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I have talked about a New Covenant that was ushered in at Christ's death on the cross. Why were the 10 Commandments to be obsolete. I will speak the next words from common sense and the words of the Fourth Commandment itself:
Exodus 20: 8 “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns. 11 For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.
First - Did any Israelite men need to require their wife to keep Sabbath? They are not included in the law are they?
Second - Does it condone slavery by its mention here with no clarification from Moses to today??
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Bob
The apostolic Christian church did not oppose slavery which was part of the society of that time.But it did expect a slave owner to be kind and just and compassionate. It also expected the slave to be as good a slave as one could be.
However because it taught that all men were brothers in that all are the children of God it would over time lead to the end of slavery.
Even in the OT the laws of Moses on slavery were very humane when compared to the other societys of the day.
The NT makes it very clear that Sabbath keeping is optional for the Gentile church. However while the Gentile is not required to keep the seventh day Sabbath he/she is not forbidden to do so.
SDAs who keep the Sabbath do so with a sincere belief that they should which is fine and they should not be harassed for doing so.The problem is when they make their own personal convictions into a club to attack other Christians.
There is no real archalogical evidence that the Exodus really took place but the story of the Exodus can be seen as a type of the spiritual journey many of us make.If one analayses the story of the Exodus one can learn many spiritual lessons but the main one is that we as sinners are delivered from bondage by the power of God nothing else.
At the start of the journey it is important to recognise God as creator hence Exodus 20 but at the end just before one enters the promised land it is important to recognise that God did it all hence Deut 7
But why argue about it if Tom Norris wants to keep the Sabbath the way he understands it what is that to you.If you do not keep it at all well that is nobody elses business.
Sadly we often spend to much time in judging someone elses servants instead of following the still small voice.
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You raise a good point, Old Abe. whatever one can say about the old covenant with regard to turning a blind eye to slavery, can be said about the new as well. Paul also appeared to give tacit approval to slavery and in Roman Empire, slavery wasn't always the benign indentured servitude it was in ancient Israel.
As to the other, if we want to get all technical with regard to the old covenant mentioning men but not women, then the new covenant again has similar issues. Bob appears to believe that a strict injunction against homosexuality is part of the new covenant, for example, but the new covenant (i.e., St. Paul) only mentions male homosexuality, and says nothing about female homosexuality. I suspect he'd not be comfortable with a literal reading in which male homosexuals are bad, but lesbians are fine. A literal reading of the new covenant would also preclude most divorce and all remarriage after divorce, but again, the modern
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Yitzak, what of Romans 1:26 relative to Lesbian behavior???
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Ole Abe, I have no problem with anyone's view of the Sabbath, until they add it as a salvific issue. I attended one church in the Maryland area near the GC office, where a police officer was excommunicated for taking Friday night drunk detail, and his every other weekend responsibility. It is hypocritical of SDA when on Friday evening to Saturday the would call a policeman first if they had an accident but not allow membership. This same police officer was accepted in SDA membership in a SDA church just miles from the other SDA church. What a message to nonSDAs!!!
When SDAs sue a company because they do not allow every Saturday off when it can not be accommodated, is hypocritical given the above example, is it not??
Last edited by bob_2 (01-19-11 1:16 pm)
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Bob
If the SDA church wants to treat 7th day Sabbath observance as a salvic issue that is within their right to do so.If one does not see it that way then find another church.
Apparently you grew up in the SDA church but it looks like you are either out or going.Which is also within your right too.
No one is saved by belonging to a certain denomination although most denominations believe it they are essential to the process.it is the reason they exist.But it was ever so .It seems that witch doctor /priest or shaman is the oldest profession with prostitution in second place and lawyers in third.
According to Jesus it appears that whores are less evil than either priests or lawyers.
Truth is subjective. What is truth to you is not necessarily truth to me. As the Bible says let each be convinced in his own mind.
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The problem the modern SDA church has in teaching strict sabbath observance is that the law given some 3,000 years ago in an entirely different economy cannot be applied today. Then, it was an agrarian economy, all self-contained and they were not to interact with other peoples: IOW, they supplied all their need in that closed community.
Today, it is entirely different: we rely on fire, police and health professionals to be available 24 hours/day as emergencies do not operate on a six-day week with everything closed down for the seventh day. The attempt over the years has been both ludicrous and comic: "permission" given for healthcare professionals to work on the seventh day, but all other workers must adhere strictly to no working on that day.
As mentioned above, if an Adventist needs fire or police help on the seventh day, they have to rely on "pagans" because if everyone observed that day as a no-work day, the house would burn down because the firemen couldn't work on that day.
That's only a dramatic example. There are many other professions that require shift work or rotating shift which is impossible to coordinate with other employees. Yet, this is what the church advocates . I have known physicians who, because they wouldn't take call on Saturday,made extra work for others: IOW they were forced to give him special privileges, acknowledging the importance of his religion. This is an imposition on others that does not encourage good Adventist impressions.
If one is doing good and legal work, why can't anything that is good also be practiced 7 days a week? IOW, something that is good and moral suddenly becomes immoral and law-breaking based on the calendar? This is morality? Morals are applicable at all times, not just sometimes. If it's immoral to tell a lie, it's always immoral; but if it's moral to attend a sports event or even go shopping, why does it become immoral because the calendar says it's the wrong day?
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elaine, I share many of your concerns about how the SDA church applies sabbath observance. That said, SDAs aren't the only ones with this very strange approach. Visit the orthodox section of Jerusalem and you'll see far more illogical problems.
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Ole Abe, you are pretty casual about the Gospel, read:
Galatians 1:8 But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let them be under God’s curse! 9 As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let them be under God’s curse!
People believe they can add to the Gospel salvifics without consequence. Those salvific issues appear to be pretty absolute and objective, rather than subject as Ole Abe would suggest.
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We seem to be confusing two separate issues:
1. whether SDAs are theologically correct to add salvics, whether God will punish them, or whatnot
2. whether SDAs *have the right* to add salvics.
1 is an interesting dispute, one that noone will change anyone's mind about. I suspect most people here agree that the SDAs are incorrect in this regard, including OldAbe. We may disagree somewhat as to what if any punishment God will mete out, but that's a separate question.
As I read it, 2 was OldAbe's only claim. I don't see how it can be otherwise, unless we want to claim that no one has the right to believe in a theology that is not 100% correct.
I will also point out that the list of churches that add salvics to the gospel list is very long, and the SDAs are nowhere near the worst offenders. The essential gospel salvics are to believe in Jesus Christ and (in some versions) be baptized. Beyond that, although a variety of other commands and suggestions and exhortations are issued by Paul, he lists very few of them as salvic.
There is, for example, no indication that one is required for salvation to belong to a specific denomination in order to be saved, but many churches teach and believe that their denomination is the only pathway to salvation.
There are also nearly universal claims that believers are required to pay some sort of money to the said saving church.
And, although most of the churchs claim that the ten commandments are done away with, they almost all add a set of behavioral salvics that are:
1. condemned by Paul, but not salvic: divorce, homosexuality, fornication, women preching, etc.
2. completely unmentioned by the new testament in any way whatsoever: alcohol use, birth control, abortion, public nudity
3. the exact opposite of the gospel message: prosperity "gospel" wherein you can tell whether you are saved, based on the degree to which you are financially blessed.
So, Adventists aren't the only or worst offender, and if they are under God's curse, they're in pretty abundant company.
Last edited by Yitzak (01-20-11 4:32 pm)
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Any church can add as many behaviors as it wishes; and as long as its members believe that, like the Catholic church, it holds the keys to the kingdom, they can do as they wish.
However, in the Protestant beliefs, no church has the keys to the kingdom, and no where in the Bible is the ticket to heaven met by membership in any church. If one chooses to join a particular church, it would be expected that conformity to its rules would be accepted.
The Adventist church has long proclaimed it is the "True" church and is the only one to fulfill all the qualification listed in Revelation, as they interpret it (including identifying EGW as he Spirit of Prophecy). My 11-yr-old-granddaughter who was baptized in the SDA church a little less than a year ago was, I seriously doubt, ever instructed on belief in Ellen White; clean/unclean foods/tithe and especially the Investigative Judgment timeline.
How necessary are belief in those doctrines to obtain salvation?
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Any church can add as many behaviors as it wishes; and as long as its members believe that, like the Catholic church, it holds the keys to the kingdom, they can do as they wish.
However, in the Protestant beliefs, no church has the keys to the kingdom, and no where in the Bible is the ticket to heaven met by membership in any church. If one chooses to join a particular church, it would be expected that conformity to its rules would be accepted.
hi Elaine
I am not sure that's true. That may be a signal protestant belief, but there are so many churches (protestant) that believe that their denomination is the only correct one that it's hard to see the SDAs as unique in this regard. Jehovah's witnesses believe that, as do mormons. There are a host of smaller evangelical groups that believe they have a corner on the Truth, as to at least the splinter baptist groups (the mainline baptists at least used to believe this, i remember hearing it preached from the pulpits, but not sure if it's officially the case any more).
This is an interesting little essay about the problems, generally, of denominationalism and exclusivity in (protestant) Christianity:
http://www.westmont.edu/~work/articles/ … hurch.html
On the adventist beliefs, especially EGW and the various other nonsense that gets admixed with whatever portion of the gospel is preached, I agree completely with you.
You may be happy to know that nearly all of the adventists I know, on a personal level, do NOT believe that adventism is the only road to salvation. So, at least on the individual level, there's hope. In fact, it's the individual reasonableness of so many particular adventists i know that has kept my connection with adventists what it is, in spite of institutional nonsense.
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Thanks. That was an interesting article.
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