Not enough for who?
Genesis 8:10 And he stayed yet other seven days; and again he sent forth the dove out of the ark;
Genesis 8:12 And he stayed yet other seven days; and sent forth the dove; which returned not again unto him any more.
The above is not enough either, for many.
I don’t believe some pastors, I won’t dare speak for all pastors, promote individuals to read for themselves the bible but I will say that we can’t place all the blame on them. It is our own responsibility to read for ourselves the bible.
And that pamphlet is a sad reality. There is some truth to that statistic, unfornutately. 
[quote=“timteichman, post:7, topic:8963”]
It is not enough, for example, to notice that the first mention of the Sabbath in the bible is in Exodus, mentioned in context of the bread (manna) from heaven. Here is what Exodus says:[/quote]
That is not the 1st time the sabbath is mentioned. It is 1st mentioned when God sanctfiied in Genesis 2:3 “And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because in it He had rested from all His work which God created and made.”
[quote=“timteichman, post:7, topic:8963”]
If they had been ardent sabbath keepers already, this would have been obvious to them, especially as they were previously told exactly what would happen with the manna.[/quote]
Of course, they had not been ardent sabbath keepers they had been slaves for many years and had forgotten the ways of the Lord living in Egypt, surrounded by the many Egyptian gods and working all the days of the week being that they were slaves and were forced to do so. They had to be taught all over what those ways were.
It’s not enough for the church leadership.
Your quote of the flood story could play into their efforts to also insist on the flood. However, it does not mention a sabbath. It mentions 7 days. 7 (among other numbers such as 3 and 40) is a common number used in biblical text as a shorthand. Even if meant to be literal an accruate in these texts, I can’t see how it has anything to do with the sabbath, as you’d not perform these things on the sabbath if you were a legalistic Hebrew keeping the sabbath. Which, of course, Noah was not. He was a forefather long before Abraham, to whom (who?) God gave the first Covenant.
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Yes, this is often used to signify a sabbath. But, if you follow the narrative, there is no mention of sabbath keeping in that text. And none until after the exodus in any text. That there were seven days in the narrative of creation is true, but it does not say to sanctify every seven days from then on out. It only mentions that one, the last day of creation. We could easily remember that day without having a sabbath each week. In contrast, the story in Exodus goes into some detail on the meaning of the Sabbath, both before and after it was given in the Decalogue.
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Yes they were there for about 400 years I think. Long enough to forget their traditions. But, the Sabbath? That is a cornerstone of Judaism and unlikely to be forgotten. Beyond that, though, while I have heard what you write before, there is no biblical mention of such an occurrence, so it is only conjecture.
There is no mention of the people keeping any sort of sabbath before the exodus story. It may have been, but we can’t tell that from scripture.
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The Bible is not collated chronologically; in fact the earliest evidence of the Bible being written is during the Persian Exile, ca 500 A.D. It was orally transmitted for most of the Hebrew history. But there is no evidence of Adam and Eve or anyone commanded or observing the Sabbath until Sinai. All the rest is assumption and nothing more. The first mention of Sabbath was at Sinai and the Creation account was written long afterward. The Israelites were told to “remember” that they were once slaves in Egypt and as slaves they had no rest day. How can one “remember” something he was never told?
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Brother Bic Birder 100% of agreement with you. The Bible has a lot of evidences that gives full support to it´s statements, that it is reliable and truthful. Can anybody in good sense deny the fulfilment of prophecies, the signals that are crying to us in everyday news (Check Mathew 24, Mark 13, Luke 17 and 21, 2 Tim… 3, etc)? Is able anybody in good sense to deny the testimony of modern medical science when you see that almost every principle on the ancient Health Law given at Sinai and more recently the result of better health and longevity that Loma Linda studies on SDA´s give?, Were not tought by God long time before known by science? From whom did EGW got knowledge for her advices? What about Archaeology, what about long term prophecies about the first coming of Jesus or the merging of Papacy, or the fall of ancient cities or civilizations? What about the red clover and the bumble bees experiece in Australia, that proves that red clover were not able to survive as species more than 2 years. How can explain those who deny the creation Biblical testimony, that red clover could exist for "thousands or millions of years without bumble bees? Really it is amazing how the devil can blind the eyes and block the conscience of intelligent people that indeed are victims of atheistic phylosophy, that is the today´s fashion. Having unequivocal evidences within the Church there is no reason to disbelieve a “Thus say the Lord”.
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I didn’t say they forgot the sabbath, I just said they forgot how to keep it. I do see where you are coming from. I’ll have to study that for myself.
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Let us know your findings, as after many years study, I have yet to find a text where the Sabbath was observed by anyone before Sinai, but Bible study is most important to determine for yourself without other’s telling you.
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I will. It’ll take time though. By the end of this weekend I should be able to find something. It’s a challenge I accept.
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as i understand it, human nature is that part of our non-physical being that’s inherited…it’s what we automatically default to when we aren’t thinking, or disciplining ourselves in any way…human nature is most evident in babies and toddlers, because they haven’t learned how to mask what is natural for them…
according to egw, adam and eve were created sinless and holy, with a nature in automatic harmony with god…but the single act of disobedience in eden changed everything…their human “nature” had become “depraved by sin”, satan had gained “more ready access to them”, and they had “less power to maintain their integrity.” Patriarchs and Prophets:61.
this new nature, subsequent to the fall, is known as a fallen nature - fallen from sinlessness to sinfulness, and fallen from strength to weakness…egw teaches that all of us have inherited a sinful fallen nature with the exception of christ, who, through an immaculate conception, miraculously inherited a one-of-a-kind sinless fallen nature…whereas we start life with a death sentence over our heads - we are by nature the children of divine wrath, ephesians 2:3 - jesus was always “that holy thing”, luke 1:35, who never needed to be converted, and who never veered from god through even a single thought or inclination, Review and Herald, November 8, 1887…
our sinful fallen human nature, in contrast to christ’s sinless fallen human nature, has many theological implications…in my view, the contrast between our human nature and christ’s represents the abc’s of an understanding of what inspiration teaches about the very large subject of salvation - why we cannot save ourselves, and why only jesus can save us, and what that means…but like in so many other areas of inquiry that are discussed at length in the bible and egw, vast segments of our church remain confused…
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At Synagogue we go through the Whole Torah.
At the end of the year, beginning of the new, we Unroll the Whole Torah in a circle with everyone present holding a portion of it. When it is all unrolled, the Rabbi begins to explain WHERE on the many feet of the scroll many of the items read are. Beginning with Gen 1, the Flood, Abraham, and on around through Exodus, Levi, Deut and the closing with the death of Moses.
Then it is rolled back up with Genesis 1 being at the start for re-reading beginning the next Sabbath.
Some churches I know here in town use the weekly Lectionery handouts with 4 readings – Old Testament, Psalm, New Testament, Gospel [on a 3 year cycle of Matt, Mark, Luke. But John is read every year.]. This encourages bible reading. They are read in church each week. Some Sunday churches read MORE Bible in church than SDAs do. Many Sunday pastors base their Sermons on the Scripture passages for the day. Making application of Scripture to the activities of daily living.
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I have taught a Sabbath School class for over 30 years. When I began teaching, the responses tended to be supported by either the Bible or Spirit of Prophecy. I have noticed a trend in the last few years of people basing their support on “Pr Doug said” on 3 ABN.
That to me is indicative of the level of personal Bible reading that is not happening in our church. Instead of being known as the people of the Book, we are now more aptly known as the people of the box, and content to simply parrot off what we heard on 3ABN.
I would strongly support the notion that we should be reading the Bible for ourselves, and more focused on letting the Bible interpret itself by comparing other Bible passages. I think we too quickly go for “expert” advice when the Holy Spirit has promised to guide us into all truth.
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jeremy,
You’re quoting. That’s not an explanation. Your first paragraph sounds good; the rest is canned.
How can EGW prove “conclusively”? If, what you say is true, Jesus had a continual struggle to do the right thing - to not sin. This is assuming that sin is defined only as an act (very Jewish); but to have a sinful “nature” (some component before an act) is not even in the OT. Looking up “nature”, you only find NT references, proving that we need both, the Jewish and the Greek concepts of what sin is. Paul gives another definition of sin “whatsoever is not of faith”.
An act (sinful act) comes from a contrary mind - a mind contrary to God. The act of sinning is just the last step. Non-SDAs baptize babies ) before they have had a chance to sin, because they accept a sinful state by just being human. Jesus had no such mind-set.
Paul calls Jesus the “second Adam”, the implication being, the first Adam failed and brought about sin into the human psyche, while the second Adam gave man a legacy of innocence. If Jesus had a sinful human nature, he wasn’t the second Adam.
The trouble with quotes is they don’t explain anything. What is the “sinful component” that Christ didn’t have? And what component did he have - a sinful mind-set? Then he wasn’t sinless.
.
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The SDA church thrived for 1`23 years without a creed, until 1980 when the fundamentals of the SDA church was adopted in 1980 at the Dallas GC session. EGW was opposed to fundamentalism. Fundamwentaklsim started to take over the SDA church when M L Andreason was top theologian with his last generation theology in the 1930’s. LGT is rooted in the idea that God will not come until there is a perfect sinless people. To me that puts man in control of when Christ comes not God.
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If it was that straightforward, we wouldn’t be having these arguments.
[quote=“bness, post:12, topic:8963”]
That is not the same. The resurrection was a one time event of a
non-historical nature (i.e. there is nothing in history that proves or
disproves it, although we know Jesus existed as a real person).
Something like the age of the earth has other evidence that can be
brought to bear.[/quote]
Ah, yes, the convenient rescuing device: “It’s not the same.” Yes it is. Paul says that all Scripture was given by inspiration of God. Creation (of the earth and solar system, at least) was also a one time event, and no one was there when it occurred. At best, scientists can speculate. Their attempts at “dating” the age of the earth are based on a godless world view, and require unwarranted assumptions about events which they did not witness and cannot measure.
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Many Christians assume (speculate) that James Ussher’s way of counting generations, based on his assumptions and events that he did not see, some how adds up to the age of the earth. While scientists (25% of then Christians) have a plethora of ways of telling time. Counting tree rings does not take “a godless world view”. It only takes a ability to count. While the age of the earth blows up the “young earth God view” it does not damage my God world view.
Some Christians hold that the universe is about 6000 years old. By looking at the sky we can see things that happened many years ago. By looking at 6000 year old light I can see (and be there) what happened 6000 years ago. Also 10,000 years ago and 100,000 years ago.
Please don’t hang the God/no-God question on the age of the world or the age of life on the world.
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There is no logical reason to assume that the age of the universe and the age of the earth are related, or that they are the same. The Bible tells us about the creation of the earth and solar system, and the life on it. It only addresses the creation of the universe (stars) parenthetically. The timeline in Scripture for life on this planet does not allow for much wiggle room beyond 6000 years.
When scientists claim that fossils are millions of years old (based on the layers of rock in which their found), we can know that they are wrong, since the Bible is clear that the animals were created only a short time before man. If the animals aren’t that old, neither are the rock layers. If their conclusions about the origin of life is so faulty, I can’t really place much confidence in their conclusions about the rest of the solar system. And, I suspect they are way off on their supposed age of the universe. I believe it is much older than they think it is, since God is eternal, and we have no way of knowing when He first begin creating.
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