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Commentary on "Community"
Day 7: Friday, June 19, 2009
Overview
“For a thorough Adventist study on the nature of the church, see R. Dederen, ed., Handbook of Seventh-day Adventist Theology (Hagerstown, Md.: Review and Herald® Publishing Association, 2000), pp. 538–581. See also chapter 45 of Ellen G. White, The Desire of Ages, pp. 410–418.”
Problems
One more time…
It appears that the very last place the Adventist denomination wants its members to look regarding the nature of the church, its functions, its roles and its source of authority is the Bible. Clearly, the Bible isn’t enough, nor can the Holy Spirit be trusted to teach the meaning of the passages to the honest seeker after truth.
Instead, one needs an “Adventist study” and Chapter 45 of The Desire of Ages. The only purpose for suggesting these sources is the need to maintain control of the people who show up every week. There must be one answer, and that answer must be the Adventist answer.
If this isn’t Catholicism, I don’t know what is.
Again, this isn’t limited to Seventh-day Adventist thinking. Every denomination I’ve studied carries the same illogic in its very genes.
There is a unique weakness that afflicts humans: the need to be right. I suffer from it, and so do you. This weakness is particularly damning in a religious setting. More blood has been spilled over the need to be right than for any other reason. We’re so driven by this need that we’re willing to kill people over it.
Do I fault the Adventist church for displaying this weakness? No. I fault them for refusing to believe it could be a weakness.
If the Adventist church is anything like other denominations, it is filled with people who are lost, people who are saved and people who don’t know. This is normal. The answer is Jesus, not the denomination. The source book is the Bible (sola scriptura), not Ellen White. The Revealer of the Bible’s meaning is the Holy Spirit; not me, not you, and certainly not an organization.
Summary
- Until we get this straight the saved people among us will never quite understand the abundant life Jesus promised, the lost people will never come to Jesus for salvation, and the confused will die in their unbelief, because an impersonal organization will never find a way to explain the intimately personal Jesus to them.
Copyright 2009 BibleStudiesForAdventists.com. All rights reserved. Revised May 12, 2009. This website is published by Life Assurance Ministries, Glendale, Arizona, USA, the publisher of Proclamation! Magazine. Contact email: BibleStudiesForAdventists@gmail.com.
The Sabbath School Bible Study Guide and the corresponding E.G. White Notes are published by Pacific Press Publishing Association, which is owned and operated by the Seventh-day Adventist church. The current quarter's editions are pictured above.
Official Adventist Resources
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Easy Reading Edition Study Guide Week 12
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