When I first came to Pasadena, the college bookstore was selling Samuel Bacchiocchi's, Sabbath to Sunday book. Certain ministers in Pasadena were enthralled by the book, a book by a man who was part of a crazy cult that placed Ellen G White into the same position that COG members had placed HWA - God's only true messenger of the end times and one step below God. The WCG also loved this book because Bacchiocchi had been granted permission to study at the Pontifical Gregorian University at the Vatican where he claimed to have "proven" that the Sabbath had been changed by the Catholics. This sent certain leaders of the Worldwide Church of God into ecstasy to have "proof" those evil Catholics had changed the Sabbath and therefore HWA was right, never mind the fact that the SDA's are just as theologically bankrupt as the WCG was.
Later as the WCG started its devolution into debunking the requirement for keeping Sabbath on a specific day of the week, those still tied into HWA's teachings latched back on to Bacchiocchi's books and actively sought him out to put a dent in the WCG changes. Books and articles flew around Pasadena trying to stop people from accepting the changes. He also came out at the time with a book telling women in the SDA church they should not be wearing jewelry, wedding rings or dressing fashionably. Certain legalists in the WCG jumped on that bandwagon too.
Many critics over the years have debunked Bacchiocchi's writings, and now a new book has taken Bacchiocchi's SDA tainted research on the Sabbath to task and the issue of food laws for New Covenant Christians.
This is an excellent work on the age-old issue of Sabbath observance by Christians. The writer, a young scholar in the making, ably challenges the Seventh-day Adventist church’s position on and arguments for weekly Sabbath observance as a requirement for Christians today. Through careful exegesis of primary scriptural texts bearing on the Sabbath question, as well as explicit considerations and applications of the principles of biblical hermeneutics, the writer presents a thorough and convincing case against mandatory observance of the weekly Sabbath, establishing that for Christians, Old Testament feast days and festivals (which included the weekly Sabbath), as shadows pointing to Christ, met their consummation in Jesus Christ, and consequently have no claims on Christians who are children of the New Covenant presented in the New Testament.
While the work extensively interrogates long held scholarly arguments in support of weekly Sabbath observance, and explores in detail the peculiar family of doctrinal teachings of the Seventh-day Adventist church on the Sabbath, both the scholar and the lay individual will find the work refreshing, insightful, and provocative. The work is heavily referenced and the writer evinces a comprehensive grasp of the material on both sides of the argument. Every Sabbath keeper (and every Adventist in particular) should read this book and critically assess its evidential worth. Of course, any Christian who so chooses, may without condemnation, observe the weekly Sabbath; but in doing this, the individual should know that he/she has no special mission from God to evangelize other Christians to keep the Sabbath. Importantly all Sabbath keepers must realize that keeping the weekly Sabbath does not make them especial in God’s eyes, nor does it secure for them God’s unmerited grace, through which He has reconciled us unto Himself. The interested student should eventually come to appreciate that the believer’s true rest does not consist in the ceremonial observance of special days, but is instead found in the glorious Person of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, who Himself gives us life more abundantly.
In respect of the issue of dietary proscriptions for the Christian, the writer sets forth a very strong case for liberty in dietary choices based on the clear teachings of New Testament Scripture. Thus for the Christian, there is no food which is essentially unclean, and those believers who embrace vegetarianism, do so against any injunction expressed in Sacred Scripture. It is therefore potentially spiritually dangerous for any church or Christian leader to marry diet to the experience and final realization of salvation, as Ellen G. White, SDA prophetess, has done in her doctrinal and prophetic pronouncements.”—Andre R. Hill (Ed. D, M.S., M.C.C.Psy., PGD Psy., M.Th. (Prospective), BA.).
55 comments:
The book would need something stronger than the copyist insertion in Mark 7 and the misapplication of Peter's vision in Acts 10.
Recently I heard a scholarly (ie, non-COG) dissertation on the selection criteria for the formation of the New Testament canon. A primary requirement was strict conformity with the Old Testament. If indeed the NT says what some claim it says, it wouldn't have been accepted as scripture.
After I left WWCG behind I began attending The Church Of God (7th Day) and have continued to do so today. We all know that under the new covenant that the old covenant laws/law of moses is no longer valid in the new testament church. I find it interesting that the Armstrong churches still cling to those outdated laws that has nothing to do with salvation in Jesus.
well, theres plenty of research that shows that eating hogs, shellfish, monkey meat, for example, will harm your body and lead to an early death...
there is also research that shows that sda members consistently have a long life expectency...
lastly, there is an implication that before the deluge human beings were vegetarian, and their life expectency was in the hundreds of years; yet as soon as we were given permission to eat meat, our years of life dropped abruptly...
Abstaining from eating Pork or Shellfish is NOT what determines your Eternal Destiny. Some legalistic Pharaseses here will never learn. Sad.
Many critics over the years have debunked Bacchiocchi's writings,...
Many critics over the years have debunked this website.
The problem how can a Gentile become a Christian was solved in the same way the Jews answered the question of how can a Gentile become a Jew. The Noahide laws were imposed on the Gentiles as per the end result of the Acts 15 discussion between the Jewish Apostles and Paul spreading his particular Gospel, unlike that of the Jewish Church ultimately. Paul gave the impression of cooperation but in practice did what he wanted to do and preached what he wanted to preach. Acts was written to make Paul look far more cooperative than he actually was.
I think the reason Paul rebuked Peter for not eating with him and the Gentiles because the Jerusalem types were coming to dinner or town was not an issue of clean vs unclean meat, but of meat offered to idols. I believe Peter saw Paul was not adhering to what he said he'd tell Gentiles, avoid meat offered to idols, and was offended. We only have Paul's side of the story in Galatians. Of course, in I Corinthians, Paul makes it clear that eating meat offered to idols is no biggy "but in all men" (the Jewish Christians) "is not that knowledge."
The reason you can find so much ambiguity on the topic in the NT is because of the fact that we have a Jewish Christian Church under Peter, James and John etc, and a Gentile Church under Paul. You can't make them agree and the problem is not different than it is today with Jewish Christian Churches of God seeing things the way they do and Pauline Christians ("Gentiles") with all their Sunday, Holiday vs Holy Day practices. The arguments are endless because both perspectives are found in the NT.
If nothing else, like many other topics, it can also be a case of "Paul, who is sometimes hard to understand" It is accepted that no Peter the Apostle wrote 2 Peter but rather it is pseudopigraphic (forged) in his name to address much later issues in the church. This author, in Peter's name, admitted the problem with understanding Paul and probably because they were arguing about things Jewish Christians and Gentile ones still do today. One reason for Peter not writing this is that Galilean fishermen do not write in excellent Greek. If they did, they'd not be Galilean fishermen. Also the issues addressed are later church issues after Peter was gone.
2 Peter:
…15 Consider also that our Lord’s patience brings salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote you with the wisdom God gave him. 16 He writes this way in all his letters, speaking in them about such matters. Some parts of his letters are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the rest of the Scriptures, to their own destruction."
Anonymous Anonymous said...
well, there's plenty of research that shows that eating hogs, shellfish, monkey meat, for example, will harm your body and lead to an early death...
there is also research that shows that sda members consistently have a long life expectency...
lastly, there is an implication that before the deluge human beings were vegetarian, and their life expectency was in the hundreds of years; yet as soon as we were given permission to eat meat, our years of life dropped abruptly..."
Haven't eaten Monkey meat in years...however...these are generalities often cited by COG members.
The "Adventist Advantage" of living 5+ more years than average is mostly credited with non-smoking, not eating veggies
Romans 14 (Actually written by Paul) The Law of Liberty
4 Who are you to judge someone else’s servant? To his own master he stands or falls. And he will stand, for the Lord is able to make him stand. 5 One man regards a certain day above the others, while someone else considers every day alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. 6 He who observes a special day does so to the Lord; he who eats does so to the Lord, for he gives thanks to God; and he who abstains does so to the Lord and gives thanks to God.…"
What topic is Paul talking about? Who knows. He is sometimes hard to understand. It sounds suspiciously like Jewish practices though.
The before/after the Flood view is simply not true because it never happened as advertised. Humans have been eating meat for 200,000 years made easier with the discovery of fire for cooking. Life was short because it was dangerous. The ages of pre vs post Flood types are simply ridiculous Bible tale weaving. Humans weren't "given permission to eat meat" ever.
I'll spare the details, but Pork is considered more healthy than red meat if one wants to argue nutrition and health when eating meat.
HWA always used the phrase "prove all things". And as we all know, this was permitted leadingnup to membership in his church, but after baptism was not allowed on a continuing basis. Members were instead required to believe and do what the ministers said.
Because of the many centuries scholars have had to analyze the Bible, and because of the strength of various opposing arguments, I do not believe that it is possible to "prove all things" to the point of accountability to legalistic minutiae. I believe that HWA established a false premise in teaching that it was possible to "prove all things", a sleight of hand which he used to drop in his system and church as the solution to the puzzle. We know this from the disingenuous "research" of Herman Hoeh, the use of disreputable scholars such as Alexander Hislop and Immanuel Velikovsky, and the fact that the prophecies which were supposedly understood as a result of having the correct doctrines have been a complete failure. We also have experienced first hand the bad fruit produced by a leadership that is based upon the precepts and doctrines taught by HWA.
The only things of which we can be certain are the two great commandments of the Lord (love for God, love for fellow man), the beatitudes, Sermon on the Mount, and the grace, forgiveness, and salvation made possible by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Play nicely in the pool: love one another. It is not required that we become cultic zombies to do these things. It's so much simpler than HWA made it. Everything that man taught had an angle designed to be self-serving for himself. It also created elitism and haughty self-righteousness amongst his followers.
BB
Interestingly, the author of this just-published book--which I have already read--lives in Jamaica and has been a guest on my television show ,Religious Hardtalk ,where he discussed his departure from Adventism and his rejection of Sabbath-keeping .He will return soon to debate me on clean and unclean meats and on the Sabbath issue. That should be interesting. He is an highly intelligent young man. I am convinced that when we look at the best scholarly sources,the main lines of argumentation against Sabbath keeping cannot stand. Anyone who can spare the time can test that thesis by listening to my two-part lecture,( especially part two,)which was recently posted here. The position of Minimalist and of the atheists like Dennis that the Bible is uninspired and hopelessly contradictory is more rational and plausible than those on this blog who believe the Bible but believe it rejects New Covenant Sabbath-keeping. That is harder to defend exegetically.I will keep you posted on my television debate with my friend who authored the featured book.Ian Boyne
EVERY DAY IS THE SABBATH ??
Great , Im all for it, but how will our family be able to work and make a living?
Truly a dumb statement by the writer of this book. Even the Protestant and Catholic churches of historic Christianity did not come to the conclusion that "every day is the Sabbath". They embraced and enforced the idea of a specific rest day, "sabbath day" with it being Sunday.
The idea that there is NO Sabbath day, or rather that it is "all the time with a rest in Christ" , is a comparatively recent and new concept.
I do believe that in the Eternal scheme of things, when we all is completed and we are all with Jesus for eternity and immortal there will be some typology of eternal Sabbath. However, we are in the physical now , and the Sabbath was indeed made for man!
It seems that some ACOG members start with the premise, "If God gave it as a law, it's good for us. It can't hurt us to keep it today, and we can use science or logic to prove that God only gives good laws that are good for us."
I would like to see how the pork-haters get around the equally clear OT injunctions about stoning your disobedient children, or about not wearing mixed-fabric clothing. If society is healthier when people don't eat pork, shouldn't we assume that society is also healthier when people stone disobedient children and shun cotton-polyester blend clothing? The logic is the same.
Stoning your disobedient children could get you in trouble with law enforcement agencies in our modern day, but there's no excuse for choosing to wear mixed-fabric clothing. If it is healthier to live "God's way" and shun pork, shouldn't we be equally zealous about avoiding mixed-fabric clothing? Oddly, the same people who get very buggy about pork products in their food often do so while wearing cotton/wool blend clothing. Why is this?
Regarding the book called:
ALL FOODS ARE CLEAN AND EVERY DAY IS THE SABBATH
by Andre R. Hill (Ed. D, M.S., M.C.C.Psy., PGD Psy., M.Th. (Prospective), BA., and Master of Bulldunging (Aspiring))
Andre R. Hill is just another writer who wants to reason around obeying what God said in the Bible. He thinks that if he uses enough fancy words and clever arguments he can fool someone.
The Bible says that God is the one who made the Sabbath and commanded its remembrance. The Bible also says that God is the one who gave his laws about clean and unclean animals. The Bible quotes God as being the source of these laws. These things are in the Bible!!!
Ever since Satan told Eve in the garden of Eden that she should eat the one fruit that God had forbidden, Satan's own religious con-artists have been coming up with one excuse or another for why people should eat the things that God warned them not to eat.
Ever since God made his Sabbath, people have wanted to observe some other day (Sunday like the Catholics, or Friday like the Muslims), or no day (like the Evilutionists), or every day (like the lazy nuts). They seem to think that doing what God said in the Bible to do just cannot possibly be what he actually meant and intended and wanted.
Andre R. Hill is really just arguing that it is okay for people to trample on God's own biblical, weekly, seventh-day Sabbath. People, especially the raging “religious” types, love to hear that sort of thing. However, after all the illogical reasoning around is done, people are still expected to respect the unbiblical, pagan-based, man-made, Sunday rest of the Catholic church and its Protestant daughter churches. You cannot tell them that, “Every day is Sunday.”
It is interesting how many people claim that they believe in God, and claim to love Jesus, and profess to be Christians, and yet hate everything in the Bible. Perhaps their real calling was to be god-rejecting pagans, which is what they really behave like in actual practice. Why they even want to profess to be Christians while hating everything in the Bible and constantly arguing against it is a great mystery.
In the New Testament story, God lowers down a cloth loaded with unclean foods and 3 times commands Peter to eat.
Now what if Peter had obeyed and taken and eaten?
If the food was indeed still unclean and against the law, then we have a case of God tempting Peter to sin! And tempting him 3 times no less.
While there is an underlying purpose of saying Gentiles are not unclean, using non kosher foods and animals and telling Peter to arise, take and eat would be tempting him to sin if those things were not now made clean.
It is obvious that all things are now clean.
The NT also says that while all things are okay, not all things are expedient or good for you.
Before some people comment on this website, they should have a mental evaluation. Reading some of the comments a person can tell the ones who are totally unhinged!
According to HWA's original Autobiography, Clean/Unclean meats was a big issue in CG7. As I mentioned in the past, HWA accounts how he would keep these laws, not on CG7's terms, or Biblical terms, but his own.
HWA accounts how he stormed into a CG7 meeting, mocked the leader's importance, and mandated that he would keep the laws on his terms, which was that the dietary laws were about health. Apparently they humbly accepted that if he kept the laws, his reason didn't matter.
So the COG approach to Clean/Unclean is still largely presented a "health" issue.
Of course, the cherry-picking, cafeteria-style selection of laws has COGs arguing against other laws that use the same Hebrew words for clean/unclean. Interesting too is the Hebrew word translated "forever" (as in, these are statutes forever) is the same word translated as "eternal" (as in, eternal life). It's much easier to play around with NT koine Greek words...
@ 10:28 AM...
There is one big problem with your interpretation. In Galatians, after this vision, Peter was still eating with fellow Jews rather than with Gentiles. Peter himself describes the vision's message as to call no MAN unclean, and we don't find Peter treating Gentiles as unclean afterward. We do not, however, see him giving up the old dietary laws, which we would certainly expect him to give up if God had told him to do so.
Clearly, Peter didn't take his vision to mean, "start eating unclean animals." What we don't know so clearly is whether he nevertheless countenanced the Gentiles eating unclean animals (though this is implied by Peter's continuing to eat separately).
Given some of the defensiveness being posted over a topic that Armstrong himself termed "a physical food question, not a spiritual law", is there any surprise that Armstrongism is often cited for majoring in the minors?
In the book of Revelation, (obviously New Testament Era, and likely the last book written in the NT) it identifies Babylon as the "unclean bird".
Isaiah 66:17 (prophecy of yet future) ... those who eat the flesh of pigs, rats and other unclean things--they will meet their end together with the one they follow," declares the LORD.
“He [Samuel Bacchiocchi] also came out at the time with a book telling women in the SDA church they should not be wearing jewelry, wedding rings or dressing fashionably.”
Those were all SDA ideas that Samuel Bacchiocchi had to go along with. Sam also had to go along with the SDA compression of the “three days and three nights” into a Friday night to Sunday morning scenario in another one of his books. Even Sam's book called From Sabbath to Sunday was not really the result of his own scholarly mind. His simple carpenter father had been reading the Bible and noticed the Sabbath. Sam's father then went around looking for a church in Italy that kept the Sabbath and ended up with the SDAs. That is where Sam really learned about the Sabbath. Sam did not seem to know about the Annual Holy Days until he came into contact with the WCG. Then Sam wanted to write some books about them quickly with his own views and rush them off to press.
Alas, poor Sam could not even stand to read From God to Idolatry, the story of how the SDA church rejects the commandment against idolatry in order to worship the Catholic hippie pictures that it wants to help spread around the world. Sam's own CDs that he was selling had hippie pictures on them. According to Sam the justification for idolatrous Catholic hippie pictures in the SDA church was so utterly simple that he did not even have time to explain it.
Scholars are like that. Catholic scholars must come to Catholic conclusions. Protestant scholars must come to Protestant conclusions. SDA scholars must come to SDA conclusions. Muslim scholars must come to Muslim conclusions. Evilutionary scholars must come to evil conclusions. Etc. Scholars are not necessarily smart enough to come to a knowledge of the truth. They are only smart enough to realize what conclusions they need to come to in order to get their paychecks and the respect of whatever organizations they are members of.
I've known a few Seventh-Day Adventists over the years and I find them to be annoying, like fingernails on a chalkboard annoying.
This web site is majoring in the minors ... picking on little people like Dr. Sam and Bob Theil.
Abstaining from eating Pork or Shellfish is NOT what determines your Eternal Destiny. Some legalistic Pharaseses here will never learn.
Obedience to God does determine your eternal destiny. So if God says don't eat pork, don't eat it. Some sinners will never learn.
That explains a lot about Hoeh...
/Feeding the troll/
hinge
attach or join with or as if with a hinge.
"the ironing board was set into the wall and hinged at the bottom"
The Worldwide Cult of Armstrong "hinged" people steadfast to legalistic doctrines. If some have became "unhinged" thank goodness for it! Freedom! we became "unhinged" and able to seize the liberty to exercise our brain's natural reasoning faculties.
/Feeding the troll/
hinge
attach or join with or as if with a hinge.
"the ironing board was set into the wall and hinged at the bottom"
The Worldwide Cult of Armstrong "hinged" people steadfast to legalistic doctrines. If some have became "unhinged" thank goodness for it! Freedom! we became "unhinged" and able to seize the liberty to exercise our brain's natural reasoning faculties.
@ 2:16 PM, who wrote "Obedience to God does determine your eternal destiny. So if God says don't eat pork, don't eat it. Some sinners will never learn."
Whenever I hear this said by a minister wearing a wool/cotton blend (or if he's a junior man maybe a cotton/polyester blend), I laugh at the blindness and the hypocrisy.
If You Are Taking A Jab At My Comment At 10:42, My Comment Was Against Those Still Hung Up On Armstrong's False Doctrines! Just Letting You Know.
With a trimmed beard!
I dont know about Dr Bacchiocchi, but Thiel will have a hissy fit over you calling him "little".
Here we go again, a debate about the Sabbath, holy days, and clean and unclean meats. There are scriptures you can pull out that supports either side of this debate. The bible speaks with fork tongue. It is a book written and revised many times by men and women through the ages that had their own agenda and reasons to change or add to what others before them wrote. It is a book with many contradictions and is clearly not inspired by God but is written by men!
The reason we had such spirited debates back in 1995 when the Tkatch's made so many doctrinal changes is that the bible teaches both law and grace as the means to salvation. Someone wrote that it is by the law that we are saved and someone wrote that it is by grace and grace alone that we are saved. The simple truth is that the bible was written by man and was not inspired by a God!
Smart A** Christian, don't feed the night owl troll!
Ed, I do agree with your comment, but I do believe in a higher power.
For what it's worth, something that struck me finally in the classic WCG explanation of
23One Sabbath Jesus was going through the grainfields, and as his disciples walked along, they began to pick some heads of grain. 24The Pharisees said to him, “Look, why are they doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath?”
25He answered, “Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need? 26In the days of Abiathar the high priest, he entered the house of God and ate the consecrated bread, which is lawful only for priests to eat. And he also gave some to his companions.”
27Then he said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. 28So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.”
with the conclusion being the sabbath was made FOR man and not man FOR the Sabbath, meaning humans were more important than the Sabbath in such things as hunger, ox in ditches and healing the sick (all added to Matthew 12's account of this same text in Mark) AND that when it says "For the son of man is Lord, even of the Sabbath" DOES NOT MEAN that Jesus was saying he, as The Son of Man could define what was right on the Sabbath. It meant in context that "the son of man", i.e. humans are more important than the Sabbath.
WCG always put it the other way around and caused a lot of misery and unnecessary losses in many areas by making the Sabbath more important than human needs on the Sabbath.
Anonymous 6/18/17 4:45 AM said...
"well, theres plenty of research that shows that eating hogs, shellfish, monkey meat, for example, will harm your body and lead to an early death...there is also research that shows that sda members consistently have a long life expectency...lastly, there is an implication that before the deluge human beings were vegetarian, and their life expectency was in the hundreds of years; yet as soon as we were given permission to eat meat, our years of life dropped abruptly..."
Although I personally don't eat unclean meats like pork, shellfish, etc. my parents and siblings do. Having said that, however, I will repeat a comment I recall someone posted on another website regarding longevity: "The famous health author, Jim Fixx, promoted the benefits of jogging in his bestselling book, 'The Complete Book of Running.' However, his heart stopped one day whilst he was on his daily run and he died at the tender age of 52. William Burroughs, on the other hand, was a lifelong homosexual and heroin addict and died at the ripe old age of 83. I'm sorry, but this world just does not work the way you prefer to delude yourself that it does. So please stop judging others who choose a lifestyle that does not conform with your own."
We seem to be so judgmental as Christians, even—some might say especially!—those who subscribe to the beliefs and practices taught by Herbert W. Armstrong. I must keep repeating to a lot of my self-righteous Christian family members and friends, "You do know you're not the measure by which everyone else will be measured?! Jesus Christ IS!" But, some like to think they've learned all there is to know and they've got nothing else to learn. I think this kind of attitude was reflected best by HWA himself when he believed he KNEW the TRUTH about this or that like the Church of God (Seventh Day) being God's true church or tithing on money leading to material prosperity or eating only clean meats would lead to a long and healthy life or the Jewish calendar was God's true calendar or Pentecost should be on Monday or divorce and remarriage is approved in the NT or the British royal family are actually descended from King David of Israel, and so on.
a quote from a l a times article citing university of loma linda study data regarding the longevity of sda members:
"They showed that a 30-year-old Adventist man is likely to live more than seven years longer than the average white California man. For women, it was a 4.4-year difference. The differences were greater for vegetarian Adventists."
note the last sentence...
www.latimes.com/health/la-he-blue-zone-loma-linda-20150711-story.html
well, if he's teaching against keeping the Sabbath, do you really expect him to teach in favor of the food laws?
and talk about convoluted logic!...having a line of alphabet soup after one's name does not mean that they know what they're talking about.
it will all be cleared up for you one day.
Ian Boyne still believes in some level of supersessionism because he accepts that many laws regarding rituals, sacrifices, circumcision, raiment.. were dropped. He just accepts a little less than the average Christian. And Christians themselves don't accept the additional "inspired" supersessionist claims of Mohammed & Joseph Smith!
So it comes down to canonization of sacred texts: Boyne accepts the NT canon (without evidence of inspiration), but not the Koran & Book of Mormon (also lacking evidence)
Dennis,
So Christs words 'DOES NOT MEAN' what Christ was saying because, err, well,
hum, well because Dennis says so.
Christs easy to understand words don't mean what they say because resident de facto minister Dennis Diehl says so.
Got that everyone!
My view on this usage of "the son of man" in this context is a common theological one. I did not dream it up.
Dennis,
Perhaps your view is a "common theological one," but do Christians really need a mental 'seeing eye dog' to understand the bible. Most of the bible is easy to understand. God made it that way. No middlemen theologians are necessary. "Study to show yourself approved of God" is a acknowledgement of this. Note it says STUDY. This means a first hand examination and assessment of scriptures.
By contrast, the middlemans interpretation of the bible that one gets at services or in church literature, is READING. It is not study.
What my bible study versus your theologians tell me, is often very different.
In a context of a distressed ox, a sick. Person, Jesus n company hungary, David taking temple food for he and hungary men of Mark 2 and the expanded Matt 12 version, humans being more important than strict Sabbath views seems the reasonable lesson. Also the son of man concept has several contextual meanings aside from some deep meaning title for Jesus.
Ed 6:15 PM says
"Someone wrote that it is by the law that we are saved and someone wrote that it is by grace and grace alone that we are saved". I don't remember any spirited debates. The Tkatch's clearly were ramming Protestant heresy down our throats.
The Bible clearly teaches that the Law and Grace work together. Without the Law there is no sin, therefore no need for Grace. United's booklet on "Was the Law Done Away" does a pretty good job explaining "difficult" scriptures. Christ came to magnify the Law, not to destroy it. Christ actually made the Law more demanding to New Testament believers.
An in 10:26. The OT and NT are the results of middlemen and "seeing eye dogs" of old telling us how it all is, correct? They just wrote it down for your consideration like any theologian would
RSK wrote Armstrong himself termed "a physical food question, not a spiritual law"
The categorization of Torah Law was the work of the post-Apostolic Neo-Platonists who HWA would otherwise condemn.
While the “physical” aspects of dietary laws were mentioned by the Jewish sage Maimonides (aka Rambam) this idea didn’t really impact Jewish philosophy until around the 19th century.
Some years ago, Bob Thiel wrote an article on which laws he considered were still in effect and which were “abolished”. When I advised him about some factual misunderstanding in his article (which he has revised a number of times) I also told him HWA and those who followed didn’t have a clue about clean/unclean, the Tabernacle and Temple system, the Levitical Priesthood, and other matters on which he was pontificating.
Although it is not surprising that GOGlodytes don't understand Jesus and his role in the New Covenant, it is surprising to hear COGlodytes proclaim that the concept of every day being the Sabbath is a new concept. That concept has been with the New Covenant church since it's inception. Jesus is the Sabbath rest spoken of in Hebrews. COGlodytes refuse to enter that Sabbath rest and instead, keep up their heavy labor of their works and thereby trample on the Holy Sabbath.
exceptions to the rule do not negate the rule...
Dennis,
Nope, I believe the bible is inspired by God rather than a human creation. On a few occasions, God has communicated to me by 'lighting up' a few lines out of the scriptures. It's as if someone was shining a light on those lines. I have never heard of people experiencing this with secular books, or books written by theologians.
So I don't think we can ever see eye to eye on this one.
Anonymous Anonymous said...
Dennis,
Nope, I believe the bible is inspired by God rather than a human creation. On a few occasions, God has communicated to me by 'lighting up' a few lines out of the scriptures.....
So I don't think we can ever see eye to eye on this one."
Ahh...yes, You are right. If I sat next to you when this happens, would I see it too?
Would it be like Luke's three differing accounts of Paul's conversion for me?
Acts 9:3-8, Paul was blinded by a light and fell down, then heard Jesus, who told Paul that he would be told what to do when he was in the city. His men did not see the light, but heard the voice. They remained standing
Acts 22:6-11, Paul told the people he was blinded by a light and fell down, then heard Jesus, who again told Paul that he would be told what to do when he was in Damascus. This time, his men saw the light but, unlike Paul, were not blinded, and did not hear the voice.
Acts 26.13-19, Paul told Agrippa that he saw a brilliant light and heard Jesus, who gave him his mission, but did not command him to go to Damascus. He fell down, but there is no mention of blindness, nor is there any mention of the men seeing or hearing anything, although for some reason they also fell down. He told those at Damascus and Jerusalem about his conversion experience.
Paul however simply said he was called from the womb (Gal 1:15) so these confused accounts what happens when Jesus taps you on the shoulder are moot.
I believe they call your formula for being communicated with by God or Jesus (But most COG types say it's God not Jesus) ... magical thinking
Instead of automatic writing, its automatic reading? :)
Dennis,
If you honestly don't believe in God and the bible, why the campaign to convert the readers to atheism? Why bother? Why not spend your time reading and watching videos?
I could also accuse you of magical thinking, but I don't believe that's true. I've experienced secular people around me being mentally tortured when they learnt (through gossip) my religious beliefs. Which arouses suspicions about your true beliefs and motives.
This is starting to sound very much like a comic book fantasy now.
Dennis,
Magic thinking?? Evidently I shouldn't believe my lying eyes (sarcasm) but rather Dennis's infallible words (more sarcasm).
Anon 19/6/17 9:45PM said: "exceptions to the rule do not negate the rule..."
Actually as Sherlock Holmes put it: "Exceptions to the rule disproves the rule" ;-)
go back and read the account of noah's ark. seven pair of clean and one pair of unclean. the difference was known before old covenant.
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