripture as I've done the FAF Bible studies and have been involved on this forum that have been a major part of my coming to understand what is real and true. Thank you, Phil, for all the ways you have challenged and encouraged me as you've participated in these venues! Colleen |
