November 2003 archive

Nov 27 2003

Adventist Review’s indirect admission of Ellen White’s errors

I know people who, because of a few comments in Ellen White’s book The Great Controversy, have a great fondness for the Albigensians (or Cathars), who were also considered heretics. Many were killed for their faith. These Cathars were very different from the Waldensians. They believed that Jesus was an angel, denied Jesus was really a man who died and was resurrected, and believed the Old Testament came from Satan. They discouraged marriage. They were in their day what David Koresh’s Branch Davidians are in ours. Were they heretics or martyrs? Could they be both?

Continue reading

Nov 27 2003

Acts 13 – do Christians keep the Sabbath in Acts?

Yes, Acts 13 is referring to a Sabbath service, but look where the service is! Is this a Christian service, organised by Christians, for Christian worship? Or is this a Jewish service, organised by Jews, for the usual synagogue service that had been going on in the synagogues for decades prior to Christ’s lifetime? … Where does Acts 13 use the word “worship” in relation to the actions of Paul? Nowhere – not one of the words used indicates worship by Paul. The text of Acts 13 itself demonstrates that Paul is NOT observing the Sabbath. The assumption that his presence in the synagogues on the Sabbath means his observance of it as a holy day is a mistake Sabbatarians make because they want to find texts where the Apostles keep the Sabbath. In fact, there are NO such texts in the entire Bible!

Continue reading

Nov 27 2003

Acts 1 – do Christians keep the Sabbath in Acts?

Many Adventists continue the principle of the Pharisees that dictates how far one may walk on the sabbath before one is considered to have “worked.” Apart from places where the term “sabbath day’s journey” is used, they have no support for this in the Bible.

Continue reading

Nov 27 2003

1 Cor 16:2 – regular first day services?

1 Cor 16:2 is quite good evidence for regular Sunday observance. It shows that every week – regularly, weekly – on a certain day, the people collected money for mission work done by Paul. This day was the first day of the week. The passage does not directly state that there are worship services on the first day of the week, but one can deduce from the context that this had to be so. The money was brought together weekly to one place – when else but the weekly day of worship? What better day to collect such donations than the day on which the Christians came together as a group? If they kept the Sabbath, then this would have been the Sabbath. But it was Sunday Paul chose, which indicates that Sunday was an easier day to collect things into one place than the Sabbath was.

Continue reading